JOTTINGS
• Brian Dozier is being paid $3 million this season, making him a bargain for the Twins. The four-year, $20 million contract the second baseman signed in March 2015 calls for him to make $6 million next season and $9 million in 2018, and he can become a free agent after that.
• One great story in the Twins minor league system is Patrick McGuff, a 36th-round pick this year out of Morehead State in Kentucky. The 22-year-old righthanded reliever is 2-0 with a 1.20 ERA and he has 41 strikeouts in 30 innings pitched in rookie ball.
• The Gophers football team could be called the Georgia Bulldogs, with seven players from the state: running backs Shannon Brooks and Rodney Smith; offensive linemen Donnell Greene and Vincent Calhoun; defensive backs Duke McGhee and Jalen Myrick, and linebacker Jonathan Celestin.
• East Carolina football coach Scott Montgomery has made it clear former Gophers quarterback Philip Nelson will be the starter in the season opener vs. Western Carolina. After that game, Nelson will face North Carolina State, South Carolina and Virginia Tech in a tough stretch.
• ESPN NFL draft expert Todd McShay said last week that the Gophers' Mitch Leidner is the sixth-best quarterback prospect for the 2017 draft.
• Former Gophers quarterback MarQueis Gray is a tight end with the Dolphins, Gray's fifth team in four seasons.
• The Gophers men's basketball team will face Indiana, Rutgers, Nebraska, Purdue, Northwestern, Iowa, Michigan and Illinois only once in the regular season. Unfortunately for the Gophers, they play Michigan State, Ohio State, Wisconsin and Maryland — probably the four best teams in the conference — twice.
• With Gary Trent Jr. most likely headed for Duke, one of the top targets for Gophers men's basketball is Jericho Sims out of Cristo Rey Jesuit in Minneapolis. He is the son of Charles Sims, who played for the Gophers in the 1970s.
