Welcome to my first ever Golden Nugz! I want to thank all the front pagers, but especially Gopher Nation, for giving me the chance to join their illustrious club. I've enjoyed the stories and content at TDG and it's cool to be a part of the site as more than a commenter. My first original contribution will go up later this week, but for now I'm going to get to the daily Cliff Notes of what's being said about the Gophers. I'll also have some PSU links, but I'm guessing folks are alrady getting tired of that story so I'm sticking them below the jump.
Tubby Extension
Normally I'd probably keep leading with PSU (tired of it as I am), but the U decided to gift me with a quality, Gopher-centric story to lead with. As I'm sure you've already read, Tubby Smith's contract extension is FINALLY complete. Tubby and the U being "close" on terms was another story that I'm sure everyone was getting tired of, so this news comes as a relief (at least to me). Interesting that the U chose to drop the news on the same day as PSU getting hammered though since that's usually the sort of day you pick to announce news that I didn't want people paying as much attention to. However, they also haven't announced the terms yet and once they do, anyone too wrapped up in the PSU story right now will have plenty to pay attention to. Without terms, most of the stories written were basically summaries of the press release GN shared yesterday. I tried to cull a few links that went beyond that but didn't find much.
- Fuller writes a pretty standard summary, but wins a spot in the Nugz by bothering to add an angle (recruiting was hurt by no extension) and getting Jay Bilas to stop bashing the NCAA on Twitter long enough to comment on Tubby.
- Sticking with the PiPress, Sansevere keeps it short and says "Cool, now win more games."
- FBT's analysis? Put up or shut up time.
Football
Lots of previews to link to today...
- FSN previews the Gophers running backs. Nothing too new here, Gillum is key, etc.
- FSN also previewed the wide receivers. They seem higher on this group than most (with a rating of 6/10) and are most interested in who becomes the #1 receiver.
- Sticking with the previews, here are some slightly older ESPN 1500 previews that you may have missed: Tight Ends, Offensive Line, and Defensive Line. The D-Line preview is the most interesting because of the very high praise Kill gives to Hageman.
- FBT does his thing and gets all statsy and analytical on the TE/WR groups. He's concerned about this unit and reading his summary I don't disagree. He also feels that Crawford-Tufts is the best bet for an emerging #1 option.
- Shama talks to Kill about players that need to step up this season. Jerry feels that Crawford-Tufts must be one of those players if the Gophers are going to have a good year.
- Gophers picked to finish last in the Legends division by the B1G beat writers. No surprise there.
- Hageman and other defensive players packed 11,000 meals for Kids Against Hunger.
- MLive takes an early look at the Gophers/Michigan State game Thanksgiving week. The writer rightly feels the Spartans will win, but seems high on Kill overall.
- The Nebraska site BigRedNetwork wonders if Minnesota is a trap game for the Huskers.
- And just in case you need something to get you pumped up for your Tuesday, the folks at Golden Gopher Gridiron put out their 2012 Gopher Football Trailer last week.
Basketball
- Daily article on the Gophers fans watching Rodney and company at the Pulley League this summer.
- Wally Ellenson was in SI's Faces in the Crowd last week. In case you weren't aware, the guy is an athlete.
- Tom Izzo thinks the Gophers are a sleeper in the B1G.
Random Nugz
- New AD Norwood Teague brought in another colleague from VCU. This time it's associate AD Mike Ellis. Looking at his VCU profile, it's pretty clear that Ellis is another fundraiser. I see a theme emerging, and all signs point to Teague coming hard for donor money. To say that I'm pleased by this would be an very big understatement.
- Tim Brewster's tremendous ESPN Studio audition tape is up on YouTube.
- Larry Fitzgerald held his training camp at the U again.
- Are private schools taking over the MN boys HS hockey tourney?
Penn State
I'll start with the links that are at least MN related...
- What has the U learned from these terrible events?
- President Kaler supports the NCAA penalties. This is not a surprise.
- Coach Gagliardi at St. Johns feels Paterno made a horrible mistake. The lede makes it sound like he said some tone deaf stuff, but it's actually a good read and his responses show a bit more nuance than I expected.
- Should PSU become the University of Chicago? I'm actually surprised I haven't seen more of this line of thinking.
- ESPN B1G Blog has notes from the B1G conference call on the penalties. Those on the call said that kicking PSU out of the conference was on the table.
- Delany unsuprisingly says that he doesn't think they'll redo the divisions due to the sanctions.
- A B1G Blog roundup of a lot of the commentary that came out early yesterday from sportswriters.