Minnesota Gophers Preseason Fall Sports Updates

With preseason cap in full swing for several sports, here’s some nugs to catch you up.

Gopher Football:

New Star Tribune Gopher Football beat writer Randy Johnson has a great profile on Gopher senior defensive lineman Steven Richardson.

He also has a blog that recaps what he is hearing about the starting quarterback race after the Gophers closed scrimmage on Saturday.

Andy Greder of the Pioneer Press also recaps the starting quarterback competition.

Just like the diaper drive the Gophers held at one of their open practices a week or so ago, they once again want people coming to practice to help the community. This time its the Gopher Specialists getting into the act in getting people to bring canned goods to Tuesday’s final open practice of fall camp.

A certain relatively unpopular ESPN writer is now covering college football in addition to college basketball and had an article on PJ Fleck if you care to read it.

Gopher Football Alums:

We covered this in more detail last Friday but here is a picture of the three Gophers who played in the New England Patriots and Jacksonville Jaguars preseason game last Thursday:

Briean Boddy-Calhoun keeps getting a lot of positive attention in Cleveland for his play in the Browns secondary.

Gopher Men’s Basketball:

Gopher Coach Richard Pitino has a new blog out talking about how he will try and keep his team humble and hungry into the season now that they are getting some national praise.

The Gophers are still looking for the fourth member of their 2018 recruiting class after Apple Valley’s Tre Jones announced he would follow in his brothers footsteps and attend Duke Sunday evening. The announcement was not unexpected, but Minnesota fans had held out hope that Jones would join his three Howard Pulley AAU teammates on the Gophers.

Gopher Men’s Hockey

The NHL Network is counting down the top players in position groups in the NHL and two former Gophers made the list of the Top 20 Wings currently in the NHL. Congrats to Phil Kessel and Blake Wheeler.

Gopher Women’s Hockey

USA Hockey announced the roster for the 2017 US Women’s U-18 US Select Team that will complete in a three game series against Canada this weekend. The majority of this team will then complete in the U-18 World Championships in Russia in January. The team is coached by Gopher associate head coach Joel Johnson who has led the US to three straight gold medals at the World Championships. Of the 22 players on the roster, six are committed to the Gophers. They include seniors Gracie Ostertag (Shattuck St. Mary’s), and Taylor Heise (Red Wing); juniors Sydney Shearen (White Bear Lake) and Madeline Wethington (Blake); and sophomores Maggie Nicholson (Minnetonka), and Abbey Murphy (Evergreen Park, IL)

Gopher Soccer

The Minnesota soccer team is picked to finish fifth in the Big Ten this season by the Big Ten Coaches. Three players were named to the Big Ten Preseason Honors list: Seniors Maddie Gaffney, and Tori Burnett and junior Emily Heslin.

The Gophers went 2-0 in preseason exhibition play defeating Creighton 1-0 in Omaha and Kansas State 2-0 at home. They begin the season for real this weekend with a game Friday night at Washington State that will air live on the Pac-12 network if you are one of the 5 people that get that channel.

Gopher Volleyball

The preseason ranked #4 Gophers will host an open scrimmage on Saturday at the Pav. Doors open at 1:30, and warmups will begin at 2:30. Minnesota opens the season for real in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge in Madison where the Gophers will face #11 North Carolina and Louisville on August 25th and 26th.