CECI HEINEN: Hello Gopher fans. Welcome back to another episode of the Gold Standard, a podcast dedicated to the University of Minnesota sports. I’m Ceci Heinen, and I’m here today with…
ATTICUS MARSE: Atticus Marse.
HEINEN: And we are gonna talk some Gophers sports and professional Minnesota sports. So starting off, Atticus, what did you think about that stellar game against Ohio State yesterday?
MARSE: I actually watched the whole game in preparation for this podcast and it was a little painful, but I can’t say it’s anything else than we were really expecting. If the world thinks you’re gonna lose, you’re probably gonna lose. I mean, first drive immediately getting three points on the board. For a second I was like, “Oh my God, the Gophers could do something.”
There’s levels to college football. Ohio State is a blue chip program that is coming off a national championship, you just can’t compete with that level of talent. The passing game just wasn’t there like it was against Rutgers. The noise was playing a massive factor in this game too.
The center couldn’t hear the quarterback, like Drake Lindsey trying to snap the ball and they had a delay of game penalty. You got 100,000 people just screaming. You’re not gonna be able to stay composed as well as you would hope to.
HEINEN: To put it in perspective, Huntington Bank Stadium’s capacity is 50,800 people. And then Ohio State, like you said, is 100,000. So yeah, I can definitely see why that would kind of shock them. Who on Ohio State was, you know, do they have people who are crazy like NFL prospects?
MARSE: Yeah.
HEINEN: Like, is that why?
MARSE: Jeremiah Smith is insane, but Carnell Tate, nine receptions, 183 receiving yards at 20.3 average with a touchdown. And Jeremiah Smith is of course that guy, like he could be playing in the NFL right now, damn near. But you have to play your three years of college.
You’re doubling Jeremiah Smith. And then all of a sudden Carnell Tate, is wide open every play on an iso with one corner. You’re bringing the safety out to Jeremiah Smith’s side and it’s over. Like when you have that deep a talent and wide receiver room.
HEINEN: It’s hard to beat that.
MARSE: Yeah. And then Julian Sayin their quarterback, he’s also a redshirt freshman, like Drake Lindsey is. This stat line’s ridiculous: 23 for 27 with 326 yards and three touchdowns. I mean, he didn’t throw a bad ball game. It was just class to be honest.
HEINEN: Yeah, honestly, I watched the first half and I felt like they could have maybe even scored a touchdown. Like it was kind of sad that the Gophers didn’t even get to the end zone at all. It literally just looked like the Ohio State team was better than the Gophers, physically, athletically, in every aspect of the game they were just kind of walking all over the Gophers.
I guess that’s what was expected. The Gophers are coming back home for their next game against Purdue this coming Saturday. That’s the homecoming game for all the students here. That’ll be fun. Are you thinking that they could win that game against Purdue or no?
MARSE: Purdue is not a good football team. But yeah, I expect to see a bounce back game from D.T.. He only rushed for 12 yards, but I mean, he was clearly shaken up the whole game.
HEINEN: Yeah, he is coming back from that injury.
MARSE: Yeah he’s coming back from injury.
HEINEN: Terrible game to come back from injury on.
MARSE: Yeah. I don’t, I would’ve just kept him out because.
HEINEN: Yeah.
MARSE: I mean.
HEINEN: They were never gonna win that.
MARSE: Fame Ijeboi still like he played all right. Four yards a carry, 52 yards, that’s fine, but give D.T. a rest.
HEINEN: Yeah, but we’ll see how the Gophers come back against Purdue this coming Saturday. In terms of Gopher women’s sports, I’m just gonna do a quick run through of what’s happening there. The tennis team is currently playing in Iowa at the Cyclone Invite and so far they’re doing pretty good.
On Saturday, they went 1-1 in doubles and 3-1 in singles, which is pretty good for them. Jeselle Ante and Sofia Pinto are two names that are doing well. They beat Kansas State in doubles, and then Ante won in singles and Pinto lost in singles, unfortunately.
But the tennis team is doing pretty good. They’re continuing to play today, Sunday the fifth at the Cyclone Invite, and so we’ll see how they do there. And then for Gophers women’s soccer. They’re on a bit of a tough stretch right now. They’ve lost four games consecutively to some big names, Michigan State, Michigan and Wisconsin.
Regan Gurguis, our sports reporter, did a story on this about how their team, despite not playing super well in conference, is really hoping to improve and hoping to take the rest of the Big Ten teams by storm and actually win some games, hopefully.
And so they just need to kind of iron out some mistakes that they’re having and continue to keep showing up to every game. They’re gonna be playing some pretty tough opponents coming up. They’re gonna be playing USC on October 9, and then UCLA on October 12. And those are some big names in soccer.
They’re both here at Elizabeth Lyle Robbie Stadium. So those will be good games to watch if you can get out there. And then Washington and Oregon, after that. Their schedule isn’t getting any easier, but hopefully they can come out and get a Big Ten win.
Gophers volleyball, who have been playing wonderfully the past few games they beat Michigan State, Rutgers and then unfortunately they did lose to Michigan. Which is breaking their 12 game win streak. They broke against Michigan, they lost one set to three, which sucks. They were playing in Ann Arbor, so they were playing away.
Julia Hanson led the team with seven kills and Jordan Taylor had four blocks and Kate Thibault at libero picked up 10 digs, which is good. But compared to some of the other stats that they have been putting up in previous games, it’s not great. Michigan just outpaced them there, but we’ll see how they bounce back.
They’re playing Northwestern today, but they’re in Evanston, Illinois. And then they’re playing UCLA at Maturi Pavilion on Wednesday. That’ll be a super fun game to see them play UCLA. That’ll be a tough one, I bet. And then it’ll be Ohio State after that, also at Maturi on October 12.
And so yeah, that’s kind of a rundown of Gopher women’s sports, where they’re at right now. How was that hockey game? How are they looking?
MARSE: Yeah. Yeah, so the hockey team and their opening series against Michigan Tech this Friday and Saturday, it was actually a series split for the Gophers, which is not what most fans were expecting going into those games.
I mean, Michigan Tech is not a school you hear their name said much, but in the hockey world, they’re not like a bad program by any means. They’re actually from Houghton, Michigan, which is in the U.P.. Like way up there, but they are, they were in the NCAA hockey tournament two years ago.
The panic alarms don’t need to be going full speed. But there was definitely no domination here. The first game I was at, Brodie Zeimer got to scoring underway to start this game. He’s a player to watch. He’s a sophomore. He’s coming off a 12 goal year last season. And it might be time for him to step up.
The Gophers ended up winning the first game 6-3. It was actually very tight. Michigan Tech was leading going into the third, and then the Gophers picked up four goals in the third period to seal it. One of those was an empty netter, so it’s actually a pretty tight game.
And then the next game, the Gophers ended up losing 5-3 which is not a good look to start the year. That’s never how you wanna start a season losing to a team that is.
HEINEN: Non-conference play.
MARSE: Yeah. It’s a game that you’d expect to be winning. They’re playing Boston College next, and you’re going to play Boston College next week. You don’t want to be losing to Michigan Tech and then having to face one of the better programs in the country.
HEINEN: Going into the pros, I know that you wanted to talk a little bit about the Minnesota United soccer team. What do you have to update us about?
MARSE: I’m actually a massive Minnesota United fan. Minnesota United three-nil against Sporting Kansas City on Saturday, and they’re looking at the two or three seed for the playoffs, which is pretty good. This is the best season Minnesota United’s ever had. But one more game left this season against LA Galaxy, in LA and then the playoffs start on the 22nd for MLS.
HEINEN: Have they ever won a championship before?
MARSE: No. Because Minnesota United is young. They’ve only been around like 10 or so years.
HEINEN: Who are their top players?
MARSE: In the sporting Kansas City game, Markanich scored a brace and Joaquin Pereyra scored a goal. But Markanich is a fullback who just randomly keeps scoring headers. All my Minnesota United fans out there, you’ll just, you’ll know you open up the score sheet and Markanich is just scoring. He’s just scoring so many goals.
But this year we haven’t really talked about Minnesota United on the sports pod. Just to give a quick rundown, Joaquin Pereyra, I swear he’s got half of Messi’s left foot in him. He’s so good. I watch him play and it makes me cry. Robin Lod, a Finnish guy.
HEINEN: Love that man.
MARSE: Bongokuhle Hlongwane, South African, sweetest dude ever. Joseph Rosales. Markanich I was talking about. Michael Boxall, he is from New Zealand, actually. That’s fun. He’s getting old. And then we actually have Canada’s starting goalie Dayne St. Clair. He’s a, he’s a good player.
They sold Tani Oluwaseyi who came up through Minnesota United. Took him in the super draft, sold him to Spanish side Villareal for $8.5 million euros. Which was sad to see him go, he was our top goal scorer this year.
So we have a little bit of a gap. Yeboah slots into that striker spot. And I think they’re gonna, I think they have a chance to go on a run. In the playoffs this year. So make sure to tune in to Minnesota United playoff games.
HEINEN: Minnesota United’s fun. And if you have a chance to get out to Allianz, it’s super fun in there. And standing in the fan section is really fun because they just do a lot of cool chants and fun soccer stuff.
We talked about this in the last pod, but the Minnesota Lynx are out of the WNBA championships unfortunately. A big story that’s been going on in the WNBA right now is in Napheesa Collier’s post-season presser she had a prepared statement that was basically just going straight at Cathy Engelbert, who is the WNBA Commissioner.
I’ll just read a little segment from it where she said, “Fans see it every night. Coaches both winning and losing point it out every night in pregame and postgame media. Yet leadership just issues, fines and looks the other way. They ignore the issues that everyone inside the game is begging to be fixed. This is negligence.” Basically, she was calling out that refing and leadership are poor, and it is putting players in danger of injury like Napheesa Collier did experience.
And she also kind of brought some private conversation between her and Cathy Engelbert into her speech saying that Engelbert was saying that, “Well, only losers complain about the refs,” and that, “Caitlin Clark should be grateful that she makes $16 million off the court because without the platform that the WNBA gives her, she wouldn’t make anything.”
“Players should be on their knees thanking their lucky stars for the media rights deal, I got them.” And so pretty big, big news. Cathy Engelbert said that there’s a lot of work to be done in the league, which is an understatement because players are not getting paid what they deserve. And that’s the bottom line.
And the WNBA is growing every year and gaining more and more money and funding and attention every year. The players aren’t seeing that and they’re also being put in danger from poor refing. And it’s just, something’s gotta change. And I think that’s what Napheesa was trying to say.
We are recording on Sunday, right after the Vikings beat the Cleveland Browns. They beat them 21-17. Atticus, what did you think of that game?
MARSE: Carson Wentz, decent game, I mean more than decent. That was a pretty good game. 25 for 34, 236 yards and a touchdown pass. And then the Vikings pulled out a Lion’s esque trick play. Cam Akres with a passing touchdown.
The Vikings lined up in the wildcat formation, sent Wentz out to the left side like he was running a route and then had him cut back, and then Acres took the snap on a wildcat, rolls right, like he’s taking a run and then the defense crashes for the Browns, picks it up, and he’s got his tight end, Josh Oliver, wide open for the touchdown.
HEINEN: Oh, Ackers made the pass?
MARSE: Yes. I love trick plays. I love, love to see that. That’s just, that’s a little bit of fun. And when it works out, that’s even better. The Browns put in Dylan Gabriel over Joe Flacco. This week, Shaduer Sha-Dizzy Sanders is still QB three.
Gabriel had a decent game, all things considered 19 for 33, 190 yards, two touchdowns, no picks. But Quinasean Judkins, remember the name. This guy is good. 23 carries 110 yards, 4.8 average.
HEINEN: Looks like the Vikings were somewhat able to stop him though.
MARSE: Yeah. They were somewhat able to stop him.
HEINEN: He didn’t have a touchdown.
MARSE: Yeah, didn’t have a touchdown. But decent numbers. I mean, the Vikings defense is very solid. They have no holes.
HEINEN: Max Brosmer played!
MARSE: The Broz, got a snap?
HEINEN: Max Brosmer got a rushing carry. He had one carry with negative one yards.
MARSE: Bro!
HEINEN: Yay! Max Brosmer! He got sacked.
MARSE: He was like one of the first Gopher football quarterbacks to play in the NFL in like forever.
HEINEN: Justin Jefferson had a decent game. He had seven receiving, with 123 yards. He didn’t have any touchdowns though. The people who scored for the Vikings were Jordan Addison, Josh Oliver and Jordan Mason. Then Cam Akers had that passing touchdown as well as Carson Wentz.
And so, good game for the Vikings. Good for them to get a win after they just lost in Dublin against the Steelers. I believe they’re playing the Eagles next, which should be an interesting game to see if they can keep up with the defending Super Bowl champs and Jalen Hurts.
I believe that is all we are covering today for the Gold Standard. Gave you a lot of interesting things to continue to look forward to. One of the most important is the Minnesota United Loons in the playoffs. So keep an eye on that, and if you have any questions, comments or concerns, do not hesitate to send us an email at [email protected].
This episode was recorded by Atticus Marse and Ceci Heinen, and also produced by Atticus Marse and Ceci Heinen.
HEINEN: I’m Ceci Heinen.
MARSE: And I’m Atticus Marse.
HEINEN: And this has been the Gold Standard.
MARSE: Play outro music! Duh-nah-nah-nah.
