Preps – Page 74 – David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

JC Quarterback Could Be U Prize

Posted on November 14, 2017November 14, 2017 by David Shama

Recruiting authority Ryan Burns from Gopher Illustrated doesn’t see Shelby, Ohio senior quarterback Brennan Armstrong signing a National Letter of Intent with the Golden Gophers next month. Armstrong re-opened the recruiting process in October after being a solid verbal commit to Minnesota for most of the year.

Burns predicted the highly regarded dual-threat quarterback will be on Virginia’s roster next season. Armstrong may have developed second thoughts about Minnesota because of competition at the quarterback position including the emergence of redshirt sophomore Demry Croft as the team starter this fall, and the enrollment next year of freshman preferred walk-on Zack Annexstad who is originally from Mankato, Minnesota but has played this fall for IMG Academy in Florida.

Armstrong’s status concerns Gophers followers but Burns believes head coach P.J. Fleck will have a promising quarterback in his 2018 recruiting class. Brevin White, a California prep quarterback who has verbally committed to Princeton and turned down offers from Washington, Washington State and Tennessee, is considering the Gophers. Minnesota is also after Utah high school quarterback Zach Wilson who has verbally committed to Boise State and California junior college QB Victor Viramontes.

Burns said Minnesota’s “best chance” among the three is probably Viramontes, a dual threat quarterback. He was a prominent high school player from Norco, California when he enrolled as a freshman at the University of California in 2016. There was a coaching change at Cal after the 2016 season and late last spring Viramontes left the Golden Bears. A four-star recruit by 247Sports coming out of Norco High School, he would have three seasons of eligibility at Minnesota.

At about 6-2, 240-pounds, Viramontes has been compared with former Heisman Trophy winner and Florida legend Tim Tebow. When Sonny Dykes was California’s head coach this is how he described Viramontes to Calbears.com:

“Victor is an unusual athlete at his size as a 240-pound quarterback that is a great runner and a good passer. He’s pretty raw but he’s got a lot of upside and really can develop into a good player. He has an unusual skill set with his size and strength. He plays with great passion. I really like the way that he plays the game and the toughness that he brings. I’m really excited about him.”

Fleck has 23 verbal commits and wants to have all the players signed to National Letters of Intent in the early signing period that starts December 20. Burns estimates only 16 or so scholarships are currently available but anticipates seven or so players leaving the Gophers will make up the difference.

Most or all of the verbal commits are expected to make official visits to Minnesota December 8. The early signing period for high school players is December 20-22, while junior college players can sign December 20-January 15, 2018.

Worth Noting

With a 5-5 overall record, the Gophers will definitely be invited to a bowl game with one more win in their last two games. A 5-7 final record could even earn an invite as it did two years ago.

Not surprisingly, there were no press box seats assigned to bowl representatives at last Saturday’s home game against Nebraska (4-6).

Last Saturday’s announced attendance of 39,933 was the second smallest in TCF Bank Stadium history. Minnesota drew 38,162 for the Northwestern game last season.

At 6-foot-10, Gophers tight end Nate Wozniak is the tallest skill player in major college football. His 34 career starts lead all offensive players on the Gophers. The senior from Greenwood, Indiana has his under graduate degree in agricultural and food business management.

It will be interesting for state basketball fans to watch tonight’s ESPN matchup of No. 1 ranked Duke and No. 2 Michigan State. Apple Valley’s Tre Jones has signed his National Letter of Intent to play for Duke next season and he will likely have to compete for playing time next fall with current Blue Devils freshman point guard Trevon Duval. Both are five-star recruits.

The game is also an opportunity to see former Apple Valley five-star shooting guard Gary Trent, Jr., who is a freshman at Duke, and also compare Michigan State with the Gophers. The two teams are favorites to win the Big Ten title.

The Gophers justified their A.P. No. 14 ranking last night in an impressive road win at Providence against a Friars team Athlon Sports magazine described as “the most experienced in the Big East.”

It seems like a “duh” by now, but Adam Thielen’s speed still seems to be news—perhaps even to NFL defensive backs. The 27-year-old Thielen—now in his fifth pro season and ranking third in NFL receiving yards (793) during a breakout season—told Sports Headliners his best time in the 40-yard dash is 4.45.

Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer after being asked Monday whether anything still surprises him about Thielen: “The one ball he kind of dropped there at the end (in Sunday’s game), that surprised me. He usually makes all those catches.

“The guy is a gamer. When he gets the opportunities, he makes the most of them. Adam does a lot of dirty work. He blocks defensive ends. He blocks linebackers in the run game. He’s just a competitive guy. ….”

Former Vikings linebacker Ben Leber has been retired from the NFL since 2011. His weekends this fall are busy while working for FS1 on Saturdays and as a sideline reporter on the Vikings radio network. He has provided color commentary on college games for FS1, mostly Pac 12 and Big-12 games, but he also did analysis on last Saturday’s Golden Gophers-Nebraska game.

Leber has been earning more prominent TV college football assignments during his four full time seasons. Does he want to make a career out of the broadcast work? “I do,” he said. “It’s been a lot of fun. It’s been a challenge that I’ve readily accepted, and now I am just kind of rolling with the punches and seeing where it goes.”

Twins fans can watch the MLB Network tonight at 5 p.m. when the Baseball Writers Association of America announces its American League Manager of the Year winner. The Twins’ Paul Molitor is a finalist along with the Astros’ A.J. Hinch and Indians’ Terry Francona.

Francona, who directed the Indians to a 22-game winning streak last season, was named The Sporting News AL Manager of the Year last month. Hinch managed the Astros to the franchise’s first World Series championship.

Molitor, who was a finalist for the writers’ honor in 2015, had less talent to work with than Francona and Hinch but got his team in the playoffs after a 59-102 record in 2016. The Twins became the first MLB franchise to make the postseason after losing 100 games the year before.

Karl-Anthony Towns had another double-double last night in the Timberwolves’ win over the Jazz, scoring 24 points and grabbing 13 rebounds. He has 10 double-doubles in 13 games this season. The 21-year-old center is the seventh player in NBA history to total 3,000-plus career points and rebounds prior to age 22. Towns turns 22 tomorrow.

The Wild try to make it consecutive shutouts over the Flyers tonight at Xcel Energy Center. Last Saturday Wild goalie Devan Dubnyk stopped all 32 shots he faced and Jason Zucker had the team’s lone goal. St. Paul native Paul Holmgren is in his fourth season as Flyers president.

After a loss to Purdue last week, the nationally ranked Gophers volleyball team has dropped from No. 5 to No. 7 in the latest American Volleyball Coaches Association poll.

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Vikings Dodged ‘Bullet’ on Bradford Deal

Posted on November 9, 2017November 9, 2017 by David Shama

A Thursday notes column…

The Vikings made the right decision in not signing quarterback Sam Bradford to a new and expensive contract earlier this year that would have committed the franchise to him starting in 2018. It could have been that general manager Rick Spielman hesitated on a new deal based on Bradford’s age and history of knee issues, despite setting a NFL completion record of 71.6 percent of his passes in 2016.

Bradford, who turned 30 yesterday, has only started two games and finished one this season because of pain and lack of mobility in his left knee. His week to week status has been somewhat of a mystery but he reportedly had arthroscopic surgery on the knee recently and yesterday the Vikings placed him on their injured reserve list.

Sam Bradford (photo courtesy of Minnesota Vikings)

Spielman acquired Bradford just prior to the 2016 season to replace Teddy Bridgewater who badly hurt his knee, and was just activated to play again this week. Despite playing behind a bad offensive line last year, Bradford avoided injury and gave the team its best quarterbacking since Brett Favre in 2010.

Spielman could have let his ego dictate a new contract for Bradford during the offseason but he didn’t. A new deal would now be problematic with the quarterback’s future health uncertain. Bradford has had two ACL surgeries on the left knee and it’s uncertain when—or perhaps if—he will continue his NFL career. A big contract would have left a negative impact on the Vikings’ salary structure in 2018.

The Eagles traded Bradford to the Vikings for draft choices, willing to take a gamble on then rookie quarterback Carson Wentz from North Dakota State. Part of their strategy may also have been based on Bradford’s age and history of knee issues. The Eagles didn’t know how healthy Bradford would remain but they may have been cautious, just as it appears the Vikings were last winter.

It will be an interesting next few months and early offseason in 2018 when Spileman will have to sort out the Vikings quarterback roster. If Bradford doesn’t retire, not only will he be a free agent but so too will Bridgewater and Case Keenum who has been the team’s starter for most of this season.

After this week’s quarterback shuffling with Bradford being taken off the playing roster and Bridgewater put back on, promising rookie Kyle Sloter remains at No. 3 on the depth chart. Although he has yet to play in an NFL game, Sloter tries to stay ready on the sidelines. “I feel like mentally I am going through each and every play,” he told Sports Headliners. “I try to be part of the huddle when they call timeouts and all that kind of stuff.

“I try to stay loose over there (on the sidelines) as much as I can. You get a little tight…if you’re not moving around, or throwing the ball…around a little bit.”

Adam Thielen is sixth in total yards (627) among NFL receivers. The four-year pro wide receiver is having a breakout season with the Vikings but told Sports Headliners he can improve.

“I think there’s just little things in my game I could get better at,” Thielen said. “Whether it be the run after the catch, catching and keeping on my feet, and things like that.”

The Gophers football team has lost five of its last six games and coach P.J. Fleck hears criticism from fans. How does he handle it?

“It doesn’t bother me, it doesn’t take me off my course,” Fleck said.
“It doesn’t frustrate me but I think that as people go (over time), they’ll start to see the big picture. They’ll start to see the reason why we took the job. They’ll start to see the winning and recruiting. They’ll start to feel the difference in how this program develops, but when you don’t have a result right away, it’s hard for people that are result-oriented to jump right in and say, ‘I’m in.’ …”

Fleck respects “everybody’s opinion,” and when he was head coach Western Michigan he kept letters, both positive and negative. He is doing the same at Minnesota and predicted when success comes to the Gophers he will write and say, “Told you. ”

The Gophers, 4-5 overall and 1-4 in the Big Ten, play a Nebraska team Saturday at TCF Bank Stadium that has lost three of its last four games. With 4-5 and 3-3 records, the Cornhuskers’ bowl hopes are about as precarious as Minnesota’s. Mediocrity is not the Nebraska way, with the Cornhuskers the winningest major college football program in America the last 60, 50 and 40 years.

Redshirt freshman J.D. Spielman from Eden Prairie has emerged as a playmaker for the Cornhuskers in his first season. As a wide receiver and kick returner he has 1,154 all-purpose yards. He is 105 yards from equaling the Nebraska freshman all-purpose yards record of 1,259 yards set by Ahman Green in 1995.

Gopher redshirt senior Ryan Santoso leads the Big Ten in punting average at 44.5 yards per kick. He averaged 48.5 yards on eight punts at rainy Michigan last Saturday.

FS1 telecasts Saturday’s Gophers-Huskers game with former Vikings linebacker Ben Leber providing analysis while working with play-by-play man Brian Custer.

Prior to last night’s Timberwolves game at Golden State, the Fox Sports North TV ratings for Minnesota’s NBA team were up 62 percent over a year ago. It was the franchise’s best ratings start in the last four years, according to Fox.

It will be a who’s who of prep basketball at the Boys’ Tip Off Classic at Hopkins Lindbergh Center Saturday, December 9. There will be 17 games with the first at 9 a.m. and the last starting at 9 p.m. Duke-bound guard Tre Jones will lead Apple Valley against Minneapolis North in one “circle it game.” Fans can also watch Gopher 2018 commits Daniel Oturu from Cretin-Derham Hall and Jarvis Omersa (formerly Thomas) of Orono go against each other in another game that begins at 7:30 p.m.

Byron Buxton, voted this week as the 2017 American League Gold Glove winner for center field, is known as baseball’s fastest player. Older brother Felton, though, might be faster. Byron said during an interview on ESPN’s Gold Glove awards show Tuesday night he might settle the matter in a foot race this fall.

Two former Gophers pitchers, D.J. Snelten and Ben Meyer, are impressing in the Arizona Fall League, according to Minnesota assistant coach Rob Fornasiere. Snelten is with the Giants organization and Fornasiere predicted he could be part of the San Francisco bullpen next season. Meyer, with the Marlins organization, had a 2.02 ERA as a starter last season pitching for two Class A teams.

Fornasiere recalled a funny story from several years ago when Gophers players, including Snelten, were preparing to lay sod at Siebert Field. Snelten was too well dressed for such a dirty job and confessed to Fornasiere he had no experience with laying grass. “The green side goes up,” Fornasiere said.

Packy Casey, the grandson of legendary Twins public address announcer Bob Casey, is in his fifth season as a Gophers assistant baseball coach.

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NBA Champs to Test Timberwolves

Posted on November 7, 2017November 9, 2017 by David Shama

A Tuesday notes column including a look ahead to the Timberwolves game Wednesday evening against Golden State:

Tom Thibodeau told Sports Headliners yesterday his team’s game in Oakland tomorrow night against the defending champion NBA champions will be a “test,” but win or lose he won’t make too much out of the early season result.

The Wolves, 7-3, are on a five-game win streak—a franchise best since 2009. Optimism about making the playoffs for the first time since 2004 is growing with new starters Jimmy Butler, Jeff Teague and Taj Gibson. They join two of the NBA’s better younger starters in Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins—and Thibodeau, in his joint role as the franchise’s president of basketball operations and coach, has strengthened the bench this season.

Butler is a top 10 to 15 NBA player who at 6-7, 231 pounds, can guard all five positions. Some NBA authorities might include Towns in a top 15 listing of league players, and Wiggins could potentially be a top 25 player soon.

The Warriors, though, have two players who could be included among the NBA’s five best. Kevin Durant and Steph Curry are in the conversation when the elite players are talked about, and two more Warriors starters, Draymond Green and Klay Thompson, are stars, too.

The two teams split a pair of exhibition games in China in September. Thibodeau said those games will help preparations for Wednesday night in California against a Warriors team that is 8-3 so far, and has won four consecutive games.

Fans are dazzled with the playmaking and shooting of the Warriors, but they excel on defense, too. They have won two of the last three NBA titles and are so young and so good that even an NBA All-Star team might not win in a seven-game series against them.

No wonder Thibodeau sees Wednesday night’s game as a test. The two teams play twice more this season—again in Oakland on January 25 and March 11 in Minneapolis.

Rochester John Marshall power forward Mathew Hurt watched Sunday’s Minnesota-Green Bay game at Maturi Pavilion. Hurt is ranked by recruiting authorities in the top five nationally among high school players in the class of 2019.

Minnesota writer and recruiting authority Ryan James told Sports Headliners Hurt could end his prep career as the highest ranked Minnesota boys high school basketball player ever. Hurt’s brother Michael is a sophomore reserve for the Gophers, and James believes that if the older Hurt’s experience continues to be positive it will help Minnesota’s chances in landing Matthew.

A winning season in the Big Ten and success in the NCAA Tournament will be factors too in the race to influence the younger Hurt. James said Hurt is far from a decision on his college choice, with the Gophers in the mix with some of college basketball’s blue bloods.

Power programs Duke, Kansas and North Carolina have extended scholarship offers. “I think they’re right there (the Gophers) having the same chance as everybody else,” James said.

Ryan said Hurt and his family haven’t announced a timeline for choosing a school. “He can take his time with his decision because every one of those schools is going to wait for him because he is that level of player.”

Ticket proceeds and a portion of the concessions and merchandise revenues from the Green Bay game are to be donated to the American Red Cross for hurricane relief efforts in Puerto Rico. The Gophers provided hotel rooms for the Green Bay staff and players on Saturday night but the Phoenix didn’t receive a fee for participating in the exhibition game.

The NCAA has allowed teams two exhibition games in the past but added a third this fall because of the disaster in Puerto Rico. Gophers coach Richard Pitino thinks it’s a “no- brainer” for future years regarding a third exhibition game with proceeds dedicated to a good cause.

The Gophers were impressive in a 115-86 win over the Phoenix but defense on both sides was sometimes lackadaisical. Gophers sophomore forward Amir Coffey showed his versatility, including scoring 26 points. He could be Minnesota’s best player in 2017-2018.

Freshman guard Isaiah Washington scored 24, and had a game-high six assists. His flashy style gave notice he could become the most electrifying playmaker ever at Minnesota.

Senior center Reggie Lynch picked up his third personal foul with 19:06 to play in the second half. Lynch, who fouled out eight times in 33 games last season, ranks near the top of the program’s best shot blockers ever but he has to avoid so many fouls in 2017-2018.

Pitino said Lynch understands he has to use better judgment. “We’re working on it,” Pitino said.

Former Apple Valley star Gary Trent Jr. is a freshman at Duke and Sports Illustrated’s basketball issue that came out last week predicts the shooting guard will average 10.8 points per game and 5.4 rebounds.

Ric Flair, the legendary professional wrestler who spent part of his youth in Edina, is the subject of ESPN’s documentary “Nature Boy” airing tonight as part of the network’s highly regarded “30-for-30” series. The program begins at 9 p.m.

In the prior hour, ESPN will air a show announcing MLB’s Gold Glove winners with Twins center fielder Byron Buxton expected to be among those honored.

The Gophers won Big Ten baseball championships in 1968, 1969 and 1970. Players and others associated with the program back then will hold a reunion next May. During that era Stew Thornley was a batboy with the Gophers, while Gregg Wong was an official scorer and public address announcer. Both are now Twins official scorers.

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