Congratulations to Bob Hughes and other Goal Line Club leaders for yesterday’s outstanding Gopher Football Banquet at TCF Bank Stadium.  The emotion-filled event included a celebration of Minnesota’s 27-24 upset win over Iowa on Saturday. The Floyd of Rosedale trophy was a focus of picture taking along with the Gophers players including the team’s seniors and those honored with awards.  Interim coach Jeff Horton fought back tears when he made a surprise presentation of an honorary M to Connor Cosgrove, the wide receiver who had to leave school this year because of leukemia.

Adam Weber, the Gophers three-year captain and four-year starter at quarterback, was the Bronko Nagurski Award winner, the team’s MVP.  He received a standing ovation from the audience yesterday. Wide receivers MarQueis Gray and Da’Jon McKnight were co-winners of the Bruce Smith Award given to the team’s outstanding offensive player.  The Carl Eller Award for the outstanding defensive player was won by linebacker Gary Tinsley.

Gophers athletic director Joel Maturi was in San Diego last week.  San Diego State coach Brady Hoke has acknowledged that he’s conversed with another school about its football opening.

Sports Headliners believes Maturi might pay over $5 million in salaries to his head coach and new assistants.  He’s determined to make the Gophers very competitive in compensation.

The new Big Ten football title game starting in 2011 is expected to provide each conference school with about $2 million of additional revenue and will certainly help Maturi’s football budget.

In 2007 the Gophers were the first conference school to offer multiyear contracts to coordinators.

Horton and the other assistants hired by ex-coach Tim Brewster will see their contracts end on February 15.  The new coach will be under no obligation to retain any of the coaches.

The Gophers’ season record of 3-9 is the worst in the Big Ten but Horton believes there’s reason for optimism about a better future program.  “It’s not as far away as people think,” he said last week.

The areas where the Gophers need the most upgrade in talent and experience for next season are offensive line, wide receivers and defensive backs.  The new coaching staff is likely to be in pursuit of junior college players.

Gophers running backs DeLeon Eskridge and Duane Bennett will be seniors next fall, plus younger runners Devon Wright, Donnell Kirkwood and Lamonte Edwards will make that position a team strength.  “I think the competition at running backs is going to be off the charts,” Horton said.

Horton talking about Brewster who was 6-21 during three-plus seasons in the Big Ten:  “He’s a good person.  He’s a good football coach.”

 

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After Brad Childress was fired last week as Vikings coach, it might be precedent setting for a major city like Minneapolis to have both its NFL and major college head coaching jobs open at the same time.  Childress and Brewster are friends and it won’t be surprising if the two spend time together in Florida where Brewster has been running the beaches of Naples.

St. Paul’s Gene Harrington was the NFL’s first conditioning coach, filling that role for Green Bay’s Vince Lombardi in 1965.  Harrington celebrated his 82^nd birthday last week.  He covers local teams including the Vikings for two national radio networks.

When the Vikings play at Detroit in their last regular season game on Sunday, January 2, the two teams could be competing to avoid last place in the NFC North.  The Vikings are 4-7 after yesterday’s win over Washington.  The Lions are 2-9.

Virginia basketball coach Tony Bennett seemed like a good fit for the Gophers’ job in 2007 before Tubby Smith was hired.  Bennett, the son of former Wisconsin coach Dick Bennett, was making national headlines as Washington State’s coach.  Now Bennett coaches the Virginia team (3-3) that plays the Gophers tonight as part of the ACC/Big Ten challenge at Williams Arena.  Among the losses is a 106-63 game against nationally-ranked Washington.

Trent Lockett, who played for Hopkins, is now a sophomore at Arizona Sate where as of last week he was leading the Sun Devils in scoring at over 20 points per game. He averaged 6.7 last season.  He had a career high 24 points last week versus Weber State.

Rick Stelmaszek, among the Twins coaches recently signed to contracts through 2012, is the longest tenured coach in major league baseball having been Minnesota’s bullpen coach since 1981.

The Twins’ interest in Japanese infielder Tsuyoshi Nishioka is indicative of the franchise’s scouting for international players.  The Twins are in a 30 day negotiating period to reach a contract agreement with the speedy Nishioka.  In recent years the franchise has signed players from the Dominican Republic, Germany and Australia.

St. Paul Saints president Mike Veeck will talk about a possible new ballpark for his franchise at a luncheon starting at 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday at Mancini’s Char House & Lounge.  The event is sponsored by the Minnesota Minutemen with more information available at www.minnesotaminutemen.com.

Nick Schultz purchased hats for his Wild teammates and other team personnel who are growing moustaches as part of the “Movember” promotion.  The red and white hats have the Wild logo and a large black moustache with the words “Wild Mo Bros” written across the top.  “Movember” is a moustache growing charity effort during November to create awareness about prostate cancer.

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Gophers athletic director Joel Maturi told Sports Headliners earlier this week he’s satisfied with the candidate possibilities for the head football coach opening and will be disappointed if a successor to Tim Brewster isn’t named by early January.

Maturi said the quality of possible candidates is about what he expected and indicated the search has been thorough in considering many names.  That presumably includes unemployed coaches and possible names like ex-Oregon coach Mike Bellotti and former Tennessee coach Phil Fulmer.

The search is about a month old and presumably Maturi already has a working knowledge about not only who is qualified but also interested.  Sports Headliners believes the following 10 coaches could be at the top of such a list: Troy Calhoun of Air Force, Al Golden of Temple, Brady Hoke of San Diego State, Ken Niumatalolo of Navy, Bronco Mendenhall of Brigham Young, Dan Mullen of Mississippi State, Greg Schiano of Rutgers, Randy Edsall of Connecticut, Kevin Sumlin of Houston and Bellotti.

Who the Gophers land depends on timing, not just qualifications.  Absent from the list above are coaches like Chris Petersen of Boise State and Gary Patterson of TCU who are very unlikely to throw away a possible national championship season by leaving for Minnesota in December.

Impacting candidate availability for the Gophers, too, will be competition from other schools.  Bellotti may favor the Colorado job where he could more easily use his California recruiting base.  If Rich Rodriguez is fired at Michigan, two names that will quickly be in the headlines are Stanford’s Jim Harbaugh and Hoke who was associate head coach at Michigan several years ago.

The good news for the Gophers is it looks like there will be fewer major college head coach openings than during a typical fall.

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