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Joe Christensen covered Major League Baseball for 15 years, including three seasons at the Baltimore Sun and eight at the Star Tribune, before switching to the college football beat. He’s a Faribault, Minn., native who graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1996. He covered Jim Wacker’s Gophers for the Minnesota Daily and also wrote about USC, UCLA and the Rose Bowl for the Riverside Press-Enterprise before getting this chance to cover football again.
Email Joe to talk about the Gophers.
Posts about TCF Bank Stadium
Gophers spring football game final: Maroon 3, Gold 0
Posted by: Michael Rand Updated: April 21, 2012 - 1:20 PM
Starting QB MarQueis Gray signs autographs after the game in the concourse.
A few quick notes from the Gophers football spring game Saturday, which signals the end of the spring practice season for Minnesota:
*Quarterbacks: MarQueis Gray looked sharp on most of his passes, completing 4-of-8 passes for 62 yards while competing for the Maroon team, which technically took home a 3-0 victory over the Gold team in the 50-minute scrimmage. The crispest offensive play of the day might have been Gray's early 35-yard hookup with Brandon Green. ... Sophomore Max Shortell was 4-for-10 for 68 yards and ran for 30 more. He directed an impressive late drive that ended with a missed field goal. ... Freshmen Philip Nelson (0-for-6) and Mitch Leidner (0-for-2) did not complete a pass. The passing game overall often looked disjointed, though it's not entirely surprising.
Said coach Jerry Kill: "We divided up our receivers evenly. ... Today, there was a ball, an inch, a foot, two feet here or there, and we didn't make a play. But I think that can all get corrected through repetition in the summer."
*Kill was impressed by the team's speed in the secondary and singled out junior college transfer Martez Shabazz, who had a pass breakup and two tackles. "We've got some guys in the secondary who can run, and we're a little bigger in the secondary," Kill said.
*JoJuan Harper led all running backs with 44 yards on the ground. Donnell Kirkwood had 25 and sophomore Cole Banham had 24 on eight carries.
*The Gophers made just one of three field goal attempts, but Kill chalked much of that up to rotating in less experienced holders.
*The announced crowd was 3,512. The weather was overcast at the 11 a.m. kickoff and light rain developed late.
Heating coils not worth expense, Gophers decided
Posted by: Phil Miller Updated: December 22, 2010 - 2:09 PM I know today is practically a holiday, what with the highlight of the 2010 bowl season -- the Maaco Las Vegas Bowl, with Utah going for its 10th straight bowl victory against some pretenders from Idaho -- just a few hours away, but I did want to pass along the answer to a few emails I received over the weekend.
Why, a few Gopher fans wondered, doesn't a brand new stadium in an extreme climate like ours have heating coils under the playing surface? It became an issue for the Vikings and Bears last week, although the field at TCF Bank Stadium ended up being, by all accounts, hard but playable for Monday night's game.
The answer, according to a spokesman for athletic director Joel Maturi, is that the coils are expensive, and once a feasibility study determined that it wasn't practical for the Vikings and Gophers to share TCF Bank Stadium, the building was designed with just the college team in mind.
"In the end, (it was) decided that the cost far outweighed the benefits," athletic department communications director Garry Bowman said, "so we did not give it much thought after that."
That's because the FieldTurf surface stays relatively spongy unless exposed to an extended period of temperatures in the 20s or below -- conditions an NFL team might face in December or January, but much more unlikely during the college season, which ends shortly after Thanksgiving.
"The odds of us experiencing an extended hard freeze during the (college) season are so remote, the investment didn't make economic sense for us," Bowman said.
Thanks to those who wrote for an answer. Now, back to your pregame festivities. Go Utes!
Gophers may take on Twins, too
Posted by: Phil Miller Updated: September 22, 2010 - 4:46 PM Everyone in the Twin Cities seem to be talking about the Twins today, so it's no surprise that the Gophers plan to do so, too. Specifically: What happens if the Twins win the American League championship?
It's a nice problem to have, the Gophers would agree -- but it is potentially a problem. First pitch in Game 3, which would be the first World Series game in Target Field, is scheduled for roughly 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 30.
A half-hour earlier and two miles to the east, the Gophers will kick off against Ohio State, the five-time defending Big Ten champion that could easily be the No. 1 football team in the country by then. The game will be nationally televised, either by ABC, ESPN or ESPN2, and it's a good bet that Minnesota would prefer that the visual being broadcast from its home stadium not be swaths of empty seats.
Trouble is, there may not be anything the university can do. "Changing starting times is tough in football," said assistant athletic director Jason LaFrenz, just because of the sheer number of people -- from concession workers to security officers to ticket-takers -- affected. "It's a lot easier to do in basketball or hockey."
There's also the not-so-small matter of the Gophers' TV obligations. ABC and ESPN don't care much about the proximity of the venues, because they're planning to televise a football game opposite the World Series anyway. The ratings in Minneapolis would be affected, obviously, but that's a tiny consideration. And anyway, think of the picturesque shots that a blimp will get of the two stadiums lit up on either side of downtown.
One more problem: There's no way to know if the Twins will get to the Series until the week before. The Gophers understandably are reluctant to give up their prime-time exposure if there is no conflict (and they might not want to do it even if there is), but Game 7 of the American League Championship Series is scheduled for Oct. 23, which likely doesn't give the schools or the network enough time to reschedule.
Still, the university's athletic administration will discuss the issue internally, and consult with the Big Ten, LaFrenz said. The game is sold out, so it's more a matter of consideration for the city's (and university's) sports fans.
"It's still early. We'll know more as we get closer to that day," LaFrenz said.
Speaking of Gopher attendance, this Saturday's game with Northern Illinois is sold out, too, except for the student section. (Roughly 1,800 of those end-zone seats went on sale to the general public on Tuesday.) LaFrenz said the university is hoping that the season's first night game will keep no-shows to a minimum. "People seem to show up better for these than for the 11 a.m. games," he said. More than 1,000 tickets were also distributed to high-school football teams, so "we're expecting a really good crowd on Saturday," he said.
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recent posts
- Christensen blog: Former Gophers QB Shortell transfers to Jacksonville State
- Christensen blog: U football joins Big Ten push to strengthen nonconference schedules
- Gophers/UNLV football opener set for 6 p.m., on Aug. 29
- Christensen: Scary moment from spring game highlights speed, toughness
- Christensen: Receiver Harbison returns from knee injury with strong spring game
- Christensen: Carter to Vikings, Gray to 49ers, Stoudermire to Bengals
- Christensen blog: Big Ten officially adopts new East, West football divisions for 2014
- Gophers set rosters for Saturday's spring game
- Christensen: Big Ten's talent gap shows again in draft
- BTN's DiNardo impressed with Gophers but Kill hopes to see better Saturday
- Christensen: Will ACC's new TV deal halt Big Ten expansion?
- Christensen: Good forecast has Gophers looking forward to spring football game
- Long-yardage plays highlight Gophers' second spring scrimmage
- Report: Big Ten to vote on new football divisions next week
- Christensen: U banged up, stuck indoors heading into Saturday's scrimmage
- Gophers tight end's immediate family is safe after Texas blast; cousin's father killed
- Running back Gillum is the latest Gophers player to suffer injury
- Teague says U's football progress won't be measured by wins alone
- Leidner's steady play highlights Gophers first spring scrimmage
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