Coach Jerry Kill and his staff had three junior college defensive backs on campus last weekend, according to GopherIllustrated.com. Minnesota is recruiting Jeremy Baltazar from Blinn College in Brenham, Texas, and two players from Trinity Community College in Athens, Texas, Martez Shabazz and Clifford Stokes.
Here are Sports Headliners’ weekly rankings of Big Ten Football teams: Wisconsin, Michigan State, Michigan, Nebraska, Ohio State, Penn State, Iowa, Northwestern, Purdue, Illinois, Minnesota and Indiana.
The Vikings practice for road games with intentional noise in the background so the raucous crowd at Lambeau Field won’t be the communications challenge it might have been, according to wide receiver Greg Camarillo. “We have the most annoying speakers ever for our practices and actually when it comes to game time it’s not as bad as that speaker,” he said.
The Packers are off to the franchise’s first 8-0 start since 1962 and prompting speculation they could go 16-0 during the regular season. Vikings defensive end Jared Allen, playing in his eighth NFL season, was asked if Green Bay is the best team he’s seen.
“You know what? That’s for historians,” Allen anwered. “I just take it week by week. You know, obviously they’re the best team in the league right now. They’re the reigning (Super Bowl) champs and they’re undefeated. We have the upper hand on most teams that are playing them ─ we played them already once and we gave them a pretty good shot. Everybody is beatable. …We gotta go up there and give them their first loss and get after them.”
The Gophers basketball team plays South Dakota State at home tonight. The Jackrabbits are a Division I team and lost 85-73 to Minnesota last year in Williams Arena. South Dakota State opened its regular season on Saturday with an 82-76 win over Western Michigan. Nate Wolters, who played for St. Cloud Tech, had 32 points, 11 assists and no turnovers for the Jackrabbits Saturday.
The Gophers have struggled to open up big leads in two exhibitions and one regular season game but rallied late to close out games. Friday night in the regular season opener Minnesota and Bucknell were tied at 53 with about four minutes remaining. Encouraging for the Gophers was the late minute play of guards Austin Hollins and Julian Welch.
Hamline will honor Don Meyer tomorrow night at a ceremony prior to its game with Northwestern College (St. Paul). He is the men’s college basketball all-time winningest coach with 923 wins, and the first 37 came at Hamline in the early 1970s. Now retired from coaching, Meyer is included in Hamline’s “Ring of Honor,” recognizing the school’s basketball greats.
The Wild will hold a pregame tribute to the late Derek Boogaard on Sunday, November 27. Parents Len and Joanne along with siblings Aaron, Krysten and Ryan are scheduled to attend. The Wild will play Calgary that night.