Preps – Page 17 – David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

Voices Need to Speak up for College Football Parity

Posted on November 14, 2023November 14, 2023 by David Shama

College football is out of whack and has been for a long time. The competitive balance between the elites of college football like the Alabamas, Georgias, LSUs, Michigans, Ohio States and Oklahomas versus the Minnesotas, Arizonas, Californias, Indianas, South Carolinas, Syracuses and all the rest is unfair and goes against the spirit of competition. Coaches, administrators, fans and media need to speak out about the issue.

The Gophers are headed to Ohio State this week for a Big Ten mismatch against the Buckeyes. Nothing new about that. All-time Minnesota is 7-46 against the Bucks. The Gophers are 4-23 in Minneapolis; 3 -23 in Columbus. Minnesota has lost 12 straight in the series.

The Gophers are 25-77-3 against Michigan and have won four times since 1967 when Lyndon Johnson was president. That was also the year Minnesota claimed its last Big Ten title.

Most of the Big Ten Conference has been looking up at Ohio State and Michigan for decades. As of late, the last six league titles have been won by the Buckeyes or Wolverines. Ryan Day has lost two Big Ten games since he became the Buckeyes head coach in 2019, both to Michigan.

Georgia is in pursuit of a third national championship, taking over in recent years from Alabama as the No. 1 “bully’ in college football. For more than 25 years it’s pretty much the “same old crowd” in the hunt for No. 1. The last time a school won a first-ever national football championship came in 1996 when Florida accomplished the rare feat.

The arrival of Name, Image and Likeness compensation has only made the rich richer. Long established with booster money, big brand programs can now benefit from the transfer of resources to NIL. With that have come allegations many programs are offering NIL money during the recruitment process, which is illegal by NCAA policy.

Recruits want to play for the so-called “helmet schools” because those programs have been so successful. That success includes playing for conference titles, participating in the college football playoffs and experiencing prestigious bowl games. Success also means being groomed at places that turn out NFL draft choices in assembly line like style.

Tyler Nubin photo courtesy of University of Minnesota

The Michigan team that humiliated the Gophers on October 7 by a score of 52-10 has annihilated others as well. In league games Michigan is averaging 42 points per game, while giving up 8.4 (Ohio State is 31.1 and 9.7). The Wolverines may have 20 or more future NFL draft choices, according to their head coach Jim Harbaugh. The Gophers might have three or four, including senior safety Tyler Nubin.

What needs to be done to create a more competitive landscape? For starters, college football needs a new authority to replace the NCAA, one that is looking out for all the major college programs and the welfare of the sport. This means determination to put in place policies that will create enough parity across the country to at least close some of the gaps between the haves and have nots.

A significant change should be placing a financial cap on the amount of money available for NIL. Closing the money gap could prompt prospects to turn down a “helmet school” for a less prestigious program because more NIL rewards are available at the latter.

Cutting the number of scholarships from 85 to 75 or 70 would reduce the number of quality players the “bullies” can have on their rosters. As with closing the NIL gap, this move could steer more quality players to Minnesota and similar programs.

Those are just two innovations that could be considered. The point is that with strong leadership and consensus from the have nots—who outnumber the voting block of the haves—rules changes can be developed and implemented to improve the competitiveness of college football.

A move toward creating more parity will not only improve the game on the field, but also enhance revenues. More teams playing quality football translates into more box office sales, merchandising profits, and TV viewership commanding higher ad prices. TV ratings are successful now but are not reaching their potential in major markets like Minneapolis, Chicago, New York and Phoenix.

How big could the TV revenue pot grow if teams such as Minnesota, Illinois, Rutgers and Arizona State were fighting for college football playoff berths in November, and even before the season were nationally ranked? Remember, college football not only pays its own bills, but covers extensively for all the non-revenue sports in athletic departments across America.

The Big Ten expands to 18 schools next year and will eliminate the East and West Divisions for football. Gopher fans may already be feeling sorry for themselves when thinking how far down in the 18-team standings their favorites could be after adding four West Coast programs—USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington. As things stand now, it’s not that realistic to think the Minnesotas, Northwesterns, Purdues, Wisconsins and other West Division schools will chase the top three or four spots in the standings.

The hope here is the Big Ten will soon expand to 20 teams, prompting the conference to create four divisions of five teams each. Adding Notre Dame and Florida State (gives the league a first-time presence in the Sunshine State) would put the “cherry” on a prestigious super conference.

The move to small divisions would emulate the successful NFL model and create “November Madness” at many conference schools as their favorites compete for a division crown and possible entry into the Big Ten championship game and college football playoffs.

On the wish list, too, is an expanded College Football Playoff format. The CFP goes from four to 12 teams after this season but 16 is more desirable. At that number it’s not difficult to see a half dozen teams from the Big Ten able to earn a playoff spot.

It would create a microcosm of “March Madness” and a huge morale boost to the fanbases in many places around the country including at Huntington Bank Stadium where the maroon and gold faithful are sometimes frustrated in November.

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For Mike Grant a Fall of Football, Hunting & Memories of Bud

Posted on November 7, 2023 by David Shama

It was a timely phone call to Mike Grant last week. Not only was his 9-0 Eden Prairie football team getting ready for its playoff game against Eagan, but the opening Saturday of deer hunting was fast approaching.

Mike and wife Colleen are avid hunters. Mike’s dad Bud Grant, the legendary former Vikings coach who passed away last March at age 96, was known almost as much for his outdoor passions as he was for football. Mike and Bud were close, and the EP head football coach thinks about his famous father every day.

“I talked to him every day in the fall (in past years),” Mike told Sports Headliners. “Yeah, it’s a strange first. You know the first football season without him and then the first hunting season without him, and it’ll be the first Christmas without him.

“It’s what everybody goes through, you know, when you lose a loved one. So…we’re not unique. We’re not special. It’s just we’re going through what everybody else has gone through.”

For the Grants hunting was more about being outside and sharing time with family than shooting wildlife. Last November Bud spent time deer hunting at Mike’s place near Wadena, Minnesota. It would be his last go round in a sport that began for him at 14 years old in rural Wisconsin.

Mike said he doesn’t know if Bud shot “50, 60, 100” deer in his lifetime but his dad liked to tell stories about them. “He could tell you that story of every single deer (he shot). He remembered them all.”

In younger days Bud could sit in a tree all day, ignoring the cold weather, eating a banana, and waiting for a deer. During the autumns of decades ago his dad insisted on minimal noise when deer hunting including no racket like slamming a car door. Later in life when Bud couldn’t walk distances, he told Mike to drive him right up to the deer stand. “It doesn’t matter, the deer don’t care,” Bud said.

In recent falls there was no hurrying Bud to get out into the woods. Everyone else was ready to go before the patriarch. Mike was anxious to get out the door, but Bud would say, “I’ve never shot a deer at sunup.”

Bud had a lot of mounted deer antlers at his Bloomington house. It was part of his makeup to collect things and that habit enabled him to have his well-publicized annual garage sales when he was in his 90s.

“He was very proud of his three-legged buffalo nickel,” Mike said. “In the end he’d forget that he showed you something and he’d get out his coin collection and say, ‘I got the three-legged Buffalo nickel.’ …”

Mike saw changes with his dad over the years, including a more talkative and outgoing Bud. A stranger might tell Mike how approachable Bud was, taking time to visit someone he had never met. “When he got into his 80s, he was very outgoing, very gregarious. Talked to people.”

As Bud aged, he lost more and more of his pals, with his kids (six children) filling the role of best friends. “He didn’t have many friends at the end,” Mike said. “Think about it. You’re 96.”

A difficult loss was when Minneapolis media icon Sid Hartman passed away in 2020. “You gotta figure Sid was a rock for him since (back when) he was in college. As cantankerous as Sid could be, he was my dad’s best friend,” Mike said about the relationship that formed when newspaper man Sid befriended Bud at the University of Minnesota.

The two didn’t get outdoors a lot and when they did Sid was out of his element. There is a famous story about the two having car trouble at night in the middle of nowhere. Sid started to walk for help and noticed what he thought was a spotlight from a nearby town. No, Bud corrected, that was the moon Sid spotted.

Mike brushed off the question if he dedicated this season to his Hall of Fame father who coached the Vikings to four Super Bowls. “I don’t know. I don’t even know what that means.

“No, I think about him every day. Miss him every day. My dad would say the same thing, ‘What does that mean (dedicating the season)?’…I don’t think that way I guess.”

Does Mike wear something that reminds him of Bud? A cap, shirt, or watch? Maybe use an old whistle of Bud’s on the football field. Nope.

Mike said he is sentimental but wearing things like that doesn’t resonate. “…I am not doing something for show. …I don’t need a thing to remember him every day.”

Bud coached his last Vikings team in 1985 but he remained interested in football and other sports. His analytical mind made him an interesting companion to watch a football or baseball game with.

“He was our biggest fan,” Mike said. “He watched our games closely. …For years he came to every game except when the ducks were flying, then he’d be gone.”

Bud Grant (photo courtesy of Minnesota Vikings.)

Bud was interested in Eden Prairie’s personnel and asked for scouting reports on the opposition, but he didn’t tell Mike how to handle the Eagles. “He was interested, but he did not tell me how to coach in any way, shape or form,” Mike said while referring to his dad more as a cheerleader than an advisor.

At age 66 Mike has far more coaching experience than his father who retired at 58. Mike has won 11 large school state championships at Eden Prairie. The 2023 Eagles are another powerhouse with a 10-0 record. The closest final scores for the Eagles were with Prior Lake and Minnetonka, who both lost by 14 points. The Eagles have been dominant, but Mike will tell you his teams don’t run up the score and they don’t “pad” statistics for individuals.

The Eagles play a 6A quarterfinal game this Friday against Lakeville North. Mike said there is a “standard for greatness” at Eden Prairie and in that sense the team has much to accomplish on their march to another possible 6A state tournament title. He praises the Eagles, though, for getting through a demanding regular season schedule against the bigger enrollment schools in the state.

The Eagles have talent, size (loaded with behemoths of 240 pounds or more) and experience with Grant saying, “it’s hard to win with juniors.” The roster includes defensive tackle Mo Saine, a Gopher recruit with lots of upside since he didn’t start playing football until 10^th grade. Other standouts on defense include tackle Dennis Rahouski and under recruited defensive back Terae Dunn who Grant refers to “as good as any player in the state.”

Elijah Rumph, son of Vikings defensive line coach Chris Rumph, has been a leading rusher. Major contributors on offense also include quarterback David Ivey, tackle Ethan Sims who just committed to St. Thomas and Princeton-bound center Will Sather.

Mike is still passionate about coaching and plans to continue next season as head coach of the Eagles. He loves being around the players all year, whether it’s in the weight room, at practice or on gameday. And he just might get another state championship in his first fall without his dad.

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Don’t Fret about Fleck & Michigan State Coaching Rumors

Posted on October 31, 2023 by David Shama

Michigan State’s football coaching vacancy is stirring a lot of speculation as to who will replace fired boss Mel Tucker. Among names conjectured is Minnesota’s P.J. Fleck who headed the football program at Western Michigan before taking over the Golden Gophers in 2017.

It’s easy for crystal ballers to type Fleck’s name as a possible candidate given his background in the state of Michigan and success at Western and Minnesota. At age 42 his combination of experience and coaching youth makes him an attractive name to speculate about.

However, don’t wager the mortgage on Minnesota’s Athletes Village that the Spartans are targeting Fleck and that he is interested. Reasons include the following:

Sports Headliners has found no credible information there is mutual interest in the job of leading the Spartans. This includes some “digging” while the Spartans were in town last Saturday to play the Gophers.

When asked, a Big Ten athletic director told me there is no conference policy prohibiting a school from hiring another institution’s head coach. Doing so, though, in a highly visible sport like football, would create hard feelings between the two programs and go against the cooperative and supportive spirit of being in a conference aligned with mutual interests and loyalties.

It’s not unusual for assistant football coaches to change Big Ten schools. However, the last time head football coaches switched loyalties in the conference was in late 1972. Alex Agase vacated his position at Northwestern to become head coach at Purdue. Soon after John Pont left Indiana to take over at Northwestern. There have been no similar moves in 50 years.

Fleck is in his seventh season at Minnesota and his name has come up with other coaching openings. It’s believed he was targeted for the Tennessee job in 2021 and may have turned it down. Numerous reports in January of that year said he wasn’t interested in the position.

A source told Sports Headliners there might have been interest in Fleck from Michigan State before Tucker was hired. That was in the winter of 2020 when the Gophers were coming off their 11-2 season and final AP national ranking of No. 10.

Fleck is highly competitive and knows he can have success here. The Gophers have won nine games or more three times dating back to 2019. His 49-30 record translates to a winning percentage of .620 and is among the best in program history. This season the Gophers are 5-3 overall and 3-2 in Big Ten games.

Fleck and wife Heather are enthusiastic about the quality-of-life here. They’re building a new home in the metro area and have immersed themselves in the community including with charitable activities.

The wild card in retaining Fleck long-term is Name, Image and Likeness money for players. Dinkytown Athletes, the official collective for Gopher athletes in all sports, has momentum this fall with increasing revenues including from innovative ideas like the sale of Duck Duck Beer in state liquor stores. DA has only been operational for about 13 months. (Note: DA advertises on this blog).

Collectives are quiet about their “pots of gold” but news of late hasn’t been good for Sparty. Internet reports a few weeks ago said MSU’s official collective was pausing payments to many of the football players due to a lack of support from the public.

Michigan State football has been in turmoil this fall because of alleged improprieties against Tucker that resulted in his in-season dismissal. Who knows what other fallout there could be at MSU? The school and athletic department have absorbed multiple serious problems in recent years.

The situation contrasts with the stability Fleck has at Minnesota including a close relationship with AD Mark Coyle who hired him in January of 2017. It’s invaluable for a head football coach to have the ear and support of his AD. The two not only share a mutual trust but also a staunch commitment to operating in compliance with NCAA rules. Who you work for, and the athletic department’s culture, can be invaluable for a coach in the combustible world of college football.

Given its geographic location near recruiting hotbeds, winning tradition, large fanbase and deep-pocket alumni, the MSU job is attractive. East Lansing is an easier place to win than Minneapolis and the Spartans have shown a willingness to pay beyond top dollar with their careless commitment to Tucker at $95 million.

Per Usatoday.com earlier this fall, Tucker was No. 5 in the country with a ridiculous 2023 salary of about $10 million. Fleck ranked No. 26 at $6 million on a national list of compensation for college football coaches.

In a bidding war for Fleck, MSU probably wins. But Spartan AD Alan Haller and whoever is helping him with the search for a new coach are more likely to target a flashy name such as icon Urban Meyer or a coach having a big season like Duke’s Mike Elko, Lane Kiffin from Mississippi, or Lance Leipold at Kansas.

Notice that none of them is currently coaching in the Big Ten.

Minnetonka Girls Basketball: For Sure a Team to Watch

Among the intriguing storylines to follow in state high school sports this fall, and winter, will be the girls’ basketball team at Minnetonka High School. Second-year coach Brian Cosgriff won seven state championships at Hopkins and will have one of Minnesota’s best 4A teams in 2023-2024 at ‘Tonka.

“When you have a USA basketball player on your team, you should be pretty good,” Cosgriff told Sports Headliners. “And then you got a Golden Gopher commit and then you got a point guard that’s being recruited by power fives—you got a shot.”

Aaliyah Crump averaged nine points per game and 3.8 rebounds for the Under 16 USA team last summer that had a 6-0 record and won a gold medal. Cosgriff said the 6-1 junior is “being recruited by everybody” for her skills and versatility. “She can play any position she wants,” Cosgriff said.

Senior Tori McKinney, a 6-1 guard-wing, has verbally committed to Minnesota and is another versatile player who Cosgriff praised as a “great defender” and hard worker. Point guard Lanelle Wright was named Lake All-Conference as a freshman last season.

The Skippers have other experienced players, too, who will play important roles in an opportune season ahead. “We have a nice nucleus coming back,” Cosgriff said.

He coached Paige Bueckers at Hopkins High School, and she became the biggest star in women’s college basketball while playing for UConn in 2021. Cosgriff said Crump is probably the most pursued recruit he’s ever had because Bueckers committed early to UConn and by so doing discouraged other schools.

“Both are equally talented,” Cosgriff said. “Paige had a basketball IQ that was off the charts. Crump has athletic ability that’s off the charts, and height. They both are very, very good players, but it’s hard to compare the two.”

Cosgriff has been a head coach in Minnesota girls’ basketball since 1999. He’s seen the development of talent in the state through the years. “…I mean it’s gotten really good, and I really think it’s kind of a hotbed for a lot of colleges to come in here and start recruiting players. Because it used to be a kid…would maybe get an offer from the U or some smaller D I school. Now you got your Power Fives coming in here on a regular basis.”

Cosgriff said legendary Hopkins’ boys coach Kenny Novak once told him he thought Bueckers could be a starter for his team.

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