http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/_/id/134425/take-two-minnesotas-win-total-in-2016

Over/Under 6.5 wins for Minnesota
Brian Bennett=Over

BB has been covering this league for several years now. He's gotten better and better the past few years after a shaky start to his tenure. Bennett thinks the Gophers were crushed by injuries and a tough schedule last year (he's correct). BB believes the Gophers will ride the running game, D, and Mitch to late season contention for west division.

Moyer=Under

Moyer thinks Minnesota won't be as good due to a worse D and bad receivers. Dude is the ultimate Penn State homer. Guy has predicted that Penn State would win 9+ games for 3 years in a row. Moyer spent an entire year coming up with excuses for when the Gophers hammered Penn State in 2014.

I honestly cannot wait to see what he writes after Minnesota rides into Happy Valley & leaves with a 2 score victory. The funniest part is when Moyer writes off Mitch Leidner by saying the new offense is 'better suited to the backups'. I mean, why research Leidner when you can throw out something that sounds plausible?

full text below:

BB:
The Gophers are my sleeper pick in the Big Ten West. Remember that they went 5-7 in the regular season last year despite a rash of injuries and a brutal schedule that included games against TCU, Ohio State and Michigan, plus a road trip to Iowa. A little better fortune on the health front should help a great deal. Also helpful: a nonconference slate featuring Oregon State, Indiana State and Colorado State, all at home, and no crossovers against the Buckeyes, Wolverines or Michigan State. Minnesota enters the season with a fifth-year senior at quarterback (Mitch Leidner), a solid running game that should see a boost under new offensive coordinator Jay Johnson and another talented secondary led byJalen Myrick and Damarius Travis. They'll win at least seven games and should be a factor in the division race.

ESPN blogger and future 'To Catch a Predator' arrestee, Josh Moyer:

I'm not quite as bullish on the Gophers this season. Don't get me wrong; I still think they'll win six games and head to a bowl. But they're still a notch below the West's best. Leidner may return, but the new offense appears to be a better fit for his backups. And the lack of playmakers at receiver is a big issue moving forward; all the drops in the spring game only reinforced that. Minnesota's secondary is almost certainly going to take a step back, and the pass-rush (or lack thereof) is a real concern. On top of all that, Minnesota's third-down defense was atrocious last season and, even with the nation's No. 13 pass defense, it still allowed more passing first downs there than all but two B1G teams (Indiana, Nebraska). I think this team is likely to win between six and eight games but, because of those question marks, I'm sticking with the "under" for now.

I would love to see the Gophers recruit 'instate' kids for the next couple of years, Based on another post, there will be 5 schollies open in the 2018 season though I think one of the bigs may leave after this year and used in the 2017 class. I think a wing leaves also but not Fitzgerald after he transferred in unless injury or grades.

My 'ideal' 2017 and 2018 group

2017 - 4 schollies if a wing leaves and either Gaston or Lynch leave or cant play

John, Sims, Wright, and Davison

2018 - 4 schollies open instead of the scheduled 5, if one of the bigs leaves and is used in the 2017 group.

Oturu, Thompson, Kalscheur, and one out-of-state big

With Hurt and Coffey and maybe Sharp as a walkon, still, that would be 9 scholarship players out of 13 from the state of Minnesota... Ideal and maybe improbable, yes.. But I can still dream of a highly competitive team that wins a lot and is made up of a majority of players from instate!!

Link: Bowens III still hearing from Minnesota despite ISU commitment

Bowens was one of the very first 2017 targets and he showed strong interest back. In April he committed to Iowa State, but I'm not sure that's where he ends up as his commitment seemed a little premature and he still has a handful of schools talking to him.

Link: Milwaukee forward remains on radar for Purdue, others

Terrence Lewis spoke to GoldandBlack.com earlier this week. Some it was more slanted towards Purdue, but he also talked about what he's looking for in a program at the next level, the type of system he wants to play in, and more.

Link: AAU Day in Review: July 7

Take a look at how Gopher targets did yesterday in South Carolina, Georgia, and elsewhere above.

Today, I'm watching Howard Pulley online (yesterday's the live stream wasn't working), and I'm paying the lead Prep Hoops Florida writer Jack Legwin to watch and give me a report on D1 Minnesota.

I believe that 2016 will determine Claey's fate in Dinkytown.

TC is currently on a 3 year contract. We all know that's not enough for recruiting purposes. During/after this season either Tracy will get extended or get canned. If he gets extended he will probably have a couple years leeway.

This may be Claey's 1st full year as HC, but this is year 6 of the Kill regime. We will never again have a schedule where we miss both Michigan schools and league overlord Ohio State. Mitch is a 5th year senior, 4th year player, and 3rd year starter. He appears to finally be healthy (knocks on wood).

Also, last year we LITERALLY led the country in injuries. This year should regress towards the mean which means we should be better and deeper this season.
We will never have a better chance to win the division. If Tracy is going to succeed here, I think he needs to go a minimum of 9-3. Honestly, I won't feel good with 8 wins against this schedule.

Oregon State is in year 2 of a tough rebuild. They will be better than last year but we're in year 6 and they are in year 2 of a rebuild. We should be more talented and deeper than them. The other 2 OOC games are near locks/must wins.

The BTN guys repeatedly called Maryland the 'least talented team in the Big 10' last year, and they have a new coach. Rutgers is a mess and also has a new coach--plus it's our Homecoming so the crowd should be good. The Darrell Hazell experiment at Purdue has been an unmitigated disaster, as they have somehow gotten worse each year. Illinois has some talent but they are in year 1 of a rebuild and Lovie is a D first guy, he isn't known for explosive offensive play.

Bottom line: Those are 7 games we have absolutely no business losing. I will be surprised and disappointed if we drop any of those games.

Penn State is breaking in a new OC, new DC, new QB, new OLine coach, and they lost 3 DLs to the NFL draft. Oh, and their OLine has been total garbage for years. Sure, they have really nice skill players, but IMO we are ahead of where they are in program development and in the trenches. Also, we get them in the first month of the year so they will probably still be working out the kinks of their new offense & new coaches. The only reason this could be a loss is cause they recruit good talent and it's in Happy Valley. Nonetheless, we oughta beat them.

Iowa is a toss-up as we get them at home. Our shorthanded squad was arguably one called holding penalty away from beating Iowa at Kinnick. This year we get them at home and I think it's a 50/50 game. By now we could be 4-0 and be building some momentum. Plus we've already had our bye week to help work out the kinks of our new coaches.

At Nebraska is always tough, but last year's game was an aberration. We've played them toe to toe each year and have won 2 of the past 4, including one in Lincoln. This is another toss-up.

Home against Northwestern: I know they pummeled us last year, but our offense has grown a lot since that early season fiasco, plus we hopefully won't have a triage unit this year. We almost always play tight games with them, and I'm putting this as a toss-up leaning win. They have a great D and a good RB, but I'm not at all convinced that their QB is any good. He certainly isn't as good or experienced as Mitch.

at Wisconsin: Look, I know they beat us up last year but we were down to our 5th, 6th, and 7th DTs. The 2 years before that we played them tight 'til the end. One of these years things have to swing our way. I've got this as a toss-up leaning loss.

So, in my view, we have 7 games we should absolutely win, 2 games that are true toss-ups, 2 toss-ups leaning win and 1 toss-up leaning loss.

Even if we lose one of the 7 'should wins', we oughta be able to go 3-2 in the other 5.

I think we need to win 9, but if we can stay relatively healthy, I truly believe we can win 10 games and have a real shot to win in Indy.

Here it is, as promised in another thread:

If you could host a dinner party and invite 4 living sports personalities, who would it be and why?

Mine:

1. Vin Scully - Vifan started this, and Mr. Scully would be my #1 invite. The baseball stories from Ebbets Field alone would be worth it, but he has so much more than that, including golf and football.

2. Lou Nanne - I could listen to his old-time hockey stories forever. Covers both Gophers and North Stars.

3. Bob Costas - some find him smug, but he has a wealth of baseball stories and well as Olympics among other things.

4. Bud Grant - again, covers football from the U to the great Purple teams, with some CFL thrown in.

Tell me who I missed - I haven't mailed them out yet so I can still change my mind if you convince me.

Chooses the Warriors over Thunder and East coast teams. They should be a power house for awhile. Wonder if there are enough balls to go around?

I'm wondering what, if anything, GI thinks the Gophers need to do to help secure a 2018 class ranked in the top 15-20 nationally.

If you don't like any of my options, tell me your thoughts in the comments.

And yes, I'm jonesing for football so much that I've been re-watching some of last year's games.

Link: Theo John breaks down recruitment

Minnesota has worked as hard as they can with John, and right now they're doing well. Marquette has worked hard too, and there's one person in his circle that would like to see him go there, although I don't think he has a lot of pull. And being from Minnesota, I think there are many that would like to see him be a Gopher.

Theo says he wants to commit before the school year starts, meaning he'd likely be the first of the three in-state targets (Theo, McKinley, Jericho) to make a decision. I think that's good news as the sooner he makes a decision, the better the Gophers' chances. I think it's also very possible that he picks up a few more "bigger" offers, like he just did from Maryland and Florida in this final eval period that runs the next three weeks. But, if he's planning to make a decision before school starts, I would think Minnesota could beat those offers.

I saw a lot of outrage on this. Everyone on the list did have more yards than our guys I believe with the exception of the OSU back who I'm sure is a stud.

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Still had a fantastic frosh year and has the potential to be a star.

Gentry has even more freakish ability and needs to focus/stay healthy.

There have been past rumblings that neither player had the requisite focus and work ethic to be truly great/consistent.

Any updates on that front? Have Leidner and the coaches been able to convince these guys to lock in and focus on being truly great?

Or should we expect that Woli or Eric Carter will have to the top receiving options due to lack of focus/health on the part of gentry and still?

Some of us remember how he did national games in different sports for CBS or NBC in the 70's and 80's, including Vikings' games.. But Vin Scully is known for being the voice of the Dodgers, first in Brooklyn and now in Los Angeles... Vin is 88 years old in his last year with the Dodgers after 67 years of broadcasting.. Many people have spent years in a nursing home by age 88 and here Scully is broadcasting Dodger games. Amazing to me.

THINK ABOUT THIS FOR LONGEVITY

- There are people that were born, lived a life with 40-45 years in the work force, retired, and Scully was broadcasting before their birth and after their retirement or even death.

- He broadcast before the Korean War to the present. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were just babies when Scully started broadcasting.

- AMAZINGLY, at 67 years involved with the Dodgers, he is only ranked the 2nd most consecutive years associated with the team.. Tommy LaSorda is a special assistant to the team, also at 88 years of age. LaSorda has been with the franchise for 68 years.

-Chris Berman is retiring from broadcasting at ESPN this year. Boomer is 61 years old so Scully had already broadcast 6 years before Berman was even born.

-Think about all the world events that happened during his broadcast career both in sports, politics, and world events since beginning in 1950. I would love to talk with Scully about all the history that he has experienced.

- His career would be like this, for government employees.... It would be like finishing a 30 year career. then starting and completing a 2nd 30 year career, then working 7 years after 2 30-year careers. Tiring to think about but great for a person who obviously loves their job.

I know that Minnesotans can 'one-up' this with the longevity of Sid Hartman and certainly with Bud Grant and Johnny Kundla as retired coaches...... But I always thought Scully was a smooth announcer who was very disarming in the booth. Living in Toledo, I was a big fan of Ernie Harwell, who I thought was a legend in the booth for Detroit Tigers' radio and had a broadcast style that brought you back to the nostalgic days of old. But Scully has longevity that is amazing and I am glad to have had the privilege to sit through many of his broadcasts at a national level.

Juan Harris just tweeted out that the Gophers have made his top five, along with Indiana, Penn State, Michigan State, and Illinois. I'm told that there are some major roadblocks he'll have to get through before getting to the next level, namely becoming a qualifier. That being said, Minnesota has been actively recruiting him, so they must think Harris has a chance to get through the NCAA Clearinghouse with a strong senior year academically.

hopefully now we can lay to rest ridiculous articles about gopher hoops.

Link: Creamer hoping to take official visit to Minnesota

Creamer is one of several corners with fairly high in Minnesota. The Gophers will likely only take one corner this year because they've taken three each of the past two years. Creamer is still pretty wide open with his recruitment and isn't planning to make a decision for a while, though, so we'll see how the staff handles the recruitment of corners as the year progresses. At least one target (Tre Norwood) is planning to make a decision much sooner than someone like Creamer.

Here it is, as promised in another thread:

If you could host a dinner party and invite 4 living sports personalities, who would it be and why?

Mine:

1. Vin Scully - Vifan started this, and Mr. Scully would be my #1 invite. The baseball stories from Ebbets Field alone would be worth it, but he has so much more than that, including golf and football.

2. Lou Nanne - I could listen to his old-time hockey stories forever. Covers both Gophers and North Stars.

3. Bob Costas - some find him smug, but he has a wealth of baseball stories and well as Olympics among other things.

4. Bud Grant - again, covers football from the U to the great Purple teams, with some CFL thrown in.

Tell me who I missed - I haven't mailed them out yet so I can still change my mind if you convince me.

Link: Two Minnesotans in the latest 2018 Rivals100

Tre told Krysten Peek at the Team USA camp that Duke, Arizona, and Baylor are the programs recruiting him the hardest. Minnesota may have chosen to not focus their efforts too much on him, as many think he's a Duke lock.

Minnesota is obviously sitting well with Race Thompson, as he grew up rooting for the team and has family connections with Darrell being his father. He'd likely have a much longer offer list if he had played on D1 Minnesota's 17U team, but the program chooses to play their guys by age (with Matthew Hurt being the rare exception). The offers will start to come for him soon.

Daniel Oturu is long and athletic and is Pulley's leading rebounder despite playing just 14 minutes per game. I'd look for him to pick up several offers this July eval period.

Anyone know if he was able to get into the U and walkon for football? Been awhile since we had an update on him

From Gophersports.com, on Lingen:

University of Minnesota tight end Brandon Lingen was named to the 2016 John Mackey Award Preseason Watch List today. The award is given annually to most outstanding collegiate tight end.

The junior from Wayzata, Minn., played in 12 games last year and started 10. He caught 33 passes for 428 yards and three touchdowns. Lingen had two 100-yard receiving games last year and was named Minnesota's Tight End of the Year and All-Big Ten Honorable Mention. Lingen was also named CoSIDA Academic All-America second team and Academic All-Big Ten.

Lingen caught the first and second touchdown of him career at Purdue last year. He also caught five passes for a career-high 111 yards against Michigan (fourth-most by a Gopher tight end since 1950 and most by a tight end since Ben Utecht had 104 against Wisconsin in 2001). Lingen scored one touchdown and caught six passes for 105 yards at Iowa. His two 100-yard receiving games last year (111 vs Michigan and 106 at Iowa) made him the first Gopher tight end to have two 100-yard games in the same season since at least 1950.

The award recipient is selected by vote of the John Mackey Award Selection Committee and the 2016 Mackey Award recipient will be announced on Dec. 7, 2016, and then presented live on Dec. 8, 2016 at The Home Depot College Football Awards Red Carpet Show.

NFL Hall of Fame member John Mackey is considered to be the best to have played the tight end position. A tight end by whom all others are measured, Mackey was a role model on and off the field as demonstrated by his Super Bowl Championship, his commitment to community and his place in history as the first President of the NFLPA.

From Gophersports.com, on Leidner:

University of Minnesota quarterback Mitch Leidner was named to the Maxwell Award watch list today. The award, which is celebrating its 80th anniversary this year, is named in honor of Robert W. "Tiny" Maxwell and has been given to America's College Player of the Year since 1937. Maxwell's contributions to the game of football were extensive, including time as a player, a sportswriter and an official.

Leidner is a senior and is one of 90 student-athletes on the preseason list. The Lakeville, Minn. native has played in 35 career games (20-15 record) and started 29 (16-13 record). He has rushed for 1,129 career yards and 23 career touchdowns (second most in school history for a quarterback) and has passed for 5,118 yards (sixth most in school history) and 28 touchdowns (eighth most in school history). Leidner ranks fifth all-time in school history in completion percentage (56.4), sixth in completions (407) and tied for sixth in attempts (722). Leidner is one of only two Minnesota quarterbacks to pass and rush for 20 career touchdowns (Rickey Foggie rushed for 24 and passed for 33 from 1984-87).

Last season, Leidner set a program record for a junior in completions (242) and passing yards (2,701). He set career highs in completions (27) at Ohio State, attempts at Colorado State (45) and passing yards (317) against Michigan.

He passed for 301 yards against Nebraska and 317 yards against Michigan in consecutive weeks to become the first Gopher since 1995 to throw for 300 or more yards in back-to-back games (Cory Sauter 303 vs Northwestern and 404 vs Michigan State). Leidner passed for 301 yards against Nebraska, 317 yards against Michigan and 281 yards at Ohio State and 259 yards at Iowa to tie Mike Hohensee's 1982 school record of passing for at least 250 yards in four straight games. Leidner passed for 250 yards or more in five games (Ohio, Nebraska, Michigan, Ohio State and Iowa) to become the first Gopher quarterback to have five 250-yard games in a season since Adam Weber had five in 2007.

PAIGE SPIRANAC












EMILY DIDONATO

No current posts. Threads showing are from a year or so ago.

Regarding the JRob/Xanax scandal, I said in an earlier thread that I was resisting the idea of speculating about who was involved and what the final outcome of this mess would be. But, last Thursday when the Hennepin County Police declined to charge the four wrestlers who were selling the drugs "for lack of evidence", they also released their final Police Report on the case. This report included redacted interviews with the accused wrestlers, as well as redacted letters written to explain what they had learned from this experience.

While, the names and other obvious information were redacted (covered up with black Magic Marker), the report left the birthdays of the source of the drugs and of the 4 drug sellers. So, anyone who was curious enough to research those birthdays could pretty much identify who some of the key players were.

The roster page on the Gopher Wrestling website used to have the birthdays of each wrestler listed. But, these were removed lately to protect the wrestlers.

Still, with a little sleuthing, it wasn't hard to figure out who most of them were. And, then reading other Rivals websites for IA and PSU, they filled in the rest of the names. (By the way, IA and PSU have their own Wrestling Forums and they post a massive amount of wrestling threads...included some very, very good and detailed ones on Gopher Wrestling! Besides The Guillotine Forum, they are both amazing sources of real time wrestling information!!).

Anyway, I now know who the drug source was and who the 4 drug sellers were, and this gives me a much better understanding of why JRob is fighting so hard for the best possible resolution of this case. Remember that none of the 4 drug sellers were criminally charged in the county police investigation, but the real question is: With the U of M investigation still ongoing, will they be suspended or removed completely from the team. This question is what is causing the investigation to TAKE SO LONG!!! Because if they are removed from the team, the team will take a big hit that will seriously damage our team results over the next several years!

There is speculation on the other sites that the 4 sellers will get kicked off the team and that they will have to transfer elsewhere. And there is legitimate speculation that we may lose a shot at a couple of great 2017 recruits - #8 182 lb. Jacob Warner (Washington, IL) and #9 160 lb. Brady Berge (Kasson-Mantorville, MN), whose brother Broc transferred to Minny from IA last year. Both wrestlers currently have MN on their last 5 lists, and Flowrestling's Willie Saylor just wrote today that he thinks Berge is going Minny or Purdue (Berge is a good friend of Griffin Parriott (New Prague) who is a Purdue commit).

And, there is even some speculation starting that we may lose one or more of our recent 2016 commits.

Yes, I know that it looks like I've really gone over to the side of speculation!! At least temporarily!


In discussing this mess lately, we've all spent almost all of our time on what would happen to J...and would he get fired. Yes, this is a big question and, yes, I do care about what happens to J. But the bigger question is...will the U have the basis to kick these 4 drug sellers off the team??

I know J wants to stay on and continue building one last Natty Championship Team. And I hope he gets the chance to do so. But, if he is fired, or has to resign, if we get a great new coach into the job immediately, we can still cut the damage to the team considerably (I still think it's Damion Hahn with Kyle Dake as a key asst., many on other sites are calling for the return of Marty Morgan).

Lots of sources say that J has worked incredibly hard to protect and shield these kids from receiving a felony on their record and from having their wrestling careers damaged. As a last resort, I think J would resign in return for complete immunity for the 4 drug selling and 10+ drug taking wrestlers (who might also be facing a suspension). J has likely sacrificed himself and his job to protect the kids involved... and I think he understands this. So if it gets to that point, whatever happens to J, happens.

I just hope that these key wrestlers are not removed from the team...as this will significantly hurt us and may derail our return TO THE TOP, for a couple years, or for A LONG TIME!!! They were not criminally charged so they should not face expulsion; maybe at the worst a suspension).

I know that you want to hear the names.

But, the names of the 4 selling wrestlers have not been released and it's not my right to release them. They are all still minors and deserve as much protection as possible!! Their names will come out when the U of M investigation is completed, which I hope will be ASAP / THIS WEEK!

It's been long enough and we need to get this resolved, with as little damage as possible, and move on.

Hopefully then we will still be climbing...BACK TO THE TOP!!
GO GOPHER WRESTLING!!!

Interesting. So it sounds like they gutted all the intellectual property from the rivals site and ran across the street. Now they are celebrating the merger of GI with scout, and the reinstatement of the war room.

Us old members remember when we demanded such a feature and even a board to track them. Now apparently rivals is not allowed to use the war room such as it was.

Since GI was allowed to deteriorate so badly, wonder why I should be enthused about a GI at Scout.

I think yahoo and rivals has warts, but this sxout merger is very troubling. It will interesting if I terminate Scout, go to 247, and keep limping along here to give hyphen his deserved chance.

That is all. We return you to your regularly scheduled broadcast.

Heading to Lincoln for the first time to see a game this fall.

Where has the team stayed in the past, where is the biggest contingent of Gopher fans staying?

Best place to eat, best lot to tailgate in? Any other suggestions for traveling to Lincoln?