Gophers offensive coordinator Greg Harbaugh insisted Wednesday he wasn’t concerned when new transfer quarterback Max Brosmer overthrew his first third-down attempt against North Carolina last week.

Harbaugh quickly came to that conclusion at Huntington Bank Stadium after reviewing the replay on the tablets now available in-game for coaches and players.

“It’s something that I wouldn’t have been able to see in years past,” Harbaugh shared. “But right when I saw it, I knew he was fine. There was no panic. It wasn’t his mind that was going too fast on that particular third down; it was his feet.”

Brosmer had worked through his progression and stepped up in the pocket, but his feet didn’t provide a solid foundation, and he sailed the throw to tight end Jameson Geers. The Gophers went three-and-out and punted.

“He said it right away,” Harbaugh said. “He came right to the player phone (and said), ‘My feet were too fast, I’ll settle down.’ ”

Four of Brosmer’s eight incompletions came in that first quarter (3 of 7), but he had four the rest of the way as he finished with 62 percent completions (13 of 21) for 165 yards, no touchdowns and no interceptions. On the last two drives of the game, Brosmer had a faster tempo and went 5 for 7 for 95 yards; one ended in a go-ahead field goal, the second ended in a missed kick as time expired on a 19-17 loss to the Tar Heels.

“Last two drives, he was very effective,” Harbaugh said. “He didn’t do anything out of the ordinary. He just executed the game plan and did his job.”

The Gophers didn’t officially attempt a throw more than 20 yards downfield in the season opener, but two Brosmer deep throws to Daniel Jackson ended in defensive pass interference penalties — a net positive. Another Brosmer dropback had Cristian Driver wide open downfield, but Brosmer was brought down for one of Gophers’ five sacks allowed in the game.

Brosmer was under pressure on 10 of his 29 total drop backs (34.5 percent) against the Tar Heels, according to Pro Football Focus. When he wasn’t being sacked in those situations, he went 2 for 4 for 20 yards, per PFF. When kept clean in the pocket, he was 11 for 17 for 124 yards.

Brosmer’s rushing attempts were a mixed bag.

First, the negatives. He attempted to scramble for a first down in the fourth quarter, but linebacker Amare Campbell punched the ball out with a heavily taped hand for a fumble lost. Brosmer also tried to outrun a 300-pound Tar Heels defensive lineman earlier in the game, but the QB was quickly brought down.

“That was my welcome to the Power 4 (moment), for sure,” Brosmer said. “It didn’t happen too much from where I originally played (at New Hampshire). That was a good phone call on the sideline with Coach Harbaugh, like, ‘Well, you won’t do that again, but you know, you can take that and grow in-game.’ Ultimately, that’s going to be a throwaway next time.”

Brosmer had success on the ground, scrambling for a first down to keep a drive alive and quarterback sneaks. On the latter, he tallied his first touchdown to put the Gophers up 14-7 late in the first half.

On that opening third-down conversion attempt, Brosmer identified the coverage (a cloud corner to the field side, indicating cover three) and worked his progression to the backside dig route that Geers had run, Harbaugh said. The tight end was open.

“It was a very good job by (Brosmer); he just missed the throw,” Harbaugh said.

But it wasn’t Brosmer’s only miss. After North Carolina went on a 17-play field goal drive to start the second half, Brosmer had time but again overthrew Driver on an out route for another three-and-out. That missed opportunity contributed to the U running only four plays total in the third quarter.

Brosmer went 2 for 5 for 40 yards on intermediate throws (10-20 yards) and 11 for 15 on short throws (0-9 yards). On his 21 attempts, he targeted receivers 13 times, followed by running backs (five) and tight ends (three).

Overall, Brosmer said he is learning about where the sweet spot is for him in the Gophers’ offense. His play in the opener was reminiscent of former U quarterback Tanner Morgan.

“In order for teams to win games, you have to play within the system,” Brosmer said Wednesday. “If you try to do too much and try to play out of your body, that’s when really negative plays happen.”

Brosmer got his feet underneath him in the season opener, avoided damaging plays through the air in his first major college football game and put his team in a position to win the game. Now he will work to make more explosive plays starting Saturday against Rhode Island.

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Jessie Hellmann | (TNS) CQ-Roll Call

WASHINGTON — Programs that feed older, homebound adults are instituting waiting lists amid budget crunches, rising costs of food, growing demand for their services and funding cuts from the government.

Combined with the end of COVID-19 era aid, local groups are finding that they can no longer serve the same number of people, resulting in difficult decisions about next steps.

“This is a huge challenge for our network,” said Josh Protas, chief advocacy and policy officer at Meals on Wheels America, a national organization that supports local organizations delivering meals to homebound individuals, mainly older adults.

Meals on Wheels is among the groups pushing for funding increases through the appropriations process for programs funded under the Older Americans Act, a decades-old law first signed by President Lyndon Johnson to support adults as they age in their communities.

One in three Meals on Wheels programs has a wait list, with an average wait time of three months.

“The vast majority of them recognize that there are more seniors in need in their communities that they’re not able to serve, in large part because of a lack of adequate federal funding,” Protas said.

Higher demand

The population is getting older. Over the next decade, people 65 and older will represent 22 percent of the population, compared to 17 percent in 2022.

They are at a unique risk for going hungry because of fixed incomes, social isolation, lack of access to transportation and health conditions that make it difficult to cook or shop for groceries.

Almost 7 million seniors were “food insecure” — or didn’t have enough to eat — in 2022, and more than 9 million could be by 2050, according to Feeding America.

Meals on Wheels or similar programs are almost ubiquitous. Many have been around for more than 50 years, providing a source of nutrition and social contact to people who can’t leave their homes and helping them age in place. Programs served 206 million home-delivered meals and 55 million congregate meals in fiscal 2021.

But the demand has outpaced the ability of programs to serve people in their communities.

“We have 12,000 people every day who are turning 60, and as a society, we haven’t really reckoned with the changes that are necessary to address those needs,” Protas said.

Current legislation

Congress has recognized the need for more funding for the programs. But budget pressures have made that difficult.

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee — on a bipartisan basis — approved in July a reauthorization of the Older Americans Act, recommending to appropriators an increase of 20 percent each for the home-delivered and congregate meal programs.

Still, the Senate Labor-HHS funding bill, advanced by the Senate Appropriations Committee in August, would level-fund those programs in fiscal 2025. Meanwhile, the House appropriations bill would cut the nutrition programs by 1.6 percent.

The Older Americans Act funds several different programs intended to help older adults age in place, but its most well-known ones are related to food services: one for home-delivered meals, another for meals served in congregate settings, like senior centers, and the Nutrition Services Incentive Program, which allows programs to purchase fresh, local produce, dairy or proteins for meals.

While home-delivered meals and congregate settings received increases in fiscal 2024, the nutrition services incentive program received a cut, surprising advocates.

The program is intended to incentivize states to serve more meals because the amount of money it gets is based on how many meals it served the previous year.

“If you’re discouraging incentives, you’re actually lowering meal counts at the end of the day,” said Robert Blancato, president of the National Association of Nutrition and Aging Services Programs.

Overall, funding to the nutrition programs was cut by 0.8 percent in fiscal 2024 and states received about $10 million less in appropriations from the federal government in fiscal 2024 than in fiscal 2023.

That cut, plus growing demand for services, cuts to state budgets, the end of COVID-19 aid and inflation has put pressure on local service providers and the people who count on them.

The 2021 COVID-19 rescue package alone nearly doubled the amount the government typically spends on home and congregate meals, allowing organizations to reach people they couldn’t before.

Local programs

Now that the money is gone, groups have to make difficult decisions about who to remove from their programs or dropping the number of meals people receive per day, or creating wait lists.

“During the pandemic, the demand definitely shot up, and so did government funding… but then that funding went away, and the demand didn’t,” said Adam Porter, director of Sound Generations Meals on Wheels based in Seattle.

The organization has had a wait list since February 2023. It currently has 1,423 people on it, more than the number receiving meals through the program.

Food costs have also increased by 25 percent from 2018 to 2023, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“It continues to go up and funding isn’t, so we’re reducing the number of meals we can serve,” Porter said.

In Pennsylvania, the Monroe County Area Agency on Aging, which is responsible for doling out Older Americans Act funding to local partners, has had a freeze on new clients entering the program since July 2023.

Its primary partner — Monroe County Meals on Wheels — had to seek out a grant to avoid instituting a waitlist after the state passed flat funding for senior services programs.

The organization enrolled people on the waiting list into its private pay program, which is based on a sliding fee scale, to ensure people weren’t going without needed meals. It received a grant to cover the costs of the meals for people who can’t afford it.

“We’ve been dependent on community support and grant funding to try to fill that gap because the alternative is a waiting list of our own,” Alyssa Koeck, executive director of Monroe County Meals on Wheels in Pennsylvania.

“We’re working very, very hard to make sure that we do our best to prevent that from happening because we know, especially with the cost of living, that having nutritious, affordable meals is so critical to our clients.”

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©2024 CQ-Roll Call, Inc. Visit at rollcall.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

WASHINGTON — Gov. Tim Walz was hit with a subpoena this week that compels the Minnesota Department of Education to produce documentation relating to the state’s Feeding Our Future scandal.

In what congressional leaders have called the “largest pandemic fraud scheme in the country,” 70 people were charged in federal court with a “brazen” scheme to steal $250 million in government funding that was meant to feed children in need.

More than a dozen people have already pleaded guilty in the scheme, and five of seven were found guilty by a jury in June.

But as the U.S. House Education and Workforce Committee works to conduct oversight on what exactly happened with the federal dollars provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, committee members say the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) hasn’t been cooperative.

“After MDE, under Governor Walz, failed to respond to previous attempts by the Committee to garner information necessary to uncover how the Governor and the USDA allowed such fraud to occur, the Committee today is proceeding with a subpoena to compel responses,” a committee news release reads.

In the subpoena’s cover letter, Chairwoman Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., said Walz was “well aware” of the fraud and has a responsibility to ensure the MDE’s compliance with oversight.

“As the chief executive and the highest ranking official in the state of Minnesota, you are responsible for the MDE and its administration of federal child nutrition programs,” Foxx wrote. “You are well aware of the multi-million-dollar fraud that has occurred under your tenure as Governor.”

Walz has previously claimed that state employees were unaware of the misuse of funds.

“This wasn’t malfeasance,” the letter quotes Walz as saying. “There’s not a single state employee that was implicated in doing anything that was illegal. They simply didn’t do as much due diligence as they should’ve.”

The subpoena demands Walz to appear before the House Education and Workforce Committee at noon on Sept. 18, and to provide the committee with all documents relating to communications between the MDE and Feeding Our Future, communications regarding the MDE’s decision to resume payments to Feeding Our Future as well as communications between Walz and various state officials.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the Harris-Walz campaign deferred questions to the governor’s office, which had not yet released a statement responding to the subpoena, or indicating whether Walz intends to fight it.

Other subpoenas were also issued to Minnesota Commissioner of Education Willie Jett, USDA Sec. Tom Vilsack and USDA Inspector General Phyllis Fong.

At the time of the subpoena’s public release, Walz was traveling in Pennsylvania for campaign events.

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