AND WE HAVE A DT COMMITT

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I love this pickup also. We lose alot at DT after this year, and not a lot of numbers for the future, especially with Searcy not a sure thing yet. Got to love the big boys in the middle!
 

Always good to get a big boy like that for the middle. Jehwan Edwards mold. I'm always a big fan of Florida kids as well.
 

Hate to see this tho - old premium story

2010 DT: I Would Commit To UM On the Spot

Dec. 16, 2008

By: David Lake



Doral Willis

Class of 2010 Pahokee defensive tackle Doral Willis is very interested in Miami. Read here to see what Willis has to say about UM and why he likes the Hurricanes.
 


So what? Of course he would. The day we start taking prospects from Miami who have Miami offers is the day my season tickets will be too expensive for me to afford. Almost every Miami kid grows up wanting to play at the U. I wouldn't take it as a slight at all.
 

Welcome aboard Doral! Always nice to have a big DT clogging up the middle of the field.
 

Sweet. Makes me feel better to have one, but I'll withhold pure elation until we have a couple more.
 

Gopherprof said:
So what? Of course he would. The day we start taking prospects from Miami who have Miami offers is the day my season tickets will be too expensive for me to afford. Almost every Miami kid grows up wanting to play at the U. I wouldn't take it as a slight at all.
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My concern was that he may still receive an offer from them......then I noticed they already have three 4 star DT's verbally committed, so that alleviates some concern.
 






Great!

DT is the hardest positon to recruit. Few highschool players play the position well, indentifying them comes from recruiting 24/7. In many cases the biggest, or strongest kids make a winning high school program, identifying the 17 year old who projects into two gap techinque in the Big 10 is another.

Another point, recruiting one each year is minimal. Two is great, Three Outstanding. You must have a minimum of 4 DT's able to play at the Highest level, each season.
 



I don't care if he has a "2-star" rating. Things that make me really like this committment:
1) It has been a long time since we got a commit!
2) His Size. Size can't be taught.
3) Plays for one of the premier teams in Florida.
4) Wake Forest Offer, It seems a trend The Gophers offer players and then they seem to blow up.
5) DT's are always important, and he can be 'tutored' by Jewhan Edwards what a plus.
6)Early PT, His official is for the Cal game, so hopefully we stuff Best up and impress him!


Go Gophers, the train is filling up nicely!
 

Why are we picking up a 2-star, 40-espn, player so early? Shouldn't we hold out for a 3+, 70+, player? The only lower ranked players should be in state players, IMHO.
 

Pretty sure the '40' from ESPN just means they haven't really evaluated him yet. You pose a fair question, but I'm going to give our scouts the benefit of the doubt and assume they saw something intriguing in this guy beyond the star rating
 

magpie said:
Why are we picking up a 2-star, 40-espn, player so early? Shouldn't we hold out for a 3+, 70+, player? The only lower ranked players should be in state players, IMHO.
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look at #4 in my post above. we seem to have a talent at offering players earlier on before they come higher rated...
 

magpie said:
Why are we picking up a 2-star, 40-espn, player so early? Shouldn't we hold out for a 3+, 70+, player? The only lower ranked players should be in state players, IMHO.
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The guy writing the article in the Miami Herald seems pretty high on him:
After watching him play and following him since the end of his freshman season at Pahokee, there was no doubt that Doral Willis would be a top-flight prospect.​
Since we seem to do this quite a bit (offer early that is) and recruiting is the one thing I think we can all agree that Brew has proven himself adept in I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt here. Even if he is raw they may feel he has potential. Also, as Buck Bravo over at TDG notes, there is a big quality class at Pahokee HS this year that Brew may be trying to tap into.
 

In my opinion the coaches could care less about what a player rating is or what they are ranked. Yea it gives us an idea but we arent the ones out there watching the games or talking to the coaches. We arent at the camps or have any insight really other than the things we read. I put complete faith in Brewester that him and his staff know what they are doing when they offer a kid a scholarship. But obvoiusly if we had all 2 star kids coming in like Mason did, then i would be a little worried, but so far I have seen no reason not to believe that Brew and the staff don't know what they are doing. Its not like they go scout a kid and then look him up on th rivals page and see that he is only a 2 star so they shouldn't offer him. I also think it goes a long ways when a team offers a kid long before other teams do. I think it means they believe in the kid, and the kids like that, i know i would at least.
 


magpie said:
Why are we picking up a 2-star, 40-espn, player so early? Shouldn't we hold out for a 3+, 70+, player? The only lower ranked players should be in state players, IMHO.
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ESPN's 40 ranking means the player has not been evaluated yet.

I am happy to add a DT, and happy that the DT came from a powerhouse school in Florida. Wake Forest has put some pretty good defenses on the field recently, so their offer is a good sign.

Finding 300lb guys who are athletic enough to project to DT is not easy to do. Most high school players who are already that big project to the Oline.

That said, I am a little concerned with recruiting this year. The offer lists for many of the players we have commits from have not been very impressive. Several of the out of state midwest recruits only have offers from MAC schools and were not offered by their home state Big Ten school. That is not to say that these guys can't turn out to be good players. It also does not seem like the Gophers are in on as many 4 star guys as they have been in recent years.

Hopefully, there are some surprises out there in regards to players who still may consider the Gophers. I think a JUCO corner or two and a JUCO Dlineman or two are necessary in this class. It would have been really nice if Paige or Robinson would have become Gophers in this class as we'd then have had a SR CB in 2010.
 

As much as I like to see us land DT's we have to keep in mind Brewsters method of madness. He has stated that he recruits for speed, he expects kids to grow and get larger usually bumping up to a bigger position than they came in as. DT is of course the biggest. DB's become safeties, safeties become line backers, line backers become DE's and DE's become DT's. So really one good DT is probably enough per year.

The other thing to remember is that this will be a large class there will be room at the end for whatever last minute big recruit brew can nab. No need to worry about limitations yet.
 

EG#9 said:
That said, I am a little concerned with recruiting this year. The offer lists for many of the players we have commits from have not been very impressive. Several of the out of state midwest recruits only have offers from MAC schools and were not offered by their home state Big Ten school. That is not to say that these guys can't turn out to be good players. It also does not seem like the Gophers are in on as many 4 star guys as they have been in recent years.

Hopefully, there are some surprises out there in regards to players who still may consider the Gophers. I think a JUCO corner or two and a JUCO Dlineman or two are necessary in this class. It would have been really nice if Paige or Robinson would have become Gophers in this class as we'd then have had a SR CB in 2010.
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There likely aren't. I've been following this as close as probably anyone on here, and the tea leaves aren't good. We could still get a top 30 class, but I think the only 4 star players will be the ones we already have, with the possibility of a star bump for a guy like Beau Allen (who seems to be leaning ND anyway).

It will be composed of mostly 3 star guy with a few 2's and 4's mixed in. Probably about the same as last year, maybe a little weaker, although the higher # of scholarships will compensate.

It's really imperative we get at least 2 of the 3 (Seantrel, Allen, Tobi) to stay home. It's one thing if the classes are out of the top 30, that's understandable for Minnesota, but it's quite the other to keep losing top in-state talent.
 

Gopherprof said:
There likely aren't. I've been following this as close as probably anyone on here, and the tea leaves aren't good. We could still get a top 30 class, but I think the only 4 star players will be the ones we already have, with the possibility of a star bump for a guy like Beau Allen (who seems to be leaning ND anyway).

It will be composed of mostly 3 star guy with a few 2's and 4's mixed in. Probably about the same as last year, maybe a little weaker, although the higher # of scholarships will compensate.

It's really imperative we get at least 2 of the 3 (Seantrel, Allen, Tobi) to stay home. It's one thing if the classes are out of the top 30, that's understandable for Minnesota, but it's quite the other to keep losing top in-state talent.
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Gopherprof, I've read your earlier posts and you've done great work. You're far more knowledgeable about our recruiting situation than I am, so take this for what it's worth.

Don't you think your prediction is a little pessimistic? I mean, suppose we win 7+ games this year and represent ourselves well in a bowl game: given the recruiting advantages supposedly presented by the new stadium, one would think we'd have a shot at snagging some pretty decent guys. Maybe I'm being a Pollyanna, but I'd be pretty damn disappointed if the best Brewster could muster this year was a bunch of 2* with a few 3*s and a 4* or two.
 

MBAGuy said:
Don't you think your prediction is a little pessimistic? I mean, suppose we win 7+ games this year and represent ourselves well in a bowl game: given the recruiting advantages supposedly presented by the new stadium, one would think we'd have a shot at snagging some pretty decent guys. Maybe I'm being a Pollyanna, but I'd be pretty damn disappointed if the best Brewster could muster this year was a bunch of 2* with a few 3*s and a 4* or two.
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Well, the short answer is yes, I am pessimistic.

The long answer is that if you look across the landscape of recruiting, which I've tried my best to do, there just aren't that many 4 star players that are mentioning us as part of their top tier. And honestly, there's no particular reason why they should unless they are from the Upper Midwest. Michael Carter came here in large part because of his cousin, and because of a variety of outside factors. Gray came here, I think more than anything, because we continued to pursue him when other teams backed off due to his academic issues (and because we were probably the best opportunity for him in the midwest). Lipscomb also had grade issues.

As for your dissapointment, I would say, with all due respect, that you are a bit pollyanish. We are a .500ish team for the last decade, we have a very tepid and mediocre fanbase, and we play far outside of the thought process of a lot of prospects who may not even know where Minnesota is. Brewster's big recruiting class his 2nd year came with a lot of smoke and whistles, but underneath that were a lot of players with grade issues and JC transfers. I thought last year was actually a superior class on the whole, and it had 3 four star players (one who didn't even make it, and another who was a JC transfer).

Recruiting expectations here have actually become too unrealistic. Winning the Alamo Bowl is not going to change that overnight, although it may help swing a player or two who may have wondered if he could ever win at Minnesota.

There are a lot of teams we compete with that have 8+ win expectations every year, have established coaches, have fervent fan bases, and have better geographical proximity than us. I think it's been a credit to Brewster the classes he has brought in, and by and large they have only had a handful of four star players. We've outrecruited Wisconsin and Iowa (especially Iowa) to a pretty significant margin the last few years. That itself is impressive considering the tide we have going against us there.

It's a long haul, which is why Brewster needs to prove his chops coaching. You develop the players you have and establish the credibility later to consistantly compete with the top-notch programs.

In the short-term, the biggest question is can Brewster lock down the state. He hasn't been able to do that yet, and he really needs to. Our best shot at elite talent is going to be to convince our own to stay here, not to go into Florida and Texas and try to outrecruit the current elite programs.
 

Gopherprof said:
Well, the short answer is yes, I am pessimistic.

The long answer is that if you look across the landscape of recruiting, which I've tried my best to do, there just aren't that many 4 star players that are mentioning us as part of their top tier. And honestly, there's no particular reason why they should unless they are from the Upper Midwest. Michael Carter came here in large part because of his cousin, and because of a variety of outside factors. Gray came here, I think more than anything, because we continued to pursue him when other teams backed off due to his academic issues (and because we were probably the best opportunity for him in the midwest). Lipscomb also had grade issues.

As for your dissapointment, I would say, with all due respect, that you are a bit pollyanish. We are a .500ish team for the last decade, we have a very tepid and mediocre fanbase, and we play far outside of the thought process of a lot of prospects who may not even know where Minnesota is. Brewster's big recruiting class his 2nd year came with a lot of smoke and whistles, but underneath that were a lot of players with grade issues and JC transfers. I thought last year was actually a superior class on the whole, and it had 3 four star players (one who didn't even make it, and another who was a JC transfer).

Recruiting expectations here have actually become too unrealistic. Winning the Alamo Bowl is not going to change that overnight, although it may help swing a player or two who may have wondered if he could ever win at Minnesota.

There are a lot of teams we compete with that have 8+ win expectations every year, have established coaches, have fervent fan bases, and have better geographical proximity than us. I think it's been a credit to Brewster the classes he has brought in, and by and large they have only had a handful of four star players. We've outrecruited Wisconsin and Iowa (especially Iowa) to a pretty significant margin the last few years. That itself is impressive considering the tide we have going against us there.

It's a long haul, which is why Brewster needs to prove his chops coaching. You develop the players you have and establish the credibility later to consistantly compete with the top-notch programs.

In the short-term, the biggest question is can Brewster lock down the state. He hasn't been able to do that yet, and he really needs to. Our best shot at elite talent is going to be to convince our own to stay here, not to go into Florida and Texas and try to outrecruit the current elite programs.
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I have to disagree with you in at least one respect. Year in and year out, there is not enough talent in Minnesota alone to compete sucessfully. Yes, you want to get the top guys every year from here, but you'll never get everyone as some kids just want to go away for school.

At Minnesota, you have to open recruiting lanes in Florida, TX, Ohio, Cal, etc if we are going to compete long term

Thanks,
 

almost every player we are getting is a 3 star

i'll take that all day..........many of them will become 4 star players

we used to think 3 star players were not us

I am loving this class so far and we have yet to get kids in our new stadium
 

Agreed

Goldteam said:
almost every player we are getting is a 3 star

i'll take that all day..........many of them will become 4 star players

we used to think 3 star players were not us

I am loving this class so far and we have yet to get kids in our new stadium
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Ill second that.
 

TNGophfan said:
I have to disagree with you in at least one respect. Year in and year out, there is not enough talent in Minnesota alone to compete sucessfully. Yes, you want to get the top guys every year from here, but you'll never get everyone as some kids just want to go away for school.

At Minnesota, you have to open recruiting lanes in Florida, TX, Ohio, Cal, etc if we are going to compete long term

Thanks,
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I don't think he was saying that MN recruits alone will get it done. He was simply saying that the best (and easiest) route to landing more top rated talent is to make sure you collect all the top flight kids that are playing here in MN every season. Then when you add in a top JUCO and a kid or 2 from FL/TX you've got a top notch class.
 

It is still way too early for anyone on this board to judge the end result of this recruiting class (especially if the judgment is on the pessimistic side). There are many players out there that the staff is on that no one here has any idea about. Also, alot of highly rated guys wait it out to see what offers come their way. It works out for some but for others they get locked out of their first choice school (which sometimes works out for a school like Minnesota). One more thing. There are likely quite a few 2 and 3 star guys who will blow up their senior season which Brew is already recruiting. Its not too far fetched to think some of these guys will move up to high 3-star low 4-star. By the way, didn't Hayo kind of come out of the blue relatively late in the recruiting season? You can depend on Brew for a few of these recruiting surprises each year and I'm expecting a few of those this year too especially with the new stadium now available for official visits.
 

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