We're one player away from the all important top 10 of our preseason countdown... This seems like the cruelest of all the spots to be on the list, but it's also just about the right spot for perhaps the name that will surprise the general public the most. 

Every year there's that "breakout" player who comes out of nowhere and becomes a name to know and in 2012 that happened twice for the Gophers. We already hit on one of those on our list in offensive lineman Zac Epping, well, consider our No. 11 player the defensive version of Epping, only a completely different kind of athletic freak. 

So, consider yourself shocked, or get ready to be educated about one of the hidden gems of the 2012 season. Hell, he was recently named the 2nd biggest "freak" in all of college football  by Bruce Feldman of CBSsports.com - his secret could won't be kept too much longer.

No. 11: Ra'Shede Hageman (DT, Minnesota)

College football and beer - if there are two things that go together better than those... well, you get the picture. Last season Minnesota began to sell booze and beer to the patrons of TCF Bank Stadium. It should've been a slam dunk, hit a home run, empty the kids' wallets of all their disposable income type move. Instead somehow they managed to lose money selling booze in their stadium.

No, seriously.... A booze selling endeavor at a college actually lost money. Surely you are asking the same question we here were: How the hell is that possible?

If you believe the spin from Minnesota's higher up's it was because they were focused on stopping underage drinking and that's how they lost out on those precious $16,000 dollars. 

From the article:

“Making money on it is not really the main purpose of it,” Allen said. “We’re more interested in being sure that we can control the sale of it.”

Ya, sure... That's it, because no booze hungry freshman or sophomore has ever found a way around the underage drinking bans in the history of bars or booze at stadiums.

We've reached the teens!!! O.k., not sure if that's something to celebrate as most of us wouldn't want to go back for the life of us, but here on the countdown that's a damn good thing. It means we are one step closer to solving the puzzle of who we see as the best player in the Big Ten heading into the 2013 football season. 

Yesterday it was the reining player of the year at tight end, Jacob Pedersen, from Wisconsin making an appearance at No. 20. So, it's perhaps only fitting that up next is a player from the Border Battle rivals, Minnesota.

Before we get into the other half of the Battle for Paul Bunyan's Axe, let us remind you of what criteria we used to make our Top 25 list. We used things like importance to your team, overall skill at your position, records set, past performance, conference honors (coaches, media, our list too), and the good old-fashioned eye test.

Now, let us take a look at our 2nd offensive lineman on this list, a name that may surprise a few of you for his inclusion. He's also the youngest player to appear on our list to date, being a redshirt junior in a sea of seniors so far.

Amen, finally the Gophers are getting with the program here in the Big Ten as it was announced earlier today that the football team will be adding a home-and-home series with the TCU Horned Frogs. Fans can probably thank Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany and a long standing relationship between Jerry Kill and Gary Patterson for getting this one done. It didn't hurt that Kill stood up in Gary Patterson's wedding back in the day either.

ESPN.com is reporting that the games will take place in 2014 and 2015 with the Gophers visiting the new look Armon G. Carter Stadium in Fort Worth, TX first followed by the return trip to TCF Bank Stadium the next season. 

Congrats, welcome to the world of the new look schedule there Minnesota. With this addition the Gophers took care of an opening in their 2014 schedule, one that includes such powerhouse programs as Eastern Illinois, Middle Tennessee, and San Jose State, and got to drop FCS opponent South Dakota for 2015. 

It appears that the long and winding road that has been the Minnesota head basketball coaching search as reports are stating that the University of Minnesota are set to hire FIU head coach Richard Pitino to be their next head coach, replacing the fired Tubby Smith. 

This move brings to town a known last name, but a coach with very little head coaching experience, leading the FIU Panthers for all of one season. However, that one season was an 18-14 year, with 11 wins in the Sun Belt Conference. All of this from a school that won all of 8 wins the season before and a team with just three scholarship players in the starting line-up. The 11 wins in Sun Belt play were the most by the school since the 1998-99 season.

While that's all fine and dandy, the most important part of this hire is his vast experience under both his father, Rick Pitino and as an assistant with Billy Donnovan at Florida. That's an area the Gophers have tried to mine for talent for awhile and his ties down there could well come in handy. 

Minnesota is set to make the hire official tomorrow according to the reports and we'll have more on the hire at that point. 

We explored the situation at Minnesota this morning on The B1G Time Podcast, however just hours after recording it's now being reported by CBSSports.com that Tubby Smith is being let go as head coach at the University of Minnesota. This comes off the heels of a season that saw the Gophers make the NCAA tournament and win a game before bowing out to Florida in the 3rd round, 78-64.

Tubby leaves Minnesota with a 124-81 mark overall and a less than stellar 46-62 mark in Big Ten play. However Smith managed to make the NCAA tournament three years, winning just one game overall. 

With the firing one can only expect the Shaka Smart rumors to begin firing on all cylinders and not just because he's a hot name in coaching, but because Norwod Teague - the new AD at Minnesota is the man that hired Smart at VCU in the first place. 

Clearly Teague and Co. in the athletics department think that making the NCAA tournament every other year and winning a game or so during that time isn't good enough for their program and they will be looking to stake their reputations on this next hire. 

Whomever comes to Minnesota will have some rather lofty expectations attached to him, fairly or unfairly and expect the leash to be short to say the least. Said person will also have some interesting pieces to work with in Austin and Andre Hollins, but they must also be able to recruit at a high level at a school that has never been an easy place to get top level "talent" into.

We'll have more on this as the story continues to unfold in the coming hours and days.

Tubby Smith may be the single biggest enigma of a coach in college basketball, dating all the way back to his days at Kentucky. No bigger proof of that exists than what's happened this season to a team that started out so amazingly well. Yet, following yesterday's 56-53 loss to Illinois Gopher nation freaked the hell out.

Over at GopherHole.com - a fan message board and news site - it took less than an hour for a "Fire Tubby" thread to start and to grow to over 4 pages. 

This "Fire Tubby" thread is already 4 pages long in an hour.What are your thoughts?bit.ly/WYEeM5 #Gophers

— GopherHole.com (@GopherHole) February 11, 2013

It all started with this brilliant post: 

It's time for him to go. This is the straw that breaks the back. I'm so damn sick of his stoic, stubborn attitude. Have you ever heard him being interviewed? He always sounds befuddled, confused and out of sync. He plays the blame game and sucks at recruiting. What a mess.

Today, the thread now sits at over 10 pages long and it's safe to say not everyone is freaking out, but there a lot that are. However, do the folks calling for Tubby Smith to be fired have a point? 

No two ways around this one, if you're a Big Ten fan you're rooting for all the teams in bowl season and our first chance came last night as Minnesota took on Texas Tech in the Meineke Car Care Texas Bowl (even us Wisco fans have been known to cheer for the Gophs this time of year.... shhh). You could argue it's going to be hard for any Big Ten team to top this one, even in victory.

Minnesota wound up losing 34-31, but it's how they lost that made this game special. Minnesota was up 31-24 on a TD with just over 13 minutes left. It was all about missed opportunities for them from there on out as they managed to allow the Red Raiders to score on back-to-back possessions with just 1:10 left in the game. The final nail in the coffin of the choke job came as the Red Raiders hit a 28 yard Field Goal as time expired to win it.  

There was a lot of good and bad in this one on all levels, but what can we take away from the bowl game and what can we say went wrong?

The College Football bowl season is already underway. With the first Big Ten team set to take the field Friday night, we here at Delany’s Dozen would like to formally announce the beginning of our Big Ten Bowl Extravaganza.

Minnesota takes on Texas Tech in the Meineke Car Care Bowl of Texas on Thursday night at 9 p.m. E.T., the game can be viewed on ESPN. Here is what the staff at DD has to say about how the Golden Gophers match up with the Red Raiders:

All season long it's been Rodney Williams and Elliot Eliason starting up front for the Minnesota Gophers, however after what was witnessed in the Gophers 70-57 win over North Dakota State on Tuesday it got me thinking that perhaps Tubby Smith is starting the wrong duo up front. Why?

Well, on Tuesday we saw Rodney Williams explode for a season high 19 points and we also saw sixth-man Trevor Mbakwe go off for 14 points and 18 rebounds and they did so playing the majority of minutes together. We also witnessed Eliason go 0-for the game in everything and pick up three fouls while playing just seven minutes against the Bison. 

Perhaps Mbakwe has had enough of the slow growth coming off of his ACL tear just over one year ago? It sure seems that way as he has had two straight double digit scoring games (14, 12) and his third double digit scoring performance in the past four games.

It's something his teammates are being to take notice of as well.