minnesota gophers

Three Minnesota Football Players Cleared In University Sexual Assault Case

Three football players who were recommended for suspensions as part of a University of Minnesota sexual assault investigation have had those punishments overturned, lawyers for the players announced yesterday. After this latest round of appeals, so far four of the five recommended expulsions in the case have been…

The NCAA Tournament Teams That Can Actually Pull Off Some Upsets

This is the second of three posts that will preview the NCAA tournament. This one is for people who want to know which sleeper teams have the best shot at making some noise.

Tracy Claeys Has No Idea What He's Talking About

The Tracy Claeys redemption tour has begun and, as this particular sort of redemption tour tends to, it’s already revealing more about how ridiculous it is for football coaches to be seen as righteous educational and intellectual leaders than anything else. On Tuesday, Claeys was fired—in part, administrators said, …

Minnesota Fires Coach Tracy Claeys [Updated]

The Golden Gophers have fired football coach Tracy Claeys, according to several reports out of Minnesota. None of the reports offer anything official about why he why he was fired, but the move does follow a bowl game win—and the program getting criticism for when the players threatened to boycott the game, with…

Prosecutor Says No Charges For Gopher Football Players, Again, After Minnesota Wins Its Bowl Game

The Hennepin County (Minn.) District Attorney’s Office announced today, for a second time, that it had reviewed the evidence against the group of Golden Gophers football players accused of raping a fellow student and decided there was not enough to bring a criminal case. But before going into what prosecutors said, its worth pointing out the timing of this announcement—late on a Friday, also on the last weekday before the extended New Year’s weekend, and after the Gophers played in and won the Holiday Bowl. Like the Oklahoma Sooners, the local prosecutor’s office managed to release this information at the time when as few people as possible will see it.

How Two Investigations Into Minnesota's Sexual-Assault Scandal Reached Two Very Different Conclusions

It was in the early morning hours after the Golden Gophers’ victory—in their September season opener, no less—that the student said she was sexually assaulted by multiple football players. She gave a statement to Minneapolis police a day later, going into detail about how she had sex with two guys and how more men then kept coming. She remembered people watching, the officer wrote in the report, “like they were waiting their turn.” She remembered yelling at them to stop sending people in, but they didn’t. Two men tried to force their penises into her mouth while a third had vaginal sex with her, according to the report. Another man, whom she thought might help her, instead forced her to to give him a blow job, she recalled.