Football Across Minnesota: On comebacks, jump-cuts and a coach who couldn’t lose

FOOTBALL ACROSS MINNESOTA | Week 12

Todd Hoffner has been a college football head coach for 21 seasons. He can’t remember being part of an ending to a game quite like the one his Minnesota State Mankato team pulled off Saturday.

“It was an amazing day, that’s for sure,” he said.

The Mavericks trailed Augustana by nine points with 3 minutes, 7 seconds left in the first round of the NCAA Division II playoffs. They took possession at their own 18-yard line having managed only 160 total yards to that point. They had punted seven times and had six three-and-out series.

“We just struggled,” Hoffner said. “We knew what we were up against.”

They didn’t buckle.

A picture that looked bleak turned into a celebration in Sioux Falls, S.D., as MSU Mankato scored 10 points in the final 95 seconds, capped by a walk-off field goal, to win 20-19 and advance.

“What an amazing chain of events that went down at the end of the game,” Hoffner said a day later.

It started with an 88-yard touchdown drive that took only seven plays and 1:32 off the clock. The drive culminated with a 33-yard touchdown pass from Hayden Ekern to Grant Guyett on a highlight-reel play.

Flushed from the pocket, Ekern fired off one foot on the move. The ball looked as if it might sail out of reach, but Guyett made a leaping catch in the end zone.

The Mavericks trailed 19-17, and kicker Matthew Jaeger told Hoffner he wanted to try his saucer kick on the onside attempt. Jaeger laid the ball sideways and kicked it with spin, rather than boot the ball hard into the turf to cause a big bounce.

“I don’t know if you call it English or reverse spin,” Hoffner said, “but it was rotating clockwise.”

The Chicago Bears used that approach on their successful onside kick against the Vikings on Sunday. The Mavericks pulled it off, too, as Lorenzo Jones pounced on the ball near midfield.

The Mavericks moved into position for a 34-yard field goal by Jaeger at the final horn. Teammates locked arms on the sideline as he lined up for the winner.

“Pretty cool,” Hoffner said.

The offense caught fire at the right time, but Hoffner says the comeback wouldn’t have been possible without his defense holding Augustana to six field-goal attempts.

The defense will need a similar performance Saturday in the second round at region No. 1 seed Colorado State Pueblo, which owns one of the highest-scoring offenses nationally.

“We are the Cinderella story right now,” Hoffner said. “We’re the underdog. We’re usually the dog.”

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MAPLE GROVE’S FINEST

A Minnetonka defender had Maple Grove running back Charles Langama squared up on a tackle attempt near the goal line in the Class 6A championship game.

Langama did what he usually does in those situations.

“He looks like he wants to run you over,” Crimson coach Adam Spurrell said. “But yet he’s willing to make you miss instead.”

Langama used a quick jump-cut to avoid trouble and sprinted to the end zone for a 4-yard touchdown.

Another trick for the Crimson’s Houdini.

“You can be naturally gifted,” Langama said, “but you have to work at it.”

The senior running back has some of the slickest moves that you’ll see on a football field. He eludes tackles with jukes and jump-cuts in tight quarters that leave defenders wondering what just happened.

Langama traces the origins of his fancy footwork to playing “Ships Across the Ocean” as a kid. One can only imagine how many classmates he made cry in that game.

Powerfully built at 5-9 and 195 pounds, Langama possesses tremendous strength and balance as a runner. He can squat 515 pounds — “Pound for pound, he’s one of our best,” Spurrell said — and he does extra training for agility, balance and quick-cut movement.

Spurrell saw those traits immediately when the team called up Langama to varsity as a sophomore for the state championship run in 2022. The defense had a hard time tackling him.

“I’m like, this kid is going to be something special,” Spurrell said.

A high ankle sprain sidelined Langama for four games this season, and he never felt 100% once he returned. He still rushed for 1,209 yards and 20 touchdowns in nine games.

He led the way in the Prep Bowl with 143 yards rushing and two touchdowns as Maple Grove completed an undefeated season, winning 28-21 over Minnetonka. Langama will put his moves on display next season at North Dakota.

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WINNER, WINNER, WINNER

Becker High assistant coach Chris Meidt dressed in layers for the Prep Bowl on Friday.

He wore a Minneota shirt on the bottom, a Bethel shirt over it and a Becker sweatshirt on top.

He had all his allegiances covered.

“What an amazing day,” he said.

Actually, two days. Meidt has deep connections to these three football teams, and he had a lot to celebrate after they went 3-0 last weekend — a pair of state championships Friday and a win in the NCAA Division III playoffs Saturday.

And now the guy who long ago promised his wife that he wouldn’t get into coaching insists he’s retiring from coaching again to spend more time with his wife, kids and four grandkids.

“Time is the one product you can’t make more of,” he said.

The year 1985 is a good place to trace the start of Meidt’s long and fairly uncommon football life. Meidt played quarterback for his dad, Gerhard, at Minneota, and the Vikings made their first state tournament appearance that season. Their opponent in the first round was Becker, coached by Dwight Lundeen. Minneota won the game in a snowstorm. The Meidt father-and-son tandem went on to win Prep Bowl titles in 1986 and ‘87. Chris set several national passing records in the process.

He played collegiately at Bethel, where he met and later married star basketball player Allison Rostberg (daughter of Hutchinson football coaching legend Grady Rostberg and sister of current coach Andy Rostberg). Lundeen was Becker’s athletic director at the time and hired Allison to coach girls basketball after she left Bethel. She and Meidt were engaged, and she knew she didn’t want her husband-to-be to coach football because of the time commitment.

Meidt’s response: “I said: ‘Don’t worry about it. I’m not going to be a football coach. I’m going into business.’ ”

He went into coaching. And business later.

Lundeen invited him to join his offensive staff at Becker. That job lasted two seasons and led to a coaching career that featured a return to Bethel, a head coaching run at St. Olaf and even an NFL gig as an offensive assistant for Jim Zorn in Washington.

Meidt turned in his whistle for a while for life in the corporate world, eventually becoming CEO of North Risk Partners, an independent insurance firm that handles mergers and acquisitions.

The family moved back to Becker, and son Alex played for Lundeen. Meidt rejoined Lundeen’s staff then — winning back-to-back state titles, 2014-15 — and returned again three years ago. He was on the sideline Friday as Lundeen, in his 55th season, won the state championship for the fourth time, 24-8 over Totino-Grace for the 4A title.

One game earlier, Meidt’s alma mater Minneota played the first game of the Prep Bowl and won the Class 1A title 70-20 over Springfield. Meidt watched the game from the stands with 10 teammates from the ‘86 championship team.

The next day, Bethel played in the first round of the Division III playoffs and won 31-26 over Coe.

A clean sweep for Meidt, who said he is retiring from coaching for good.

He went out a triple winner.

. . .

WEEKEND REWIND

The five best things we saw on social media this weekend:

For the first time, we named an All-Prep Bowl Team. Players from each class are represented — and deserving. Check it out here.

“There’s a lot of tears in that locker room because of how hard they played. But Penn State found a way to make one more play than we did.”

— P.J. Fleck after the Gophers lost 26-25 against No. 4 Penn State in a game decided in the final minutes.

. . .

UP NEXT

Gophers at Wisconsin, 11 a.m. Friday in Madison, Wis. The battle for Paul Bunyan’s Axe is always meaningful, and both teams desperately need a win for different reasons. The Badgers need one more victory to become bowl eligible. At 6-5, the Gophers need a win to avoid a .500 season and second consecutive nightmarish November.

. . .

DAILY DELIVERY + FAM

My colleague Michael Rand and I talked about all the different story lines that developed across Minnesota football over the weekend. Watch our YouTube chat:

. . .

A FAM FINAL WORD

The Vikings needed overtime to win in Chicago after blowing a late lead. The Gophers had a chance to upset Penn State but couldn’t seize the opportunity. There were onside kicks, fake punts and weird plays. Nobody can say they were bored watching.

. . .

Thank you for reading Football Across Minnesota (FAM), my weekly column that tours football topics in our state from preps to pros. I’ll publish this column on Tuesday mornings. I appreciate feedback, so please reach out anytime. Thanks again — Chip (@chipscoggins on X; email me at anthony.scoggins@startribune.com)

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Want more Football Across Minnesota? Chip’s previous columns are here: