College Football Season Starts With Surprises

UMD Volleyball Rides Upset of Tampa 

John Gilbert

It is time that the UMD Bulldogs put the college football team back on its properly spinning axis. The Bulldogs open at home against Wayne State in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference.

A week ago, an otherwise unremarkable Thursday loomed as the most significant single day for Minnesota-based college and pro football fans. Opening regular-season games were there for the UMD Bulldogs, the University of Minnesota, and the final exhibition game for the Vikings – all on Thursday.

Unfortunately, all three of those significant games resulted in losses. The Vikings dropped their exhibition at Tennessee, which was no big deal, except for those of us eager to watch Oregon star Marcus Mariotta play a series as a Tennessee starting quarterback. For the record, he completed two passes, the second for 59 yards and a touchdown against the Vikings starting defense.

The Gophers fell to a very good and very quick Texas Christian outfit but they acquitted themselves well. Made me wonder if TCU really was good enough to be ranked No. 2 in the country, simply because they could beat you all day with quickness, speed and finesse, but they didn’t seem equipped to succeed, or even survive, if the play called for the Horned Frogs to turn tough and ram their way through where no hole existed.
UMD, on the other hand, fell into a disappointing reversal at Minnesota State Mankato. No disgrace, losing to the nation’s No. 1 Division II team, but there also was no glory in building a 17-0 lead late in the second quarter, only to lose the game 20-17.

UMD was very good in jumping at opportunities through the first half, and the Mankato fans had to be stunned as the Mavericks fell behind. It was sweltering hot in Mankato, and while UMD coach Curt Wiese wouldn’t use it as an excuse, the Mavericks are used to that River Valley sauna-like weather. It’s possible that the Bulldogs wilted in the second half.


That was just about the time that Mankato switched from ineffective starting quarterback Ricky Lloyd to Nick Pieruccini. All Pieruccini did was throw a quick out pass to Ty Dennis, who caught the ball during a quick stop that eluded UMD’s defenders, then he sprinted down the right sideline to complete a 72-yard touchdown play and make it 17-10. A field goal made it 17-13, and, with the field seeming more and more tilted as the second half evolved, Pieruccini ran for a touchdown that boosted the Mavericks to the 20-17 victory.

So coming home for their opener will give the Bulldogs a chance to put things back into perspective. We know that quarterback Drew Bauer, running back Logan Lauters, and the traditionally tough UIMD defense can put on a string of victories. The difference is, now they will have to.

A couple of days later, on last Saturday, St. Scholastica did a Division III rendition of the Bulldogs – building a 16-3 lead at Ripon, only to blow it and lose 17-16 in an even more unkind reversal for Duluth’s “other” college football team. We’ve come to expect excellence from the Saints, much like the Bulldogs, so when they went off to Ripon for a nonconference opener, we had no reason to expect anything but victory.

It seemed to be heading that direction, too, when the Saints gained a 16-3 lead early in the third quarter. But right about then, the tables turned. Decker Thompson jumped on the blocked extra point try and returned it 98 yards. A lot of us might have wondered why he was running so hard, forgetting the fairly new, and fairly rare, rule that says if you can return an interception or blocked kick all the way, you get two points.

That meant the Saints lead was cut to 16-5. Odd score. But only a couple minutes later, the same Decker Thompson intercepted a pass by Dakota Paulson and ran it in 48 yards for a touchdown. When it was over, Ripon had won 17-16 – with the difference between winning and losing coming down to the weird rule that gives you two points for returning a missed extra point.

Because the Bulldogs, Gophers and Vikings all played last Thursday, it made the weekend somewhat anticlimactic. However, it also gave us the chance to watch and admire some other games, where we didn’t have a huge stake.

You had to like Northwestern, which might have been the most impressive Big Ten team of opening weekend. The Wildcats welcomed perennial Pac-12 powerhouse Stanford to Evanston, Ill., and refused to allow even one touchdown, whipping the Cardinal 16-6.

One game I predicted was when Utah beat Michigan to ruin Jim Harbaugh’s return to college coaching. It has taken a few years, but finally people are realizing how strong the Pac-12 is. With Oregon, UCLA, Southern California, Arizona, Arizona State, and Stanford, all strong, the next step will be to realize that Utah is also capable of being an elite team.

Otherwise, the Big Ten took a beating. Along with Minnesota and Michigan, one-time power Nebraska faced Brigham Young in Lincoln, Neb., and the Cornhuskers were on the verge of giving new coach Mike Riley a debut victory. A field goal lifted Brigham Young to within 28-27, but the Cornhuskers were still in command. In the fourth quarter, the Huskers missed a field goal, but Brigham Young was playing without starting quarterback Taysom Hill, who fractured his leg and will be out for the season. Freshman Tanner Mangum came in, and promptly directed the Cougars to the Nebraska 42 as time was running out.

Just enough time left for a Hail Mary pass, and Mangum cut loose with a bomb headed for the end zone. Mitch Mathews caught it, and came down in the end zone for a touchdown. Brigham Young stunned Nebraska 33-28 on the final play of the game.

Penn State has been playing Temple for 74 years. Not every year, but their rivalry goes back that far. In this one, P.J. Walker thrilled 69,176 fans by scoring a touchdown to boost Temple to the lead, and a defensive touchdown gave Temple a  27-10 victory.
 
It’s not as though we cheering against the Big Ten, but the same thing happened to Purdue on Sunday, when Marshall stunned the Boilermakers for another rare upset victory.

Maybe, then, UMD could win Saturday and put the entire college football season back into proper spin.


UMD Volleyball Rides Upset of Tampa

It was startling when the UMD volleyball team went to the big Tampa tournament last weekend and was upset by Western Washington. But it was more startling in the volleyball world when the Bulldogs bounced back to beat Tampa’s No. 1 ranked and defending Division II champs.

UMD opened the tournament by beating Wayne State, Michigan, and then Wheeling Jesuit of West Virginia. The next day, the Bulldogs were scheduled to face Western Washington and Tampa. Now, a year ago, UMD lost to Tampa and that rode over the Bulldogs‘ heads all season as they sailed undefeated to the Northern Sun title. So this time, it would be understandable if UMD was thinking ahead to Tampa instead of Western Washington.

But coach Jim Boos disagrees. “We schedule these preseason tournaments because we know we’ll see some teams that will make the Elite 8,” Boos said. “We talk about looking ahead, and how we can’t approach things that way.

“We lost to Western Washington, which has a very talented team,” said Boos. “We were up two games to one, but they are very good. Western Washington lost to Tampa and Wheeling Jesuit, but both were close matches.

“We play so many matches, and we constantly stress not looking ahead because you always play one team that’s very good and another one is waiting the next day. For us, the Tampa match was a great bounce-back. We had lsot Sydney Mauch when we played Western Washington, and she couldn’t play against Tampa. She made the all-tournametn team even though she only played two and a half matches.

“Tampa looked unbeatable, like a machine. But we really played well. We won the first two sets, then lost the third and fourth, by two points each. We were down in the fifth set, but came back to win it.”

Having closed out the Tampa tournament by beating the heavily favored host, it would be nice if the Bulldogs could relax and play a home match. No chance.

“We leave Wednesday for the Indianapolis tournament,” said Boos. “We’ll play Colorado School of Mines, then ashland, then the University of Indianapolis, and then Wheeling Jesuit again. All are ranked high or getting points in the ratings.”

Going to Tampa as the No. 4 team in the country, the loss to Western Washington could have knocked UMD down and maybe out of the top 10. But beating Tampa in the next match was a more impressive victory than the loss to Western Washington was a negative, and in the new rating, UMD is No. 3.

Twins? Vikings?

The Twins are amazing. At this point, it would seem unfair if they can’t catch Texas and grab the second Wild Card spot for the playoffs. The starting pitching has been good, the relief has been sometimes spotty but normally pretty good, the team has nobody hitting .300, but they keep pecking foes into submission.

The best example is that when I made a late-season assessment of the future of the Twins, I suggested their biggest need was to get a quality shortstop, because Eduardo Escobar appeared no better than a platoon player there. Since then, he’s taken off like a skyrocket. Batting at the bottom of the lineup, Escobar more often than not in the last two weeks has put to shame the top of the order. He went 11 for 24 since September 1, which is a .458 clip. And suddenly he not only is contributing, but he’s playing with supreme confidence.

It doesn’t matter that everybody is hitting .220-.270, as long as a couple of them come through with big hits every night.

As for the Vikings, the NFL season opens this weekend, and the Vikings have drawn an interesting assignment – playing the final game of a Monday night doubleheader, at San Francisco.

The storyline, of course, is whether Adrian Peterson can resume his previous potency after sitting out a whole season. My guess is that he’ll do so well that a much more relaxed and confident Teddy Bridgewater will look vastly better, now that he can hand the ball off to No. 28 about 50 percent of the time. That means he’ll only have to come up with creative plays less than half the time.

By the way, if the Twins can’t make it to the playoffs and World Series, the teams I’d most like to see play in the Series would be the Toronto Blue Jays against the Chicago Cubs – two of the hottest teams in either league right now. It would be a memorable series, with some great hitting and defense on both sides.