Brad Childress told Paul Allen on KFAN radio last week that he learned the advantages of using two featured running backs when he was an assistant at the University of Wisconsin working for Barry Alvarez. Childress plans to continue indefinitely alternating Chester Taylor and Adrian Peterson.  Defenses often must contend with different styles and fresher legs in a rotation system.

Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo talking about the difference between his former coach, the legendary Bill Parcells, and present boss Wade Phillips: “Besides the language, I would say it is probably just in the fact that one is more of a micro manager.  I think (Bill) Parcells wants to have his hand in and coach just about every position and do different things.  Wade (Phillips) is going to delegate more authority to his assistant coaches.  Both are very competitive people that want to win badly.  I don’t know that there is as much difference as people really want to make that out to be.”

With a competitive team and sold out games, maybe majority owner Bob Naegele, operating the team since the franchise inception 10 years ago, is open to selling the franchise.  A former NHL executive thinks so if the price is attractive.  He places the franchise value between $220 and $250 million.  The original reported franchise cost was $80 million.  The source also said the Nashville Predators are worth about $200 million and may relocate to Kansas City.   

Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins come to Xcel Energy Center for one game this season, Tuesday, October 30. Stubhub.com is listing a ticket range of $73 to $369 for the sold-out game.

Al Jefferson is the Timberwolves’ leading scorer and rebounder in pre-season, averaging 15.3 points and 13 rebounds.  Jefferson, playing power forward and center, will have to be a team leader although he’s only 22 years old.

Look for the Wolves’ Ricky Davis, who is in the last year of his contract, to have his best NBA season.  Davis offers inside and outside scoring, and also playmaking, but has been consistently inconsistent during his nine pro seasons.  He’s the team’s fourth leading scorer in pre-season at 11.3 points per game.

The Wolves, 2-4, close their pre-season schedule this week with two games in Minneapolis.  Tomorrow night Indiana is in town and Friday evening Milwaukee plays at Target Center.  The season and home opener is against Denver on Friday, November 2.  The Nuggets are picked to finish second in the Northwest Division by Athlon’s pro basketball magazine.  The Wolves will finish last in the five team division, according to the magazine.  Regarding the trade of Kevin Garnett and state of the franchise the magazine said, “The best thing you can say about the Timberwolves heading into 2007-08 is that they aren’t stuck in the denial stage of their current plight.”

Tubby Smith’s Gophers will finish seventh in the Big Ten Conference, according to Sporting News basketball magazine.  The former Kentucky coach might have the Gophers in the NCAA tournament, the magazine said.  “If there’s a knock on Smith, it’s not that his teams lacked discipline and toughness—it’s that he didn’t land enough five-star recruits to stop Florida from ruling the SEC.”

A former Big Ten assistant basketball coach who didn’t want his name used, told Sports Headliners in September that the Gophers will surprise and finish among the top five teams in the conference.

The conference schedule has been expanded to 18 games.  The only team the Gophers don’t play in Minneapolis is Purdue.  Two of the best games to see at Williams Arena are Indiana on January 17 and Michigan State January 20. Both are favorites to win the conference title.

Expect college basketball analyst and promoter Dick Vitale to ballyhoo his friend Tubby Smith on ESPN telecasts.

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It’s commonplace for college football teams to combine for 80 or more points in single games.  Recently Boise State and Nevada scored 136 points in an overtime game.  Gopher coach Tim Brewster said balance between offense and defense has always been cyclical and he expects a slow down in the present trend.

There will be a lot of disappointed and surprised fans in Nebraska if coach Bill Callahan isn’t replaced after this season.  The athletic director who hired Callahan is gone and speculation by many is that the Husker coach is next after being blown out in three consecutive games against Missouri, Oklahoma State and Texas A&M.  North Dakota State coach Craig Bohl is a former defensive coordinator at Nebraska and his name could be on a replacement list. Perhaps, too, might former Gopher coach Glen Mason whose success with running teams fits the Nebraska tradition (unlike Callahan’s West Coast offense).

Bohl came into this season with a 33-11 record at North Dakota State.  After Saturday’s 27-21 win over the Gophers his team is 7-0 and has won 11 consecutive games.  During the last 44 seasons all but one coach at NDSU has won at least .676 percent of his games.  Included among the winners is former Gopher coach Jim Wacker who was 24-9-1 (.721) during three seasons in Fargo.  At Minnesota Wacker was 16-39 (.291).

Among Big Ten coaches who coached at least 10 years in the conference, Mason ranks 25^th in all-time winning percentage at .529.  

Matt Carufel was the 2005 Gatorade Player of the Year in Minnesota and one of the nation’s most highly recruited linemen before choosing Notre Dame.  His decision to leave the Irish earlier this month during his sophomore season reportedly means he will transfer to either Iowa or Minnesota.  The South Bend Tribune’s Web site, southbendtribune.com, posted a story on Carufel that said he’s one of 17 players to leave the Notre Dame program since December of 2004.

Ken Lien, analyst on Crystal Clear Sports prep Webcasts, is referring to the upcoming state football large school playoff as the “shampoo” tournament.  He said E

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Gopher men’s basketball season ticket sales to the general public, faculty and students will show a small increase for the coming season.  A marketing and ticket spokesman reported earlier this week that the public/faculty sale is near 10,000 (about 9,000 last season) and a student sale of 2,000 (up from 1,400) is expected.

Particularly sales to the public may increase between now and early November when Tubby Smith’s team plays its exhibition games against Minnesota State and Southwest Minnesota State. A total season ticket count of 12,000 or more creates the potential through single game sales for selling out some or all of the Big Ten Conference games that begin January.  It’s possible all nine home conference games will be sold out in Williams Arena (capacity 14,625) before January 1.

Smith’s arrival last March as the new Gopher coach is responsible for the mild upturn in interest.  Years ago Gopher basketball, fueled by talented players and an electric atmosphere in Williams Arena, was considered by many sports fans to be the “best show in town.”  However, passion has been declining for 10 years, damaged by the Clem Haskins scandal and devastated by the failed Dan Monson coaching era.

A rightfully skeptical public has an eye toward Smith but isn’t necessarily ready to buy tickets in Williams Arena (please, don’t call it the “Barn”).  Last Friday an event branded “Tubby’s Tipoff” was a free invitation to have an early look at Smith and the Gophers.  While there were reports of 5,000 people attending, a Williams Arena regular for years reported about 2,500 to Sports Headliners.

Smith, a genuinely nice man, was shaking hands with people and even did a celebratory dance, according to my source. He didn’t predict a championship but said the coming season will offer fun.

If Smith needed any reminders after spending several months in Minnesota that he no longer was coaching at basketball-crazy Kentucky, he certainly could see as much last Friday night.  On the same evening in Lexington a near capacity crowd of more than 23,000 attended a Wildcat practice and promotion similar to Tubby’s, according to  reports. The folks in Kentucky, who expect nothing less than national championships, are excited about new coach Billy Gillispie.

Smith’s impressive resume includes being named national Coach of the Year three times.  His only national championship, though, was in 1998 and in three of the last four years Kentucky was eliminated in the second round of the NCAA tournament.

Answers as to how Smith, 56, will do here are coming soon.  By next spring we’ll have a report card on how effectively he coached pretty much the same bunch of Gophers who lost their last nine games last season, finished 9-22 overall, 3-13 in the Big Ten Conference (10^th place).  A lot more will be known, too, about how effective Smith and his staff recruit, with the class of 2008-2009 expected to include high school and junior college players.

This may never be Kentucky (seven NCAA titles) but a lot of down trodden Gopher basketball fans just hope it can be like the 1970s and 1980s when Minnesota was winning conference basketball championships and entertaining with some of the better players in the country.

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