Happy Hour with John Gaskins

At a level of college football where NIL resources aren't nearly as high as the Power Four leagues and parity is supposedly greater, weird things are happening to the "haves" of the FCS.
 
Preseason No. 1 Montana State lost at 0-4 Idaho.
 
Preseason No. 2 Montana has lost three times, twice to FCS teams, and the Griz appear allergic to defense.
 
Preseason No. 3 South Dakota State rose to No. 1 for exactly a week before North Dakota smothered the Jackrabbits. They had been in the driver's seat for a Top 2 playoff spot and home field advantage through the championship game.
 
That same UND team had lost at Northern Iowa, which was predicted third-to-last in the Missouri Valley Football Conference. 
 
And on and on and on, just like the litany of upsets and poll plummets in the FBS.
 
How do we make sense of this? More importantly, which of the elite teams that have stumbled should we expect to see still standing in the FCS semifinals and maybe even in Nashville for the championship game?
 
Former Montana All-American receiver Samuel Akem hosts a daily FCS show, aptly named The Samuel Akem Show, and joined the Happy Hour host to break down some of these matters, plus:
 
* If South Dakota beats the Fighting Hawks in Vermillion on Saturday, have the Coyotes stiff-armed their way into contention? 
 
* How seriously should we take Youngstown State, Illinois State, and current No. 1 Tarleton State?
 
* What is up with Chase Mason completing just 52 percent of his passes, and how much of a red flag is that for the Jackrabbits' title hopes?
 
After the chat with Sam, Happy Hour clears the stage for the final two unreleased conversations from Summit League basketball Media Day on Oct. 6:
 
 
Mark Turgeon - Kansas City men
 
After 476 wins and taking three different teams to the NCAA Tournament, Turgeon stepped away from the pressures of Big Ten coaching at ever-demanding Maryland in 2021 at the age of 56.
 
With plenty of money in the bank and nothing left to prove, Turgeon mostly smelled the roses for the last five years in what most would classify as retirement.
 
But he was ready for one more adventure. Or, in more pessimistic terms, renewed torture of coaching in the NIL/portal era, this time at a forgotten place buried in a major sports and college basketball market.

Why on Earth did he choose Kansas City (formerly Missouri-Kansas City or UMKC) which has floundered in the low-major Summit League for years?
 
Turgeon answered that question and shared plenty of stories from a career full of more than just brushes with some of the biggest names in the game — coaching Allen Iverson, coaching for Larry Brown, coaching against Tom Izzo and Tim Miles, and playing for the Kansas Jayhawks in the days of the legendary old Big Eight when legends like Brown, Johnny Orr (Iowa State), Billy Tubbs (Oklahoma), and Norm Stewart (Missouri) roamed the sidelines and stirred the pot with each other.
 
Johnny Tauer - St. Thomas men
 
Unlike Turgeon, Tauer has spent the last three decades in one spot — playing and coaching at the well-funded private school in St. Thomas since 1991.
 
What kept him there? What, to him, have been the most compelling changes to the sport and its players over those 35 years? 
 
Of course, NIL and the portal have changed everything, so how has Tauer processed and adjusted to the fact that players don't stick around four or five years like they used to?
 
Also, how have the Tommies made the first Div. III to Div. I transition in the history of the sport look so easy? 
 
Refreshingly candid yet easy to listen to, Tauer takes a seat on the therapeutic davenport of coaching anxiety and joy.

After 476 wins and taking three different teams to the NCAA Tournament, Turgeon stepped away from the pressures of Big Ten coaching at ever-demanding Maryland in 2021 at the age of 56.
 
With plenty of money in the bank and nothing left to prove, Turgeon mostly smelled the roses for the last five years in what most would classify as retirement.
 
But he was ready for one more adventure. Or, in more pessimistic terms, renewed torture of coaching in the NIL/portal era, this time at a forgotten place buried in a major sports and college basketball market.

Why on Earth did he choose Kansas City (formerly Missouri-Kansas City or UMKC) which has floundered in the low-major Summit League for years?
 
Turgeon answered that question and shared plenty of stories from a career full of more than just brushes with some of the biggest names in the game — coaching Allen Iverson, coaching for Larry Brown, coaching against Tom Izzo and Tim Miles, and playing for the Kansas Jayhawks in the days of the legendary old Big Eight when legends like Brown, Johnny Orr (Iowa State), Billy Tubbs (Oklahoma), and Norm Stewart (Missouri) roamed the sidelines and stirred the pot with each other.

Unlike Turgeon, Tauer has spent the last three decades in one spot — playing and coaching at the well-funded private school in St. Thomas since 1991.
 
What kept him there? What, to him, have been the most compelling changes to the sport and its players over those 35 years? 
 
Of course, NIL and the portal have changed everything, so how has Tauer processed and adjusted to the fact that players don't stick around four or five years like they used to?
 
Also, how have the Tommies made the first Div. III to Div. I transition in the history of the sport look so easy? 
 
Refreshingly candid yet easy to listen to, Tauer takes a seat on the therapeutic davenport of coaching anxiety and joy.

At a level of college football where NIL resources aren't nearly as high as the Power Four leagues and parity is supposedly greater, weird things are happening to the "haves" of the FCS.
 
Preseason No. 1 Montana State lost at 0-4 Idaho.
 
Preseason No. 2 Montana has lost three times, twice to FCS teams, and the Griz appear allergic to defense.
 
Preseason No. 3 South Dakota State rose to No. 1 for exactly a week before North Dakota smothered the Jackrabbits. They had been in the driver's seat for a Top 2 playoff spot and home field advantage through the championship game.
 
That same UND team had lost at Northern Iowa, which was predicted third-to-last in the Missouri Valley Football Conference. 
 
And on and on and on, just like the litany of upsets and poll plummets in the FBS.
 
How do we make sense of this? More importantly, which of the elite teams that have stumbled should we expect to see still standing in the FCS semifinals and maybe even in Nashville for the championship game?
 
Former Montana All-American receiver Samuel Akem hosts a daily FCS show, aptly named The Samuel Akem Show, and joined the Happy Hour host to break down some of these matters, plus:
 
* If South Dakota beats the Fighting Hawks in Vermillion on Saturday, have the Coyotes stiff-armed their way into contention? 
 
* How seriously should we take Youngstown State, Illinois State, and current No. 1 Tarleton State?
 
* What is up with Chase Mason completing just 52 percent of his passes, and how much of a red flag is that for the Jackrabbits' title hopes?
 
After the chat with Sam, Happy Hour clears the stage for the final two unreleased conversations from Summit League basketball Media Day on Oct. 6:

In his return back from a month on the injury shelf, South Dakota State quarterback Chase Mason completed 14 of 33 passes for 169 yards with no touchdowns or interceptions in Saturday's 21-10 loss at North Dakota.
 
What accounts for that 42 percent completion percentage, plus Mason's 52 percent rate — an almost-staggeringly low number for a passer of Mason's caliber in the modern day game — in his five starts this season for the Jackrabbits?
 
If only Happy Hour had a regular analyst on the show who is also SDSU's TV analyst, who possesses a keen eye for quarterback play as a former record-setting national championship quarterback at USF, who has coached and analyzed quarterbacks professionally for over 20 years — from the youth level at Sanford Sports Academy (with Mason among his former clients) to two of the best University of Sioux Falls quarterbacks of all time (Chad Cavender and Lorenzo Brown, who, with Riggs as their QB coach and Kalen DeBoer as head coach won a combined three national titles in four years) — and some of the best Indoor Football League professional QBs of all time.
 
Oh, wait, we do!
 
Kurtiss Riggs joins us every week to break down these sorts of matters and on Tuesday pinpointed some of the passes Mason is misfiring and how much of the struggles are on Mason. How much does play-calling factor in and what can be done to better get the senior "in rhythm?"
 
Of course, maybe UND's top five defense and a deafening atmosphere in the Alerus Center contributed to the struggles as well. 
 
News flash: The Fighting Hawks are now ranked No. 6 in the country and once again imposed their will on a defeated opponent. Riggs handicaps UND's ability to contend for a national title, but before that, he dives into its chances of sweeping the South Dakota teams on Saturday when the Hawks take on USD in Vermillion.
 
The Jacks' loss in Grand Forks was just one of a bevy of upsets all over the college football landscape.
 
No. 1 Georgia and No. 2 Notre Dame lost last-minute bangers on the road. Kalen DeBoer's Crimson Tide never really found their footing in a loss at Tennessee.
 
Sure, this speaks to the parity of Power Four football, driven by NIL and the transfer portal. So what does Riggs feel the recently-approved expansion of the College Football Playoff field to 24 teams will do for a program like DeBoer's Alabama?
 
The discussion starts with a new opening ritual on Riggs' weekly appearance — "What Are You Doing?"

This week, the question goes to Matt Rhule, who when asked why the Huskers blew back-to-back fourth quarter leads against Indiana and Oregon said, in part, "I ain't the one out there playing." 
 
After the Riggs chat, Happy Hour brings back its conversation with UND coach Eric Schmidt from Missouri Valley Football Conference Media Day in July.
 
A linebacker on the 2001 Div. II national championship team — the only squad to accomplish that feat in UND history — Schmidt explains the meaning of being the head coach of the program he played and also spent several years as an assistant coach before hopping on the Kalen DeBoer train to Southern Illinois and eventually Fresno State and Washington, only to circle back to Grand Forks before last season.
 
Schmidt describes what it was like to be around DeBoer and what he learned from the Milbank native when DeBoer was offensive coordinator at SIU, then head coach at FSU and Washington.
 
The Mandan, N.D., native also reflects on UND's five losses by five points or less in his rookie campaign last season, and what he learned from those heartbreakers in hopes to break through in 2026.
 
(Indeed, as we saw Saturday, he learned and applied, although the Fighting Hawks did not have to sweat out a one-score game against the Jackrabbits.)
 
The chat ends with Schmidt revealing his Happy Hour cocktail of choice. 
 
(Hint: Tap the Rockies.)