The Vikings resume play on Sunday after a bye week but a few players interviewed by Sports Headliners didn’t believe the layoff will affect timing.  Wide receiver Aundrae Allison, for example, said yesterday the rest can give players fresh legs and feel the sort of “explosiveness” experienced on opening day.

Place-kicker Ryan Longwell, a 12-year NFL veteran, said any challenges with timing are more than offset with the benefit of a rested body.  The layoff isn’t so much timing anyway, he said, it’s more about adjusting to game-like speed.

Last year the Vikings won six of their last nine games to finish 8-8.  The 3-4 Vikings play Houston at home on Sunday and coach Brad Childress was asked this week about the remaining games.

“Well, it’s key in the fact that there are nine games to go,” he said. “Yeah, I would expect them to be better as we go. …It’s not stuff that isn’t correctable. You look at your flaws, you share them together. … But yeah, I expect them to get better and better and better. The good teams get hot and play well as they finish through November and December.

“There is no reason to believe that we can’t continue on something like last year.  But our whole focus has to be the Houston Texans.  We can’t look beyond the horizon, I don’t believe.”

The Vikings meet a Houston team that also has a 3-4 record, having won three consecutive games.

Before the bye on October 19 the Vikings not only had their best offensive performance of the season against Chicago with 439 yards of total offense, they also controlled the ball for over 35 minutes in the 48-41 loss to the Bears.

The Vikings have two players among the NFL’s top 15 sack leaders.  Defensive tackle Kevin Williams is tied for the lead among tackles and tied for seventh overall with 6.0 sacks.  Defensive end Jared Allen is tied for 15th with 5.0 sacks.

Safety Darren Sharper makes his 175^th career regular season start on Sunday.

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Coach Tim Brewster said the surprising Gophers, 7-1, “have been the Bear” but the team is becoming the “hunted.”

The Gophers named sophomore safety Kyle Theret the team’s weekly Defensive MVP and Special Forces MVP for his outstanding game against Purdue.  The 5-foot-10, 185 pound Theret is an exceptional tackler and smart player.  “His heart is as big as his body,” Brewster said.

A source, who requested anonymity, said Northwestern declined to move tomorrow’s game at the Metrodome from an 11 a.m. start to 2:30 p.m. because of airplane arrangements.

Former Gopher wrestler Dave Henry, along with his 90-year-old mother, his daughter, aunt and uncle, two brothers, three nephews, two nieces, and other family rented a motor home and drove from Minnesota to last week’s Purdue game.  Henry’s mother has a 1933 Purdue-Minnesota scorecard.

Coach Tubby Smith’s basketball team will hold a free practice and scrimmage open to the public beginning at 4 p.m. tomorrow at Williams Arena.

Former KSTP anchorman Joe Schmit, now president of the John T. Petters Foundation, reports the good news that his lymphoma has “stalled” and he’s not undergoing treatment.  Schmit will speak briefly this evening at the fourth annual Lake Minnetonka Monster Mash, a Halloween benefit for the Lymphoma Foundation.  The event will be at the Bayview Center in Excelsior and entertainment includes Jimi Jamison, former Survivor lead singer and also Alex Ligertwood, former Santana lead singer.  Tickets are available in advance and at the door, with more information available at 952-470-8439.

The Lee County Commission voted 3-1 earlier this week to approve a new spring training baseball home for the Boston Red Sox, according to news-press.com that reports news in the Fort Myers, Florida area where the Twins also headquarter.  The proposed new ballpark will seat approximately 10,000 and resemble famed Fenway Park.

Four MIAC football games were decided by a total of 12 points last Saturday. The largest margin of victory was Saint John’s 20-14 overtime win at St. Olaf.  During the last two weekends, only one MIAC game has been determined by more than six points. Through the first 24 games of the MIAC season, 17 games have been decided by eight points or less.  With three weeks left in the regular season, six of the nine MIAC teams have one or two losses.

Saturday’s big game is Gustavus at Bethel.  Both teams are 3-2 in conference games. All-MIAC sophomore running back Logan Flannery leads the run-oriented Bethel offense.  Senior running back Ray Wilson set a school single-game rushing record with 258 yards on 28 carries in a 34-31 victory over Augsburg College on Saturday in St. Peter.  He was chosen the MIAC offensive player of the week.

Because Saint John’s has a bye this weekend, football coach John Gagliardi will be able to attend his induction into the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame in suburban Chicago on Saturday night.  Gagliardi broke former Grambling State head coach Eddie Robinson’s NCAA record for the most games coached (588) earlier this season.  Gagliardi’s 60 years of collegiate coaching is the most in college football history.

The 2008 MIAC Men’s and Women’s Cross Country Championships are Saturday at the Como Park Golf Course in St. Paul. The men’s race is set to begin at 2 p.m. and the women’s race starts at 3 p.m. The Saint John’s men and the St. Thomas women are trying to win third consecutive championships.

The NSIC has five schools ranked in the NCAA DII Wrestling Coaches Association top 20 poll.  Minnesota State is ranked No. 2 in the country followed by Upper Iowa (10), St. Cloud State (12), Augustana (14), with MSU Moorhead is tied for 17^th with Truman State of Missouri.  Upper Iowa’s Travis Eggers is ranked first in his 157 pound weight class.

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With the surprising Gophers (7-1) in an all-out blitz to qualify for a New Year’s Day bowl game for the first time since 1962, there will be monitoring not only of the team’s progress on the field but also at the box office.  As of Monday morning an athletic department official reported sales of about 45,000 for Saturday’s Homecoming game against Northwestern in the 64,172 seat Metrodome.  Advance sales for the two other remaining home games are 45,000 for Michigan and 54,000 for Iowa (and we know many of those attendees will be wearing gold and black, not maroon and gold).

These numbers may frustrate and mystify some but they shouldn’t.  The Gophers annual average attendances for 40 years have mostly been in the 40,000 to 50,000 range.  The only major breakthrough was the Lou Holtz era.  In his second and last season here, 1985, the Gophers averaged 60,985, the best home average since 1957. He left behind a season ticket holder base of more than 50,000 and the 1986 Gophers averaged 55,848, the third best mark in more than 40 years.

Hats off to coach Tim Brewster, the staff and Gopher players for an astounding turnaround from last season’s 1-11 performance.  The Gophers are playing winning football, featuring an exceptional turnover-causing defense, and surprising the college football world from Baudette to Bourbon Street.  It’s just that two months of the superb will not undo more than 40 years of problems.  Here’s a primer on why Gopher football attendance has been both mediocre and lousy all these years:

Ineptitude.  The Gophers haven’t won a Big Ten Conference championship since 1967.  During the last 20 years they have never finished second or third in the standings and only six times won half or more of their league games.  Glen Mason, who took the Gophers to seven bowl games between 1997 and 2006, was 32-48 in the Big Ten.  Jim (Geezo-Beezo) Wacker was 8 and 32 in conference games from 1992-1996.

Heartbroken.  In the last 10 years the Gophers frequently had fast starts to their seasons and then showdowns with quality conference opponents only to lose those games.  No defeat was worse than the 2003 loss to Michigan at home when the Gophers blew a 28-7 second half lead and lost 35-28 before a Friday night crowd of 62,374.  A lot of those fans weren’t Gopher regulars and many were boiling mad after seeing the U crumble at the end.  The next week the Gophers drew 38,788 at home against Michigan State.  Being a fan has a lot to do with hope and until this season the Gophers were often consistent in raising expectations, then not being able to deliver.

Purple factor.  No one at the U or over at Winter Park ever acknowledges it publicly, but pro football put a dent in Gopher interest in the 1960s and except for the Holtz years this has been a Vikings town for about 40 years.  There are more NFL fans than college fans here and across the country.  You can make a good argument that with all its tradition, color and variety, college football is a better product but the facts are that in towns where the pros and colleges collide for fan following, the NFL almost always comes out ahead.  Just ask the folks at Miami University where the Hurricanes have for more than 20 years been among the elite of college football but frequently play to non-sellout crowds while the fans turn out in bigger numbers to watch the so-so Dolphins.

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