In April, the NCAA changed a rule regarding foreign trips to allow incoming freshmen to participate.  Minnesota has eight new players on its 2010-11 roster, six of whom will be making the trip to Vancouver, British Columbia: guards Maverick Ahanmisi, Austin Hollins and Eric Stark, forwards Trevor Mbakwe and Mo Walker and center Elliott Eliason.

After the Canadian trip, the Gophers don’t play again until they have home exhibitions November 2 and 8 against Northeastern State and Winona State.

Former Timberwolves player and front office executive Fred Hoiberg is making national news with four transfers coming into his program as the new basketball coach at Iowa State.  Those transfers not only include former Gopher and Minnesota Mr. Basketball Royce White, but also ex-Michigan State starter Chris Allen.  Both White, a forward, and Allen, a shooting guard, are considered pro prospects.

Here’s what you can believe about a proposed new stadium for the Vikings: the facility is unlikely to have a retractable roof because that adds about $200 million to the total cost of an open air stadium.  But a fixed roof stadium would be less expensive than a retractable roof and will satisfy the Vikings and also serve the community as a venue for other spectator attractions like a Final Four, and offer a site for amateur events and recreational activities.

It has been proposed in the past that the Vikings owners be responsible for about $222 million of the cost but in the coming legislative process that figure is likely to be negotiated up.  There is more political interest in making the stadium a reality than in the past and given the franchise’s enormous popularity it’s a big political risk for any of the three gubernatorial candidates to oppose legislation for the facility.

Determining the public funding will be controversial and various ideas are likely to be offered including a seven county metro area lodging surtax.  The stadium site seems almost certain to be where Mall of America Field is now.

It will be interesting to see if the Vikings are improved at catching passes tomorrow night in their final preseason game.  Last Saturday night there were too many balls thrown by quarterback Brett Favre that should have been caught.  That raised questions about whether this team has one or two high quality receivers who offer the speed and exceptional catching ability that’s missing with best receiver Sidney Rice sidelined for perhaps half the season.  As for running the ball, in three preseason games the Vikings have rushed for 101.3 yards per game.

Denver will be the opponent tomorrow night at Mall of America Field with a roster that includes former Gopher wide receiver Eric Decker who has caught six passes for 69 yards and one touchdown in preseason.

The Vikings and other NFL teams must reduce their rosters to the season limit of 53 on Saturday.

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The Sporting News Magazine issue of August 30 ranks the Vikings’ Brad Childress   No. 14 among 32 NFL coaches.  The top five are Bill Belichick, Sean Payton, Jeff Fisher, Mike Shanahan and Mike Tomlin.

The same issue predicts the Vikings and Green Bay, both with 11-5 records, will tie for the NFC North title.  Sporting News has the Jets winning over Dallas in the Super Bowl.

Middle Tennessee State quarterback Logan Kilgore will make his first major college start tomorrow night against the Gophers.  He’s a junior college transfer who has been promoted to the No. 1 offense because the NCAA has ruled dynamic playmaking quarterback Dwight Dasher ineligible.  Dasher set a bowl record for a quarterback last December by rushing for 201 yards.

Gophers coach Tim Brewster told Sports Headliners that Kilgore is a better passer than Dasher.  He also said Kilgore completed 21 of 34 passes in the spring game.  Look for the Gophers to bring defensive pressure to test Kilgore early in tomorrow night’s game.

The game is telecast on ESPNU and the Gophers athletic department is hosting a viewing party at TCF Bank Stadium.

Deolis Guerra, who is the only player remaining that the Twins acquired in the Johan Santana deal in 2008, continues to struggle in the minors.  He is 2-10 with a 6.24 ERA pitching for Double A New Britain.

Twins third baseman Danny Valencia is the top hitting rookie in the American League at .328, 24 percentage points better than Detroit’s Austin Jackson who is second.

After last night’s games the Twins are four games ahead of the White Sox in the Central Division race.  The Twins look like the better team but one advantage Chicago has is being scheduled for 16 of its last 22 games at home.  The Twins play 12 of their final 22 on the road.

After defeating then No. 5 rated Central Washington in a season opening game last week, Minnesota-Duluth is ranked No. 3 in the American Football Coaches Association Division II poll.  Other NSIC schools in the top 25 are Minnesota State-Mankato at No. 18, Winona State at No. 24 and Wayne State, No. 25.

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Conversations during the off-season about Gophers football often begin with speculation about the future of coach Tim Brewster.  Fans ask how many games he needs to win this fall to keep his job.

In three seasons coaching the Gophers, Brewster has produced two bowl teams and a 8-4 nonconference record.  His overall record including bowl games is 14-24, 6-18 in the Big Ten.  The last three years the Gophers are 0-8 in historic rivalry games against Wisconsin, Iowa and Michigan.

The three seasons before Brewster succeeded Glen Mason the Gophers went to three consecutive bowl games and had a 9-1 nonconference record.  Mason, who coached the Gophers from 1997-2006, was 20-17 overall, 10-14 in the Big Ten his last three seasons.  In rivalry games the Gophers were 2-7.

Those are enough statistics for many fans to conclude Brewster isn’t the right coach to lead the program, but not so fast.  The program hasn’t produced a Big Ten champion since 1967 and no Gophers team has finished better than fourth in the conference since 1986 when Minnesota tied for third in the standings.  Only eight times since 1976 have the Gophers placed fifth or better in the Big Ten.

Making the Gophers title contenders is no easy job, and what critics seldom acknowledge or realize is that building a program in football takes a few years because large numbers of good players, balanced out by various amounts of experience, are needed.  “It takes a coach about five years to get the 85 scholarships the way he wants them,” said Gerry DiNardo on the Big Ten Network last Friday. “You’ve got to have 15 offensive linemen.  You’ve got to have 12 defensive linemen and on and on.

“So it takes five recruiting classes to get that,” said DiNardo, a former college head coach at three BCS schools.  “Until you have five recruiting classes you’re going to see massive losses on both sides of the ball replaced by young guys. …This is going to take some time.  This is a talented team (Minnesota) that is going to play a very difficult schedule.  They’re going to take their lumps, but I gotta tell ya, none of this is unexpected.”

That difficult schedule starts Thursday night in Murfreesboro against Middle Tennessee State.  The Blue Raiders, a Sun Belt Conference preseason favorite, had been the oddsmaker’s choice in the game until dynamic playmaking quarter Dwight Dasher was ruled ineligible by the NCAA.  The underdog role is one the Gophers will see a lot of against most opponents on a schedule that includes traditional powers USC, Ohio State, Penn State, Iowa and Wisconsin, and games versus teams like Purdue and Illinois who think they can beat Minnesota.

The sky-is-falling crowd predicts the Gophers will be 2-10 this season.  Those wearing happier faces see better results, something like a .500 record or a little better.  Gophers radio color man Dave Mona is part of that group, predicting a 6-6 season.

Analysis of Brewster’s job performance at season’s end by athletic director Joel Maturi will be about more than wins and losses, and it should be.  The Gophers athletic director told Sports Headliners he’s “optimistic” about this season and hopes to see a program going in the right direction by the end of November.

The right direction means winning games but evaluation also factors in how the team played.  Performance is assessed by observing not only wins and execution, but also the caliber of the opposition and whether the Gophers had a healthy group of their most important players.

The collective GPA’s of the players and graduation rates have been improving under Brewster.  That counts with Maturi and other school administrators and so does off field behavior which sometimes finds football players and other Gophers athletes volunteering to help people in the community.

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