News and Notes

• The Alabama job is officially a possibility as Alabama has fired Mark Godfried. Alabama is 12-7 and 2-3 in the terrible SEC. I am going to get so sick of the speculation that Tubby might leave just because of those who think Minnesota is an inferior school.
• The Gophers fell out of the top 25 in the AP poll but are still ranked 24 in the ESPN poll. The team is 36 in the latest RPI. The latest bracketology has the Gophers a 7 seed playing Florida State.
• Lawrence Westbrook is no longer the only Gopher averaging double digits in scoring. With 18 against Indiana Damian Johnson is now averaging 10.1 ppg along with 4.2 rebs.
  
• Gophers Illustrated has released the top 10 juniors in Minnesota football. If you have the premium service you can view it here. Seantrel Henderson (Cretin) could be the number 1 player in the nation. Other juniors who will be strongly recruited are Jimmy Gjere (Irondale), Beau Allen (Minnetonka) , Tobi Okuyemi (Wayzata), and Joel Bauman (Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg). I don't see the Gophers getting Henderson because he can go anywhere and start on day one and the Gophers have never been able to recruit Cretin kids. He likely will follow the Cretin train to Notre Dame. The Gophers should be able to get the others however.
• Some Vikings news: The NFL has settled the lawsuit with Korey Stringer's widow. It has been 7 years since the incident. There is still a pending lawsuit with Ridell, the maker of the helmet and shoulder pads he was wearing at the time. Viking great Carl Eller has been found guilty of assaulting a police officer.
• Blake Wheeler was named the MVP of the YoungStars game leading the rookies with a hat trick. He will get some serious consideration for Rookie of the Year. I would not have guessed that considering his underwhelming run as a Gopher. He went from barely making the team out of training camp to 14g, 16a and a whopping +/- of 27.