The Gophers football program will not retain longtime receivers coach Matt Simon for next season and is in the process of replacing him with Isaac Fruechte, a source told the Pioneer Press on Friday.

Fruechte, who played wideout for the Gophers from 2012-14, has been the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach for North Dakota since 2024. The Caledonia, Minn., native, who had a playing stint with the Vikings, has also coached at Winona State, Northern State, Northern Iowa and Wisconsin-La Crosse.

The Gophers are also planning to hire former record-setting tailback Mo Ibrahim to replace Jayden Everett as its running backs coach, a source said. Everett left for Wisconsin, while Ibrahim, who holds the U’s career rushing record of 4,668 yards, was the running backs coach at Kent State for one season.

Minnesota is also working to bring in Daniel Da Prato to be the next special teams coordinator after Bob Ligashesky was not retained after last season. Da Prato has been the special teams coordinator at New Mexico and one of his units returned a kickoff 100 yards for a touchdown in Minnesota’s 20-17 overtime win over the Lobos in the Rate Bowl.

The U will also be bringing in Travis Moore to be an assistant defensive line coach. He has been the defensive ends coach at Northern Illinois since 2019. He played for the Huskies alongside Gophers head coach P.J. Fleck in the early 2000s.

The Gophers have one remaining coaching vacancy at outside linebackers/nickel backs.

Simon, a Farmington native, had been on Fleck’s staff for more than a decade, dating to Western Michigan in 2014. He has also served as co-offensive coordinator the last few seasons.

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After working through a hairline fracture in his right hand, quarterback J.J. McCarthy will officially get the start for the Vikings in the finale against the Green Bay Packers. The annoucement came from head coach Kevin O’Connell on Friday afternoon at TCO Performance Center.

Though the Vikings will likely be going up against mostly backups when the play the Packers on Sunday afternoon at U.S. Bank Stadium, the rivalry matchup offers a chance for McCarthy to close this season out on a high note.

It’s been a roller coster for McCarthy to this point as he’s only completed 57.3% of his passes for 1,450 yards, 11 touchdowns, and 12 interceptions. He’s also struggled to stay on the field consistently, missing games due to a high ankle sprain, a concussion, and a broken hand.

“If I did start writing a book, the first chapter would be good, that’s for sure,” McCarthy said in reference to the ups and down he’s already experienced. “It’s a beautiful story and I’m really starting to understand the meaning of it.”

There have been signs of growth from McCarthy as of late. He looked much more confident last month in wins over the Washington Commanders and Dallas Cowboys before being knocked out of the win over the New York Giants.

No matter what happens when the Vikings play the Packers this weekend, McCarthy said he can’t escape the feeling that he his teammates down this season with some of the growing pains he’s gone through in real time. He’s hellbent on making sure he doesn’t want to feel like that moving forward.

“We’ve got to get in the dance,” McCarthy said. “We’ve got to make sure that we don’t end up in this position again.”

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By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal magistrate judge on Friday refused to order the pretrial release of a man charged with planting two pipe bombs outside the headquarters of the Democratic and Republican national parties on the eve of the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

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U.S. Magistrate Judge Matthew Sharbaugh ruled that Brian J. Cole Jr. must remain jailed before trial. The magistrate concluded there are no conditions of release that can reasonably protect the public from the danger that Cole allegedly poses.

Justice Department prosecutors say Cole confessed to placing pipe bombs outside the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee headquarters only hours before a mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol. According to prosecutors, Cole said he hoped the explosives would detonate and “hoped there would be news about it.”

“Mercifully, that did not happen,” Sharbaugh wrote. “But if the plan had succeeded, the results,” he said, could have been devastating, “creating a greater sense of terror on the eve of a high-security Congressional proceeding, causing serious property damage in the heart of Washington, D.C., grievously injuring DNC or RNC staff and other innocent bystanders, or worse.”

After his arrest last month, Cole told investigators that he believed someone needed to “speak up” for people who believed the 2020 election, which Democrat Joe Biden won, was stolen and that he wanted to target the country’s political parties because they were “in charge,” according to prosecutors.

If convicted of both charges against him, Cole faces up to 10 years of imprisonment on one charge and up to 20 years of imprisonment on a second charge that also carries a five-year mandatory minimum prison sentence.

By DYLAN LOVAN

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A federal judge in Kentucky has dismissed Louisville’s proposed settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice over police reforms after the department withdrew its support of the plan earlier this year.

The Justice Department announced in May it was canceling proposed consent decrees with Louisville and Minneapolis that sought to curb police racial bias and abuses after the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor that spurred nationwide protests in the summer of 2020.

U.S. District Judge Benjamin Beaton wrote in a Dec. 31 ruling that “the responsibility to lead the Louisville Metro Police Department in compliance with federal law must remain with the city’s elected representatives and the people they serve.”

A judge in May dismissed Minneapolis’ proposed consent decree, which places a federal officer in charge of tracking the progress of reforms laid out in the agreement.

Justice Department officials under President Joe Biden’s administration conducted a multiyear investigation in Louisville prompted by the fatal shooting of Taylor and police responses to public protests in 2020. A draft of the investigation was released in early 2023, alleging the Louisville Police Department “discriminates against Black people in its enforcement activities,” uses excessive force and conducts searches based on invalid warrants.

New DOJ leadership accused the Biden Justice Department of using flawed legal theories to judge police departments and pursuing costly and burdensome consent decrees.

The consent decrees with Louisville and Minneapolis were approved by the Justice Department in the final weeks of the Biden administration, but the settlements had to be approved by a judge.

Beaton wrote that his ruling “doesn’t prevent the parties from undertaking the hard work of reform themselves.”

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The city has initiated some reforms since Taylor’s death in March 2020, including a city law banning the use of “no-knock” warrants. The warrants were typically used in surprise drug raids. The city also started a pilot program that sends behavioral health professionals to some 911 calls.

The city also paid a $12 million wrongful death settlement to Taylor’s family.

Earlier this year, former Louisville Police Detective Brett Hankison became the first officer involved in the Taylor raid to go to prison. A judge sentenced Hankison to nearly three years in prison on an excessive force conviction despite the Justice Department’s efforts to reduce his sentence to one day of time served.

Hankison shot 10 rounds after police were fired on by Taylor’s boyfriend from inside her apartment. Hankison shot blindly into Taylor’s windows but didn’t strike anyone inside or in a neighboring apartment.