Minnesota Gophers football schedule is TOUGH! - Minnesota Sports Chat

[Music] there's never a dull moment when it comes to Minnesota sports rather it's positives [Applause] or negative Yankees have swept the Twins Minnesota sports chat has you covered talking nothing but Minnesota sports all year long it's time now for the soon to be award-winning if only in his own mind Minnesota sports chat with your host Ross brendel and here we go welcome Inside Edition number 167 of the soon to be award-winning Minnesota sports chats award-winning yes as the open States if only in my own mind you know the drill I will beg you I implore you I might even pay you to rate and review Minnesota sports chat and please make sure your family and friends know all about this pod if you wouldn't mind you can even just send them the link of how you listen whether that be via your favorite podcast machine or maybe you're now watching on YouTube however you find the Pod I really appreciate you making time for me each and every week if you're listening on that score North taxi Squad feed thank you I also encourage you to subscribe to Minnesota sports chat wherever it is that you get your podcasts sticking with the familiar format of one guest today the that's one guest is Mr gopher's Guru and Vikings Corner himself Daniel house at Daniel house NFL on that fine Twitter machine how you doing buddy great to see you great to see you soaking up the off season working on some projects big story drop it next week hinting on that that'll be fun one for people to read do tell can we have like a 10 second teaser I I can't give you any teaser on this oh wow it's that it's that good it it'll it's it's gonna be a good one oh I want to know I can't give away I can't give away any information it's it's just uh it's a feature though I can tell you that much okay all right but I'm not gonna say with who we're gonna do things a little bit differently today Daniel typically I'll close the podcast with things like five filler questions house maintenance any fun little gimmicky bit that I've come up with but it is I don't want to say it's the the downright dull drums I know I said this the last week or two because it really isn't but in all honesty it is a slower time for sports even though the twins are playing pretty much each and every day Timberwolves done while done Vikings working on OTAs and mini camps but you know it's just it's kind of that season there's not a lot happening that is official so we're gonna start with house maintenance and let me hit my hammer sound here I'm working on a bit for you too an actual open where did I move oh my where did I move this Hammer to give me one second there it is I think this is it and there we go there we go I'm Daniel house um we'll both take a crack at this one fix or tweak the name image and likeness in college athletics so I did a lot of thinking here Daniel I I really did when I floated this to you yesterday that we would talk about this this one there's just no good ways to fix this or tweak it so my first thought was well let's put some form of cap in play by Sport and then if you go over the cap you just have to pay the other teams in University some money well that's not going to fix anything because the Alabama's the USC's of the world the Texas is they'll just go way over and they'll pay their little luxury tax and move on and I kept trying to think of other ways is it you can only pay x amount of players could you try something like that and the the best that I could come up with and I don't even think that this really fixes anything Daniel it would basically just be some form of I don't even want to say penalty but are there things you could do and I don't even have this fleshed out because I I just what is happening right now Daniel I knew would happen from the get-go I didn't think it would change the sport that much I thought teams like Minnesota or universities like Minnesota could maybe have a bit more of a fighting chance but at the end of the day you know the Blue Bloods are always going to pay What It Takes and that's going to price people like Minnesota out of the market so circling back to where I started Daniel I think the best thing you could do would be some form of a cap or some form of luxury tax gets paid out so then universities like Minnesota who have a lot of athletic department debt could at least maybe take that money and essentially rob Peter to pay Paul but I don't think that that levels the playing field on the field on the court on the ice in any which way I think with nil no matter how you tweak this or try and fix it the rich are gonna get richer or at the end of the day it's just gonna stay the status quo when not a lot is going to change do you have any brilliant or half-brained ideas that you think could level the playing field a little bit more when it comes to nil over the past month I've had a lot of conversations with people in the business and the one thing I would say comes up consistently is the idea of a salary cap of some sort and maybe it's brilliant it's tiered so there's a certain amount of uh money that can go to specific players on the roster but then again some people say uh you know does that create a thing where you know not everybody's being treated equally on the roster um also there's the talk of eventually down the road here just making the players employees and paying them and figuring out a structure to incorporate the cap the the a cap in that way nil the whole purpose of nil is to allow players to capitalize on their name image and likeness but it shifted into the pay for play and you got the tampering of the portal going on the portal plays into this a lot as well we all talk about nil but the portal aspect of it is huge because what you have happening is players are getting calls from other schools with money being thrown their way and they're saying hey come play for us and it changes the landscape of not just we we talk about it in the sense of college football but like think about college baseball for example when Minnesota baseball was so successful a few years ago with with Max Meyer and vavra and those players you think about a southern school calling those guys offering them an nil package they're coming into John Anderson's office and saying hey I got a chance to go play in a Southern School weather's warm massive facilities versus a northern school like Minnesota so there the portal aspect of it in my opinion if you want to fix something you know sort of patch up what you got without making the salary cap jump you focus on clamping down on the portal regulating the portal and preventing situations where people are tampering with players but how do you do that you know because everybody's doing it right now so it's it's one of those moments where the regulation wasn't set in place this thing got tossed out and then the portal and nil there's weaknesses in both areas and now you got to figure out which one you want to attack you brought up a great Point by the way so often and I'm very guilty of this you think of nil at least at the University of Minnesota you think about it in three Sports you think football basketball and then hockey most major universities have two or three as well football basketball and for a lot of them you can sub in baseball those Southern universities like you talked about but nil is literally every College athlete that plays any sport so this is not just a football issue again I mean you throw in the other sports hockey basketball baseball yeah people think about it but the biggest place that they think about it is college football it is more than just a football issue it is a college athletics issue and that I think is what makes it so difficult you may in the long run have to come up with a set of rules that applies to each individual sport that's possible just because the Dynamics are so different from sport to Sport and the situations are you know always going to differ slightly and I don't know if there's a perfect solution just because now you have gone so far in this direction how are you going to pull back and I I've heard from people they say eventually it's it will be the employee you sign a contract that whole realm of it comes into into play here paying the players through name image and likeness makes so much sense it's perfect it's awesome deal I've I've heard a lot of success stories and talked to people about how nil is going and how players are benefiting from it and it's phenomenal it's it's outstanding but I feel like the portal side of it is what makes this whole thing you know different than just name image and likeness and the pay for play side of it because we know that it's it's occurring and the tamperates take place topic number two for house maintenance we'll get back to uh College athletics specifically Golden Gopher College Football talking about the 2024 recruiting class and I want to talk about the Golden Gopher football schedule as well but let's uh jump outside of college let's do a little house maintenance on the Minnesota Timberwolves let's fix their roster or fix this organization in the off season house maintenance how are you tweaking or fixing the Minnesota Timberwolves this off season Daniel or are you not and I Tee It Up that way because I thought long and hard about this one as well and here's what decide that I came down on you want to go first no you go ahead okay I want to hear what you have to say okay I came down on this side if somebody offers you I don't care where they would be because you know a team that's looking to acquire Carl Anthony towns which any team more than likely if they acquire him it's going to be a team that's already pretty good so they're acquiring their number two or number three in Karl Anthony towns that automatically puts the draft pick somewhere between late 20s early 30s in the NBA so if I'm gonna do that I don't think any team is going to be as susceptible as the Wolves were to giving up half their draft picks for the next 10 years five first rounders for Rudy gobert do I think cat in the grand scheme of things should be worth more than Rudy yeah he probably should be but that's not how the real world operates so I would say if a team offers you three first round picks I think you just do the deal because you're recouping some of the assets that you gave up for getting Rudy gobert and you're not going to trade Rudy this off season for pennies on the dollar you're probably gonna hold on to them for at least one more season I do lean this way and this pains me because I've said I thought Karl Anthony towns would be traded this off season if I was in charge I may not do that uh I may try and see how this goes if it spirals out of control again you're only going to make because you bring back cat and Rudy and you have and you don't have a ton of money so your roster kind of is what it is but maybe I force A team's hand at the trade deadline if the Timberwolves are again Milling somewhere around the play-in or lower than that if this thing just is not working out however the caveat would be if a team blows me away with a nice little player package and three plus first round picks I would do it right away so my way to tweak or fix the Minnesota Timberwolves Daniel is basically to not and punt on it in the off season and try and string this thing along as far as possible unless a team is going to give you three plus first round picks then I think you have to do it because at some point this is going to become less about trying to make it work with this group of players and more about building the team around Aunt Edwards I've heard theories both ways uh running it back like you mentioned or trading towns I lean in the trade towns Camp especially if you can get a top pick this year where maybe Portland OR Houston is willing to give you their pick at three or four and you're able to get a guard like scoot Henderson from the G League who you know I want to see the Wolves pick up a dynamic point guard it now feels like the perfect time to do it when you have Mike Conley who can mentor a young point guard along and great Point build around build around Anthony Edwards and Jade McDaniels and bring back Nazarite who when he got hurt and injured his wrist or his hand or whatever he did that was a huge development because he was playing at extremely high level in the minutes that he provided were a huge lift he's got so much energy on a defensive and he attacks the glass uh you know he's got a good jumper too for a big man I would trade towns just because it hasn't worked out just when you when I watch these games I get so annoyed with the in-game Antics and and just like whining the whole game and that type of stuff isn't going to help your team be successful and so I I'd get rid of it while you can still get something major for him and then build around ant Jaden McDaniels I think you buy your own equity and credibility too with officiating in all sports some pitchers get pitches from umpires because let's be honest the Umpire just likes the pitcher a bit more some hitters get calls from umpires players in the NBA generally the better player you are you get more calls some get more than others the ones that tend to get less calls are the ones that tend to always be complaining and in the years of the officials and it's not a constructive hey I thought I was doing this or hey why can't I get away with this why did he get this call and I didn't it isn't that with cat and oftentimes that even gets picked up on cameras and at this point Daniel and where I do agree with you is about a decade in what is really ever going to change with Carl Anthony towns I I know he to a degree wants to be here wants to make it work because that's basically the promise he made after Flip Saunders passed away and I do get that but things change change people change situations change and I wonder if maybe he at some point would see the value in just going somewhere else but I I don't even know if that'll ever happen because I do think even if he is only the two or maybe a three on a really good team Daniel I think he's always going to view himself as a number one and therein lies the problem well and when you trade for Rudy gobert and you have two bigs in a league that's smaller and spaces the floor uh you watch these teams play that recipe doesn't feel like it worked I mean it's hard to evaluate it completely just because towns missed so much time and you didn't get as many games but I'm still a believer that the smaller lineup not having the two bigs is where the game is heading in the NBA so I would do everything I could to make a move there I remember you know the whole playoff thing where Anthony Edwards was going to Carl Anthony's towns's house and having a conversation with them and I'm just like you know come on man you shouldn't have to be doing that as a young player with someone like Carl Anthony towns and the amount of focus that is lost in these games by just getting upset about things dial in and be a dial in and be a pro that that's what drives me insane you watch Anthony Edwards he dials in he's he's Beyond his age in terms of maturity level and competitive fire he's still learning he's got things to to get better at but you watch his competitive fire and his mindset that's how you you want to be when you're a star yeah and shouldn't be going to any player's house or place of living who's been in the league four or five years longer than ant has what I do love about that is you know ant will have the willingness to do that when it's the rookie that the Timberwolves have drafted or maybe the younger free agent that they brought in because he does have that leadership quality to him that I'm just not sure and some guys just don't have it so I'm not blaming Carl Anthony towns for it but from a distance it just doesn't seem like Karl Anthony towns does have it one group who does have it they bring their a game each and every day it's Beans Coffee Company it is now summer finally 90-ish degrees over the next week here in the Upper Midwest time to get outside time to have some fun with your family with your friends your co-workers maybe it's a block party bring the friendly folks from Beans Coffee Company out yeah that's right they can be at your special event super simple what do they have for you it's great they have a pop-up shop and it's taking reservations it can be at all those events hot coffee if you like that hot coffee in the summer I still do cold coffee espresso drinks drip coffee and so much more all available to you at coffeebuybeans.com go there get more information on that pop-up shop and get registered to have them at your event while you're there don't forget use that promo code Sports Chat at checkout you'll save on their great great coffee so many wonderful Blends they ship anywhere in the United States free shipping on all orders of 35 or more visit coffeebybeans.com that is coffeebuybeans.com and get yourself some delicious drip coffee Daniel house looking at some of the names that the Golden Gophers have on their short list and high school kids across the country that have included the Golden Gophers on their short list hard not to be excited about that I think we're starting to reach the stage in the PJ Fleck regime where it's a lot easier for him to go into the living rooms of I don't want to say well-established high school players because you never really know but at least names that people are high on and I don't want to rip people but they're not going to the Ohio Bobcats of the world or the Louisiana Lafayette raging Cajuns of the world these are kids who are choosing between Miami Oregon Florida some of these types of schools it's a good place to be if you're the University of Minnesota still have to get them still have to develop them but your chance at success is is higher when you're getting that better grade of athlete yeah and Minnesota's doing an outstanding job in state recruiting as well you look at someone like koi Paris parich from Esco Minnesota who I thought was one of the best film cuts that I watched of anybody across the whole country I mean it's a different level of play up there but you look at the athletic ability straight line speed short area quickness was you know busting off explosive runs as well on the other side of the ball I like to look at how players uh perform on each side of the ball the more versatility you have the better translation it is and he was a very good basketball player but the lower body explosiveness ability to trigger downhill the instincts all those things I was incredibly impressed with the film he received so much interest from Big schools like you mentioned some of these guys are getting the attention a lot of high profile programs I look at him being someone that Minnesota just did an outstanding job of recruiting early on in the process Rossi and Fleck go going up to basketball games and making him a priority it huge there General themes about the class you look at like Riley sunrab g day abbasiri most sane all long explosive uh defensive linemen with versatility and move all over uh that those are a few traits that in general that stand out and that's where you want to get with this pass rush you want to have weapons that can move all over I remember leaving last year's camp at Minnesota and Riley Sun Ram was one of the best he was the best player on the field and Minnesota offered him after the camp and then recruited him kept building a relationship and now able to land him I mean lots of different developmental tracks that sun Ram can follow because of his versatility and then not only that you look at someone like Zahir Raynor from Virginia a safety again another player who has outstanding versatility one of his favorite players was Antoine Winfield Jr so a big part of the process was selling that he can play that type of role within the system Blitzer can kick inside of the nickel come down in the Box do things for you just extremely versatile and athletic playmaker who is physical to deliver some big hits across the middle I just like the mix of players that that they've added thus far across position groups uh I know the last player I really wanted to touch on was Drake Lindsay quarterback from Arkansas who's their 2024 get I did a huge film breakdown on the website one of my favorite ones I've done the whole time that I've been covering the Gophers because I saw so many things that were Advanced from him he suffered a really really bad injury early on in his high school career patelliton 10 and tear ended up sitting a year comes back and you could tell he was working he can drive the football from the opposite hash with something that I look for on those Corner routes and outbreakers throws with very good anticipation and that's a trait that every successful quarterback needs to have I pulled one clip in the Red Zone where he moved Defenders with his eyes and you watched the whole second and third level of the defense movement he's throwing it to a spot on the back end line in the red zone and he got that ball right in there in perfect spot and I saw a lot of throws where that anticipation showed up moving Defenders that next level thinking side of it and the ability to drive the football so I'm a big fan of Drake Lindsay I could talk a lot about these guys we should do an episode just on each player real quick hitters but I like how this class is coming together definitely one that fans will enjoy for years to come and now it's just all about rounding it out I think sometime in early to mid-august we'll do a season pre preview where we also maybe the front half talk about the season the back half we talk about more of these 2024 recruits Otto Rogers four-star recruit defensive lineman white Gilmore I want to ask you about him only from the standpoint of his top five includes Kansas State Oregon Oklahoma Miami and Minnesota it's Minnesota in the mix here because it's the token thing that you do when you're from a state you maybe keep them in the top three top five even if you're not going there or is this a legit option for him it's a legit option for him the Gophers have built a relationship dating back a long time ago and the players within the class are instrumental in getting other players to join them that's been one of the key takeaways that I've heard from people is the impact every other player committed in the class is having on players that are on the fence and considering what they're going to do you watch Wyatt Gilmore Bend and Pad level in the drills that I saw last year while evaluating them live fired off the ball getting leverage and the testing data supports it 85th percentile broad jump shuttle time in The 91st percentile so you have all those athletic traits and the ability to move him all over he gives you that like Lucas van s developmental track type of player where you can play him on the edge kick him inside uh you know do different things to create mismatches because of his athletic ability and so there are other programs in the mixers in southern schools like you mentioned is Oklahoma potentially a fit for him I know Kansas State he you know liking the idea of playing in a in a 3-3-5 type of Defense but you know Wyatt Gilmore early on the Gophers have built relationships with him and you know they're trying to get a password that's Dynamic and they've done a nice job of that now if they could finish the deal with white Gilmore it'd be a nice gift for him so we'll close here and I will put out the disclaimer I generally don't like playing the schedule game because you just don't know how a team is going to look when you see them some teams when you play them they might be perceived as not a very good team at the beginning of the year but if you get them at the end of the year maybe they figured things out a little bit and they're functional sometimes a team that you think is going to be really good suffers from a fair amount of injuries and they're just not very good look at Michigan State last season however when you look at the Gopher schedule this year some of that goes out the window when you play again I hate using this term but I'm going to use it again the quote-unquote Blue Bloods like Michigan and Ohio State where you could basically make an argument they could lose all 22 starters and still be better than most teams that they're going to play so CBS Sports says that the Gophers have the third toughest schedule in college football this upcoming season and I think it backs up my point on something that I've said I think the Gopher season is going to be how it's going to come down to how they play in nine games versus three and I've said this before I'm hoping to be wrong I just don't see much of a chance that you're going to win at North Carolina that you're going to win at Ohio State why am I blanking the Horseshoe thank you and then that you would beat Michigan if you're gonna win one of those games I waffle between Michigan and North Carolina maybe North Carolina you surprise them early maybe Michigan you get them because it's at home but logic would tell me you're 0 and 3 right there so your path to getting to bowl eligibility is the is the other nine games and I said this before or a couple weeks back had on Twitter a few weeks ago too at the Ross brundle I think if this team gets to six and six it's a bit of a heist some of the blowback was oh setting expectations low early and I would say no this this in theory is going to be a difficult schedule so if this team that is I don't want to necessarily say rebuilding because they're not but they're probably not as far along as you would like them to be with those three teams that I named on the schedule I would take six and six yeah it this schedule here's what I'll say about the schedule is there are a lot of unknowns with some of these programs as well Wisconsin making a huge offensive change I'm working on a piece right now diving into the air raid and just analyzing what fans can expect as per Wisconsin Purdue both will be running it North Carolina on Minnesota's schedule chip Lindsay Phil Longo left North Carolina went to Wisconsin chip Lindsay's taking over and is going to run the air raid but amp up the physicality of the Run game is is sort of the core belief there but I go through Ross and I believe the start of the season is key Nebraska first game of the Matt rule era offensive line play and defensive line play killed Nebraska last year Nebraska averaged 14 pressures allowed per game fifth percentile among FBS offensive lines they were just dominated up there they couldn't stop the run getting beat up front on both sides of the ball especially as the game progressed so I look at that game being able to win in the trenches do things up front that will be an X Factor Eastern Michigan last year fourth most penalties in college football second most penalty yards built their team around field position long drives good early down success the secondary brings back some talent but they were really really bad when teams got inside the 40-yard line against them so that's something to watch for uh efficiency wise you could definitely exploit some things there if they don't improve and North Carolina's defense I I have major league questions about North Carolina's defense I studied a ton of film the last month or so last year no pressure in a quarterback poor run defense a lot a lot of explosive plays defense inside the 40-yard line stunk poor turnover margin one of the worst in the in the country in that area a lot of new faces in that secondary so Drake May leading the way on offense lost Josh Downs defense has a lot of question marks early in the season maybe you're catching North Carolina at a good time but I I say early on you got to start strong if you can get through those first five games and have a lot of success entering Michigan you play Michigan bye week and then play Iowa who I think Iowa did a lot of good things in the transfer portal Ross positioning themselves to make some improvements what will that offensive scheme look like how do they handle some of the heat that they've been taking will Brian fans achieved the incentives in his contract there's a lot of fun storylines Ross Illinois going through some change as well that defense lost a ton of studs maybe one of I don't know why we didn't talk more about how good that defense was getting ready for the draft I'm like Illinois last year unbelievable defensive channel that will go down as one of the better defenses in the Big Ten West in recent memory I ask you this Daniel I say this facetiously so you don't have to answer Gophers at kinnick Gophers taking on Iowa what could go wrong I ask what could go wrong maybe the question should be what could go right maybe that's the question house uh 10 seconds or less it's my guy Pat Fitzgerald going to be awful again a lot of work to do a lot of work to do man that's what I'll leave it at you want a 10 second answer a lot of work to do what's at gophersguru.com that you can talk about I have a piece on Nathan Roy Mukwonago Wisconsin made the top three learn more about how he'd fit with the Gophers uh podcast here uh another piece of content dropping early next week that you want to check out and then uh you know just player evaluations get ready for the season studies dropping I'm having fun uh building some stuff behind the scenes here thanks bud you're the best appreciate it have a good have a good week that is at Daniel house NFL on the Twitter machine from gophersguru.com I am Ross brendel at the Ross brendel on the Twitter and Instagram machines thank you so much for listening I truly do appreciate it we'll talk again or real soon [Music]