After signing the No. 1 player from Minnesota, Wisconsin's director of player personnel threw major shade at Gophers

[GophersInIowa]

MN and WI have the same number of HS players, so any quality differences come from other factors. General perception (for recruiting service rankings and others) has to play a factor with the major WI university being good for 2.5 decades now while MN has been inconsistent. I'm guessing the competence of the local D1 team also bleeds into general excitement for football in the State - where having a really good college team results in the "rising tide lifts all boats" factor.

MN is #12 in the number of HS players but is #25 in the number of active players in the NFL.

Apparently Alabama, Ohio and Michigan outperform their respective states' population with HS football participation - thus fertile recruiting grounds.

MN State is playing in the D2 championship today. NDSU (with tons of MN players and 1 mile from MN) is dominant in FCS. And St. John's was in the D3 final four. There is good football here. I'm hoping the Gophs are now beginning to scratch the surface.

Size of the school could play into all this as well. Generally, top talent comes from big high schools. Minnesota seems to have a lot of smaller schools so while the participation numbers are high, a lot come from smaller schools that don't produce as many high talented players.

Because of this, I think there's a lot of FCS, DII and DIII talent coming out of the state, just not as much FBS talent.

 

[MplsGopher]

Top notch HS players want to play "big time" college football and ultimately make it to the NFL. Why the hell else would players go to Lincoln Nebraska or Tuscaloosa? The pull of family being able to watch games locally is also huge - but usually not strong enough to offset the "big time" factor...thus great New York/Jersey players not staying at home. If Minnesota can show consistent success and be viewed as "big time" and a path to the NFL, more players will stay home.

Sure ... if it's like Alabama. I mean, I hope we get there, but I feel like the "have's" at that level want there to be massive barriers to entry for any program currently on the outside of that group. Clemson already broke their way in, and now are taking up lots of 5* players that would've gone to blue bloods normally.

 

[MplsGopher]

Size of the school could play into all this as well. Generally, top talent comes from big high schools. Minnesota seems to have a lot of smaller schools so while the participation numbers are high, a lot come from smaller schools that don't produce as many high talented players.

Because of this, I think there's a lot of FCS, DII and DIII talent coming out of the state, just not as much FBS talent.

Indirectly size of school ... but what ultimately matters is the level of competition they face in the regular season. So at Minnesota publics (and probably publics all over), that level of competition is pretty directly related to the size of the school.

But in states like Alabama, you could still see plenty of 3*, 4* type players on rosters of schools with only 100 kids per class.

 

[GophersInIowa]

Indirectly size of school ... but what ultimately matters is the level of competition they face in the regular season. So at Minnesota publics (and probably publics all over), that level of competition is pretty directly related to the size of the school.

But in states like Alabama, you could still see plenty of 3*, 4* type players on rosters of schools with only 100 kids per class.

Good point. I went to a small school. While I think I worked very hard, a lot of people didn't because there wasn't competition even among the team. Most upperclassmen was going to play pretty much no matter what because we didn't have numbers. We wanted to play well and win, but I doubt it was as important as it is at schools in like Alabama or certainly Texas.

 

[MplsGopher]

Can work against you, too, if the school is "too big".

Public schools in Dallas super-suburbs that make Eden Prairie look like Richfield (no offense).

Probably have guys that easily could play DII or FCS, but never get to play because they can't beat out the 20 FBS guys on the starting roster.

 

[GophersInIowa]

Can work against you, too, if the school is "too big".

Public schools in Dallas super-suburbs that make Eden Prairie look like Richfield (no offense).

Probably have guys that easily could play DII or FCS, but never get to play because they can't beat out the 20 FBS guys on the starting roster.

Yeah they have high schools with 6000+ students. Crazy.

 

[MplsGopher]

Well when your "suburb" grows from 40k population to 200k+ population in a few decades ...

 

[Word]

I was going to go with cross country.

That's reason 1a. Close 2nd.

 

[Some guy]

There are some interesting differences between Minnesota and Wisconsin, which are otherwise two bordering states in the cold, dark, north central US of approximately the same population.

Minnesota's population is highly concentrated into the Twin Cities metro area. Wisconsin, on the other hand, does have a Milwaukee of course, but it's metro area population is a much smaller percentage of the state population. They have at least a handful of other major population centers, and probably another handful of fairly large regional centers.

Another very minor difference, that probably doesn't matter that much for quality, but is just interesting to note: Wisconsin only has 11 man football (at least, the last time I looked), while Minnesota does have 9-man football, for the smallest farm schools.

In Wisconsin they play 9 regular season games and only half make the playoffs.

I think that helps as to lower level games as well. You essentially get half of an extra season of competitive games.

our playoff system sucks.
We have got teams playing Tuesday Saturday. We have the worst team in the state playing the best team as the worst teams 9th game

 

[Word]

Indirectly size of school ... but what ultimately matters is the level of competition they face in the regular season. So at Minnesota publics (and probably publics all over), that level of competition is pretty directly related to the size of the school.

But in states like Alabama, you could still see plenty of 3*, 4* type players on rosters of schools with only 100 kids per class.

But how many 4* hockey players does Alabama produce?

 

[Panthadad2]

Size of the school could play into all this as well. Generally, top talent comes from big high schools. Minnesota seems to have a lot of smaller schools so while the participation numbers are high, a lot come from smaller schools that don't produce as many high talented players.

Because of this, I think there's a lot of FCS, DII and DIII talent coming out of the state, just not as much FBS talent.

If school size is a factor on increasing and proving competence, and I agree it is, then could the #1 Minnesota rated recruit be somewhat unproven because his competition was much lower than the juggernauts in 6A? In comparing Kaden Johnson's highlight film (4A MN competition) to say Jah Joyner's (massive CT high school), there's a noticeable difference in opposing offensive lines.