Do you remember your first year at your current job? Was it easy? Was it hard? Perhaps that depended on what you inherited — a well-oiled machine, a mess, a bare cupboard? — or what what was expected of you (instant success or time to grow). Wednesday's Happy Hour is all about performance on the new job and how much slack to cut rookies. Host John Gaskins starts with a look at the rookie head coaches of the four FCS schools in North Dakota and South Dakota. All are first-time bosses. NDSU's Tim Polasek got a year head start on SDSU's Dan Jackson, USD's Travis Johansen, and UND's Eric Schmidt. They all inherited different circumstances. Who had the toughest build and who has performed the best? Gaskins breaks it down, then gives a follow up to two recent Happy Hour topics — Jackrabbit fan angst toward Jimmy Rogers and "what he did to his alma mater" and SDSU's offering a scholarship to Brody Schafer, the greatest prep quarterback talent Sanford Sports Academy football director and SDSU TV analyst Kurtiss Riggs has seen. What does Riggs think of USD having not offered Schafer yet? Then, one of those rookie coaches joins Gaskins for his weekly one-on-one Happy Hour chat. Johansen is certainly coming on strong, steadying USD ship through rocky 2-3 early waters and guiding the Coyotes to a 6-1 finish that included three consecutive wins over Top 25 teams to finish the season and seal a playoff berth. So, how and why did that happen, particularly the wild 53-51 five overtime win at Southern Illinois. Prior to that, USD's offense had yet to score 20 points in a Missouri Valley Conference game that had not involved last place and winless Murray State (USD's offense scored 17 points in a 26-21 win over UND). But Aidan Bouman and crew came roaring back to overcome a 17-point second half deficit while the defense forced four stops in the comeback. How? Wednesday's second guest gave a nuanced angle to J.J. McCarthy's rookie reeling. The NFL's lowest-rated quarterback sure looks like a bust through five games, but LaVelle Neal — a 28-year sportswriter for the Minneapolis Star Tribune and currently an at-large columnist — looks at McCarthy's disasters through the lens of a Bears fan now enjoying an uptick from Caleb Williams. Neal was also the Minnesota Twins beat writer for 22 years and covered the recent hire of Derek Shelton as manager. Underwhelming to most, Neal sees an upside and also pinpoints where the blame of the Rocco Baldelli era should truly lie.
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