MinnesotaSportsScene.com

The Minnesota Gophers, under new Coach Tim Brewster, slipped to 1-3 after falling to Purdue, 45-31, on Saturday. With the Gophers putting their won-lost record on a hoodia diet under Coach Brewster, some folks are beginning to wonder if Minnesota can even generate one Big 10 win this season.

Some in the local media - including those who called for his ouster only months ago - are already pining for the days of Minnesota making it to low-tier bowl games, as happened under Glen Mason. Such fickle sentiments, these guys.

Personally, I never liked the selection of Brewster, a career tight ends coach, as the captain of the maroon and gold. But now that he’s here, he deserves a longer shot at turning things around than four games, let alone a single season.

The offense is working OK; it’s Minnesota’s defense that is losing games and that was a weakness of the Mason regime as well. Let’s stay the course and give Brewster a few recruiting seasons to bring in talent and see if he can improve things.

He is a good recruiter and this is not the NFL; it’s the Big 10 and he’ll need some time to change the tone and the talent level at the U of M.

6′10″ Colton Iverson, who tips the scales at 235-lbs., committed to the Minnesota Gophers basketball team recently, locking in one of two big men spots that Smith is hoping to fill in his first recruiting season with the Gophers. Iverson needs to learn to play at a Big 10 level, but has all the makings of a scrappy rebounder, shot blocker, defender of the first order.

The question is now whether Iverson bonded with Ralph Sampson III of Duluth, GA, enough to make a difference in Sampson’s final decision. It’s early in the “early commitment” period, but Sampson is being heavily courted by Georgia Tech and Kentucky, in addition to Minnesota.

Sampson is said to have no favorites among the three yet, but Iverson and Sampson seemed to like each other and the idea of playing as teammates, so Coach Smith is hoping Iverson’s commit to Minnesota will help turn Sampson’s sentiments toward Minnesota.

The ideal would be if Sampson goes against the home-state odds favoring Georgia Tech, and commits to Minnesota, whether it happens now or later on. However, while Sampson is 6′11″ and the son of an NBA All-Pro, he’s not the only big man on Minnesota’s radar if Sampson goes elsewhere.

Among the big-men being courted by Tubby are the following:

* Orlando Allen, Paris Junior College, Texas
* Eloy Vargas, Plantation, Florida
* Stan Simpson, Chicago
* Josh Crittle, Chicago
* Steve Goins, Chicago
* Edgar Garibay, Los Angeles

Of those, Allen recently visited Minnesota and could be solid. But the sleeper among that list just might be a player who knows more about Tampa real estate than I do, Eloy Vargas, who is at least from Florida, unlike yours truly. Word is, he’s solid.

To judge by the local media, in the wake of the unexpected death by truck-train collision of former Timberwolf Eddie Griffin, the Timberwolves have gone lights-out. There hasn’t been a mention of a free agent signing (or attempted signing), a trade either successful or falling through (even though we all know that in the wake of the KG trade, Juwan Howard wants out). Heck, as far as anyone knows, no one on the Wolves roster or staff has even bought a cookware set for their wives!

But this is a time when a lot of NBA teams go dark; with less than a month to go before the Wolves open training camp, they’d rather sit back and let the headlines continue to focus on the ups and downs of the Gophers, Vikings and Twins. Let the headlines turn back to the Timberwolves when, perhaps, there might be something more exciting to write about, like all of Boston’s rejects pulling together to go undefeated in the preseason.

Or something like that. Something to make the fans forget that KG, like Elvis, has finally left the building.

The job of Twins GM Terry Ryan was never in danger.

The Minnesota Twins, unlike the New York Yankees, don’t fire people for missing the playoffs. Not unless it was a monumentally bad, bottom-of-the-league season, and sometimes not even then! (Anyone remember that the Twins stuck with Tom Kelly and went from worst to first a couple decades ago?

So, no, Terry Ryan’s job was always secure in Minnesota. Anyone who wins a division title in four of the last six seasons is A-OK on job security in Minnesota’s book.

But last week, Ryan shocked nearly everyone by announcing he’d be stepping down at the end of the season as the Twins general manager. But Ryan won’t become a spendy guest speaker at auto shows, talking about car spoilers. Nor will he be looking for work with another ball club.

He’s only 52, after all, and he has plenty left to offer the Twins organization. Instead, by his own choice, he’s stepping down from being GM to return to the Twins’ scouting ranks.

You see, despite 12 seasons at the top of the pecking order, Ryan decided to go “quality of life” and return to what he enjoys most… scouting talent for the Twins. And he’s one of the best at it; he never cared for being a paper shuffler or all of the business-oriented administrative duties that come with being GM.

Taking his place will be 49-year-old Billy Smith, an internal promotion for the Twins, who’ve made a habit of churning out top baseball executives, not just great player scouting.

It will be interesting to see if Smith is ready to step up to the plate and perform at a level worthy of the man he’s succeeding.

Orlando vacations might be the order of the day for quarterbacks playing for teams named after Minnesota. During Saturday’s Minnesota Gophers game, freshman QB Adam Weber may have passed for over 330 yards and four scores, but it is the four times he was intercepted that determined the Gophers’ fate.

For the Vikings, QB Tavaris (T-Jack) Jackson wasn’t about to be outdone by a college QB. In the Vikings’ game against the Detroit Lions on Sunday, T-Jack matched Weber … by also throwing four INTs. Against the Lions. And unfortunately, the second-year leader, starting full-time for the first time in his pro career, didn’t make up for it by tossing four TDs and passing for over 330 yards, either. Instead, he fell short of passing for 170 yards by just four yards. The final line on T-Jack? 17-33-4-166 with no scores.

And to make matters worse, T-Jack was injured in the game and may miss time due to a leg injury, leaving the Vikings gasping for breath with only Brooks Bollinger and Kelly Holcomb to turn to. Who’s thinking now that trying to slip rookie QB Tyler Thigpen past waivers and onto the practice squad was such a hot idea, eh? Thigpen, who could have at least added depth to the position, is now a Kansas City Chief.

Ralph Sampson III, son of the 7′4″ former NBA center, is already a big boy himself, and a player who never would have considered the Minnesota Gophers program were it not for high-profile new coach Tubby Smith.

As part of his campus visit this past weekend, Smith took Sampson to the Gophers football game, where the maroon and gold barely survived MAC opponent Miami of Ohio. It was coach Tim Brewster’s second game as Minnesota football coach and also his second overtime game; this time, his team won. Part of the credit goes to an improved performance by Gophers QB Adam Webster, who was redshirted last year and is in this freshman year of eligibility this season as a result; he has a chance to be a four-year starter. Webster passed for 271 yards, four TDs and rushed for 97 yards in the win.

Sampson was impressed with Smith, the Gophers team and his visit in general, but admitted that for the moment, he has no favorites among the schools he’s considering. Those include, in addition to Tubby’s team, Smith’s former school Kentucky, Maryland, Clemson, Southern California, Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech (another school Smith once coached).

Still, word on the street is that Sampson, who’s tall enough to work on cabinet hardware without benefit of a ladder in most cases, may favor Georgia Tech, being that he’s a Georgia native.

It’s nothing to get too excited about yet. After all, the Falcons are without their dog-fighting QB and are starting a never-was like Joey Harrington at the position because they made a major error in trading away former backup Matt Schaub, not with Houston and leading them to victory on Sunday over Kansas City.

But even without the PETA Public Enemy Number One at the helm, the Falcons have a decent defense and still were overpowered by the Vikings, 24-3, on Sunday in Coach Brad Childress’ second-season debut.

First-round draft pick got the bulk of the workload when Chester Taylor went down with a hip pointer in the first quarter, but Adrian Peterson shined, racking up 101 yards on the ground and making the most acrobatic catch of the day when he turned a simple screen to the flat into a 60-yard gain.

The Vikings secondary looked improved, the pass rush was impressive, and the QB and receivers… didn’t lose the game for us. That counts for something, although they still have plenty to prove.

The question is, can they do it consistently? Folks will remember Childress won several of his first five or six games last season and struggled to add to that total after that.

Here’s hoping this year’s Vikes have more staying power. With Peterson on the field, it’s entirely possible. Buy your birthday invitations for him now… he’s looking like the team savior at this point!

Teams make dumb moves sometimes; with the Vikings it sometimes seems like a bad habit they just can’t shake. Over the weekend, they committed their latest. It’s a blunder that’s not on the scale of not getting their draft pick to the podium on time, but it’s not a smart move, either.

In the seventh round this year, the Vikings drafted young, promising quarterback Tyler Thigpen. Sure, he wasn’t ready for prime time, but he looked good enough not to toss out carelessly after one training camp.

But the Vikings tried to get away with a “shuffle him to the practice squad” move because they didn’t have enough faith in Brooks Bollinger as the primary backup to T-Jack (Tavaris Jackson), so they brought in hopeless, hapless, helpless Kelly Holcomb to take the third-string QB spot, which forced the Vikes to either get Thigpen through waivers and onto the practice squad for a year, or cut him outright. They could have even attempted a trade.

But nope. Instead, as nearly everyone except Coach Childress and company expected, at least two claims were put on Thigpen and he was awarded to the Kansas City Chiefs, who immediately made him part of their active roster - third-string, if NFL buzz is accurate.

Now watch for a few years. Thigpen could easily develop into an NFL starter somewhere else, long after the geriatric Holcomb’s career is buried in a shallow, unmarked grave. Maybe we should all watch the Vikings season from the Golden Nugget Las Vegas casino; clearly, the Vikes are a team that likes to gamble … despite not being very good at it.

TwinCities.com columnist Charley Walters is reporting that Princeton, MN, seven-footer Jared Berggren is still firmly setting his post-high school sights on the University of Wisconsin as his basketball destination, despite the fact that his home-state Gophers squad now has the legendary Tubby Smith as the program’s head coach.

I guess Larry the Cable Guy is right: there’s no fixing stupid. Choosing UW-Madison over the Gophers was a smart move when Dan Monson was at the head of the program, but when you could play for someone as prestigious as Tubby Smith without leaving your home state, well… that’s like being offered a chance to be the next Tiger Woods and saying that you’d prefer to service golf cart parts instead.