David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

Frazier Contract Extension Coming Soon?

Posted on September 16, 2013September 16, 2013 by David Shama

Are the Vikings and Leslie Frazier about to announce a contract extension?

A trusted source told Sports Headliners an announcement about a three-year deal will be made before the end of September. If the source is correct, the news will be positively received by media supporters who have been critical of ownership’s perceived lack of commitment to the head coach.

It was reported during the offseason the Vikings had an option on Frazier’s services in 2014 and wouldn’t be extending their commitment further. The news disappointed some fans and many in the media who are Frazier admirers because of his likeable personality and a 2012 season where the Vikings made the playoffs after improving to 10-6 following a 3-13 record in 2011. The Vikings set a franchise record by winning seven games more than the prior season.

What may have happened since last winter to initiate contract extension talks and reach an agreement? Owners Zygi and Mark Wilf have been front page news because of a New Jersey lawsuit that has generated a lot of negative publicity. Announcing a contract extension for a likeable coach would be positive news and a boost to the Wilf image.

Of course, in the “what have you done for me lately” environment of American professional sports, news of a Frazier contract extension would be better received by most fans after a Sunday win by the Vikings, not a loss. Frazier’s team is 0-2 this season after a 34-24 opening game loss to the Lions and the Bears 31-30 win yesterday.

But after watching Frazier operate in the offseason, training camp and the early weeks of the season, the Wilfs and general manager Rick Spielman could be more convinced than ever they want Frazier as head coach long term. He took over a dysfunctional team late in 2010 and finished with a 3-3 record as interim coach. The Vikings liked the strength of his leadership then and they have watched his skills, including game management, improve during his first opportunity as a NFL head coach.

A contract extension could help stabilize the atmosphere around the team. Without it, there’s been a “dangling in the wind” status attached to Frazier since the present contract commitment is so minimal. An extension means Frazier’s future is less tied to the performance of inconsistent third-year quarterback Christian Ponder. A Ponder flop in 2013 has been thought by some observers to mean not only a 2014 change in quarterbacks, but perhaps also head coach.

If the contract extension materializes soon, it is all but guaranteed Frazier will be around for awhile even if his much criticized quarterback is not.

Worth Noting

Frazier said at his news conference this afternoon that explosive rookie playmaker Cordarrelle Patterson “definitely deserves” to be used more in the team’s offensive plays starting with Sunday’s game with the Browns. Patterson has caught only three passes in the first two games.

Frazier talking about the team’s 0-2 start: “You don’t want to be 0-2 but we know who we are. It’s a long season.”

Star Tribune sports columnist Jim Souhan wrote yesterday that the Gophers football program—“and by extension the entire school”—became the “subject of pity and ridicule” after coach Jerry Kill’s latest seizure. “Even those who admire him most can’t believe that he should keep coaching major college football after his latest episode,” Souhan wrote.

Ron Stolski, who is in his 52^nd year of high school coaching and is also the executive director of the Minnesota Football Coaches Association, wrote an email to many of his friends yesterday expressing his personal anger with Souhan. “…I am appalled at the crass, insensitive, (perhaps cruel) position Souhan takes regarding coach Kill,” Stolski said in the email. “In my long career, I have never known a coach who on the local or national level is more highly regarded or respected than Jerry Kill!

“He is relentless in his support of and for football in this state. He is widely respected for conducting a ‘clean program.’ He is revered by former players for his ability to make an impact and change lives. He is nationally known as a coach you want to coach with and play for. AND foremost, he knows football and embraces the big picture…that the game and all it offers can make better citizens of us all.

“For Souhan to suggest that the Gopher program, and the UNIVERSITY, is a subject of pity and ridicule is an insult. Not only to coach, but the staff, team and the entire University. Souhan needs to apologize. The Tribune needs to consider carefully his further employment.”

Critics who have maintained for years Big Ten football is ordinary are nodding after last weekend when conference teams lost five of 12 games, including three of four against the Pac-12. Michigan almost made it six losses, narrowly defeating Akron in the last minutes of the game in Ann Arbor.

The shocker of the day was UCLA’s comeback win over Nebraska in Lincoln. Bo Pelini can’t fix his defense and it could eventually cost the Nebraska coach his job.

New Gophers basketball coach Richard Pitino will make his home in Edina. Pitino referred to the Gophers program as a “sleeping giant” on his September 6 blog for Gophersports.com.

KSTP TV’s Darren Wolfson reported last week Twins organization center fielder Aaron Hicks has decided not to play winter baseball following a disappointing rookie season, and also that the club’s second baseman, Brian Dozier, will be married during the offseason and honeymoon in Hawaii.

MIAC football teams are 12-1 after two weekends of nonconference play. The league is 28-3 in nonconference games this year and last.

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Coach Who Bled Purple Leads Bears

Posted on September 13, 2013September 13, 2013 by David Shama

Sunday the hometown boy tries to defeat the hometown team.

Minneapolis-born Marc Trestman will coach his Bears against the Vikings on Sunday in Chicago. The game in Soldier Field will be the first time that Trestman as an NFL coach has the opportunity to defeat the franchise he worshipped growing up in St. Louis Park.

Trestman, 57, had five NFL coordinator jobs and won two Canadian Football League championships before an NFL club asked him to be a head coach. The head job he wanted most for much of his life, said his friend Ross Bernstein, was coaching the Vikings.

“He grew up a diehard Vikings fan, sitting for hours watching practice in Mankato and going to Met Stadium with his dad dressed in snowmobile suits to watch games,” said Bernstein. “He would draw up plays after watching the Vikings and go into the backyard and execute the plays with his friends.”

Trestman idolized Vikings coach Bud Grant who he followed as a fan, then later as a Vikings practice squad player and eventually as an assistant on Grant’s staff. “I think his love of the Vikings ran very deep as a kid,” Bernstein said. “He bleeds purple.”

Bernstein wrote Trestman’s 2010 book, Perseverance: Life Lessons on Leadership and Teamwork. The book tells a lot about Trestman’s much travelled career, his successes and failures, and what his makeup is like. Bernstein believes the book helped Trestman secure the Bears job.

“Marc is an introverted guy,” Bernstein said. “He’s not real gregarious. The book allowed the Bears ownership group to get to know him differently.”

Although Trestman’s resume includes college coaching as an assistant, Bernstein is convinced his friend is in the right place in the pros. Before the Gophers hired Glen Mason in 1996, athletic director Mark Dienhart showed interest in Trestman when the two met clandestinely at an airport in California, Bernstein said. There was also interest in Trestman several years ago by the Miami Hurricanes.

“I don’t know if he would have wanted the Gophers job,” Bernstein said. “He is not a great recruiter but he is a great manager of people.”

Trestman is also regarded as a great football mind and tireless worker. The Vikings can expect to see a well prepared team on Sunday. Bernstein knows Trestman will work all night if he thinks it’s necessary and will even have two game plans if circumstances dictate. “He is consumed by football,” Bernstein said. “He waited so long for this moment (NFL head coaching job) and he wants to make the most of it.”

Bernstein describes Trestman as one of the “good guys” in sports, an intellectual, articulate gentleman who has a deserved reputation for a high football IQ, particularly as an offensive sage. In Chicago Trestman is trying to return the Bears to the playoffs and beat out the Vikings, Lions and Packers by winning the NFC North. To do all that he will need more consistency and production from veteran quarterback Jay Cutler. “I think his legacy will forever be linked to Cutler,” Bernstein said. “For better or worse he’s pinning his hopes on getting the most out of Cutler.”

Bernstein thinks Trestman will be rewarded with success and in the process he might even overcome the shadow of Mike Ditka, the legendary 1986 Bears Super Bowl coach. Ditka is the standard by which coaches are measured in Chicago. He was a gutsy leader and Trestman showed fortitude last Sunday in his opening game against the Bengals when he declined a fourth quarter field goal and went for a first down. The reward was an eventual comeback win in Trestman’s NFL head coaching debut.

The former St. Louis Park High School all-state quarterback who played the same position with the Gophers behind Tony Dungy will go for win No. 2 on Sunday. Win or lose expect Trestman to act like a winner. “I am sure he will be incredibly humble and respectful after the game,” Bernstein said.

Worth Noting

Bernstein is a Minnesota-based author and speaker. He makes about 100 corporate talks annually. He spoke two weeks ago to about 500 people with the NHL Red Wings organization. www.rossbernstein.com

Vikings running back Adrian Peterson needs 58 more yards to become the 32^nd player in NFL history to gain 9,000 yards. Wide receiver Jerome Simpson’s 140 yards in receptions last Sunday were the most by a Viking since Randy Moss had a 150 in a 2003 game.

Former Vikings running back Dave Osborn was disappointed with his old team’s performance in Sunday’s opening game loss to the Lions. He is predicting an 8-8 record. “I am not very optimistic after last week,” Osborn said.

He doesn’t think the Vikings regulars played enough minutes in the preseason, noting that former coach Bud Grant frequently used his starters for about two quarters in exhibition games. He said Grant used to say, “You learn to win, or you learn to lose.”

Although it may not be well known, the Gophers placed former walk-ons Jon Christenson (redshirt sophomore center) and Derrick Engel (redshirt senior wide receiver) on scholarships this summer. Both have been starters, but Engel wasn’t part of the first team offense last Saturday in the game at New Mexico State. Engel said he didn’t play well in the first game of the season when he started against UNLV at TCF Bank Stadium.

“I don’t know what it was,” Engel said. “It might have just been nerves, or senior year first game and everything. It was real hot out there and it was hard to catch my breath. You can’t really have any excuses. I just didn’t have a great game.”

Engel said he lost confidence after the UNLV game but gained some back against New Mexico State when he caught two passes including a 48 yarder.

Engel, who started one game last season, is one of several wide receivers in the mix for playing time including redshirt freshman Jamel Harbison who was sidelined most of 2012 and for the first two games this season. “There’s talent in there (among the wide receivers) and we gotta get it figured out over the next three or four weeks,” said Gophers coach Jerry Kill.

Kill, in his third season at Minnesota, is a friend and admirer of Bill Snyder, the Kansas State coach who may have directed the most dramatic turnaround of a college football program in history. Snyder is famous and infamous for loading up his nonconference schedule with easy opponents. “The No. 1 thing in turning around a program is scheduling,” Kill said.

Stubhub.com lists tickets starting at $27 for tomorrow’s Gophers home game against Western Illinois, $15 for the September 21 San Jose State home game and $59 for September 28 when Iowa comes to TCF Bank Stadium.

The Gophers baseball team started fall practice this week. Assistant coach Rob Fornasiere expects the Gophers to contend for a Big Ten championship next year after narrow losses prevented a closer title run in 2013.

Fornasiere predicts the Pirates and Tigers will be in the World Series next month. The winner? He likes the Tigers because in a “short series” Detroit’s dominant starters Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander provide an edge.

Oswaldo Arcia’s 12 home runs are the most by a Twins rookie since 2003 when Bobby Kielty and Dustin Mohr each hit 12. Arcia, in 309 at bats, is hitting .256 with 35 RBI.

Alex Presley, acquired from the Pirates in the Justin Morneau trade last month, is hitting .340 with the Twins including one home run and seven RBI, and has six multi-hit games. Morneau is batting .286 for the Pirates with no home runs or RBI.

In their last two games the Athletics outscored the Twins by 21 runs in Minnesota losses at Target Field.

The Minnesota Boxing Hall of Fame Induction Banquet will be September 27 at Mystic Lake Casino. The honorees are Doug Demmings, Gary Holmgren, Jock Malone, Danny Needham, Pat O’Connor, Billy Petrolle, Jack Raleigh, Dan Schommer, and Tony Stecher. www.mnbhof.org

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Kill Praises U Running Back Group

Posted on September 11, 2013September 11, 2013 by David Shama

In year three at Minnesota coach Jerry Kill is feeling more positive about his running backs. “It’s better, there is no question,” Kill told Sports Headliners.

The success of the Gophers offense depends on a productive running game. Part of the reason is Kill’s offensive philosophy is to balance the run and pass. But targeting an effective ground game in 2013 just makes sense because the talent is unproven among the wide receivers and sophomore quarterback Philip Nelson is running better than he is passing.

Against New Mexico State last Saturday the Gophers had 342 net yards running after rushing for 221 yards in their opening game with UNLV. By contrast the Gophers had 99 and 127 yards passing in their first two games, both victories against sub-par FBS teams.

When Kill was hired in late 2010 he inherited only one running back who is a contributor in 2013, redshirt junior Donnell Kirkwood. The top four backs now are Kirkwood, junior David Cobb, sophomore Rodrick Williams and freshman Berkley Edwards.

Kirkwood and Edwards weren’t available for the New Mexico State game because of ankle injuries. Will they play Saturday at TCF Bank Stadium against Western Illinois? “I doubt it,” Kill said early this week.

Whenever Kirkwood returns he might not regain the starting assignment he had last season and in the opener against UNLV. Kirkwood probably doesn’t have the power of Williams and certainly not the speed of Edwards. Williams, starting at tailback last Saturday night, impressed Kill when he led the team in rushing with 148 net yards.

“Rodrick played outstanding,” Kill said. “He ran like Brandon Jacobs.”

Jacobs, a brute of a runner, played for Kill at Southern Illinois before having an eight-year NFL career that included two seasons gaining over 1,000 yards. Kill won’t say Williams is another Jacobs but his sophomore tailback ran over tacklers on Saturday night. Williams is a powerful 235 pounds and although listed at 5-11 in Gophers publicity materials, Kill said, “He is only 5-9.”

Cobb ran for 56 yards against the Aggies showing power and speed. Williams had 16 carries, seven more than Cobb. “Never take out a hot back,” Kill said referring to Williams. “Let him keep playing.”

Cobb is listed at 5-11, 225 so his size is similar to Williams. Kill said both are “pretty fast” but no back on his roster is like Edwards who after establishing himself as one of the fastest prep sprinters in the country has yet to play for the Gophers because of the ankle injury.

“There’s nobody like Berkley (on the team),” Kill said. “He has a different gear.”

It will be interesting to see the contributions of all four running backs as the season develops but the Gophers will also depend on Nelson’s legs. He had 15 runs against the Aggies gaining 122 net yards.

Nelson is a deceptive ball handler who often will fake a handoff to a running back and sprint down the field showing more speed than expected. Last year Nelson was faster than MarQueis Gray, the athletic senior starting quarterback, and he believes his speed has improved from 2012. “I think I got a little bit too big for my body. I am feeling really good around 215,” Nelson said. “Being able to lose weight and get a little bit stronger has helped my speed.”

When they scramble, some college quarterbacks are taught to slide but not in the Gophers’ system. “We’re not trying to duck out of the way at all,” Nelson said.

Worth Noting

Kill’s 20 years of coaching college football and total wins of 138 are the most of any Big Ten Conference coach. Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz is second in years at 18, while Ohio State’s Urban Meyer is second in wins with 118.

Kill is promoting an auction that dedicates all proceeds to the Gary Tinsley Memorial Scholarship Fund. The auction lasts through September 18 and can be viewed at www.32auctions.com/mnultimateauction.

Bob Nielson, the former UMD national championship football coach and athletic director, deserved consideration for the Gophers AD job when it opened up two years ago, but probably wasn’t interviewed. Nielson is in his first season as Western Illinois coach with the Fighting Leathernecks who play against the Gophers at TCF Bank Stadium on Saturday.

The Fighting Leathernecks nickname is from U.S. Marine Corps history and Western Illinois is the only nonmilitary school granted permission by the Navy to use the name.

The St. Louis Park High School Athletic Hall of Fame will induct its bi-annual class Thursday night at the Minneapolis Marriott West. Bears coach Marc Trestman, whose teams plays the Vikings in Chicago on Sunday, is among the inductees although his schedule won’t allow him to be present. Trestman was a multi-sport athlete at St. Louis Park and played college football as a quarterback before starting a coaching career that led to CFL championships and his first year opportunity as Bears head coach. His parents, Sharon and Jerry, will accept the Hall of Fame honor and plaque in his absence.

Steve Hunegs emailed that Hall of Fame committee chair Stan Veker visited Trestman earlier this year after the vote was finalized. “Stan reports that Marc could not be more gracious and honored…as is typical of Marc. (He) still has time for a good word for everyone despite his responsibilities as a NFL coach,” Hunegs wrote.

Hunegs added Trestman joins the late Sid Gillman as NFL head coaches produced by “our Minneapolis Jewish Community,” and among those being honored at the Hall of Fame induction will be two of St. Louis Park’s greatest teams. The 1986 girls’ state champion basketball squad will be recognized as a “Team of Distinction” along with the 1958 track and field state champs.

Zach Line is collaborating with SI.com writer Jenny Vrentas on weekly stories about his quest to make the NFL including his rookie experience with the Vikings. Vrentas interviews him for about 20 to 30 minutes each week but Line doesn’t have editorial control or get paid. “I see it (the story) when it’s published,” he told Sports Headliners recently. “She always does a good job so I trust her.”

Line was a tailback in high school and college but has been converted to fullback with the Vikings. An undrafted free agent who has run a 4.61 in the 40-yard dash, he hopes to eventually play tailback in the pros but accepts his role now as a reserve fullback blocking for Adrian Peterson.

“You don’t want to let him down, obviously,” Line said. “He was an MVP last year and he wants to win games. I am a rookie that needs to shake off the rookie dust fast. Just want to do right for him and do right for the offense.”

Vikings rookie cornerback Xavier Rhodes acknowledged the pro game moves faster than college football but he won’t let the pace make him hesitant to jump into passing lanes for possible interceptions. “You can’t hold back in the game of football, especially at corner, because that’s how you get beat, being timid. So I try to go out there and play football. …I am just waiting on my opportunity, basically.”

For the first time Canterbury Park will be the site of Indian Horse Relay racing this Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Indian riders compete against one another in traditional Native American dress. They change horses during racing heats in front of the grandstand and ride thoroughbreds bareback. The races are nonwagering events although the riders are competing for money.

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