Ben Lauer gets Gopher offer

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Gopherprof

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I saw this on GI. Not totally out of left field, but a little surprising. I guess when Pankey decided not to visit they pulled the trigger on another 3rd offensive lineman.

The kid has a ton of size and may have received more attention if he didn't get injured his senior year. Probably not someone who is going to get the draftnicks excited (I guess I'd include myself in that group) but if we're going to fill out the class with less heralded players, I'd rather they at least be local.

Or maybe the report is wrong. Whatever.

Here is a report Chris Monter did with Lauer about a month ago.

http://www.gopherhole.com/news_article/show/125760?referrer_id=331171
 

Gopherprof said:
I saw this on GI. Not totally out of left field, but a little surprising. I guess when Pankey decided not to visit they pulled the trigger on another 3rd offensive lineman.

The kid has a ton of size and may have received more attention if he didn't get injured his senior year. Probably not someone who is going to get the draftnicks excited (I guess I'd include myself in that group) but if we're going to fill out the class with less heralded players, I'd rather they at least be local.

Or maybe the report is wrong. Whatever.

Here is a report Chris Monter did with Lauer about a month ago.

http://www.gopherhole.com/news_article/show/125760?referrer_id=331171
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Both Duke and Ben are the kind of kids NDSU brings aboard. Still, I hope both are grey shirts
 

Ben Lauer is a good football player, I expect him to be a GS kid. I only say that because the state of MN is a little weak at the OL position next year. Either way, Lauer can play and i'm sure some of the people who follow the star rankings will be annoyed.
 

Meh. From watching tape of both, I'd rather have Sam Lee. I'm guessing Lauer's school affiliation plays a larger role here than anyone involved would admit.
 

Every video I ever saw from Blue Earth was like 1000 feet away. It's as if nobody in that town has a video camera with a zoom function.

From what I've seen of Lauer, he has great size, although he needs to bulk up considerably for the Big Ten, he has the frame to do it. He has great positioning, but needs to work on his feet as he's sometimes in a restive position. The biggest issue that I have with his play, which is the same thing I have with many MN linemen, is that he's just too passive. I thought the same thing about Jimmy Gjere coming out of high school (although as a prospect Gjere was at another level of potential). I don't know if maybe these guys are so much bigger that they simply look bored, but a lot of the time it looked like he was playing patty-cake with a guy he easily could have just run over. If you watch film of Tommy Olson, he almost never does that.
 


dpodoll68 said:
Meh. From watching tape of both, I'd rather have Sam Lee. I'm guessing Lauer's school affiliation plays a larger role here than anyone involved would admit.
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Sam Lee looks more dominant now, but they are different kinds of athletes. Lauer is a tall / lean OT prospect. Sam Lee is already a big kid and will probably not play T at the next level. Lauer is more in the Gjere mold and Lee is more in the T. Olson mold. I think they are really similar prospects, but I think Lauer is more athletic and will play OT. I prefer Lauer to Lee, but if we wanted an OG, I would have preferred Roullier.

I don't really think it has much to do with school affiliation. Kill's staff has passed on Michaelson, Harden, Larson and Ford, and they are all EP, CDH or Wayzata athletes that were fringe kind of prospects. Maybe Lauer being a Wayzata kid might have played a small factor, but I really don't think it was the driving force.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
Kill's staff has passed on Michaelson, Harden, Larson and Ford, and they are all EP, CDH or Wayzata athletes that were fringe kind of prospects. Maybe Lauer being a Wayzata kid might have played a small factor, but I really don't think it was the driving force.
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What I'm saying is, my guess is that Kill and staff have decided that they need another OT, liked a handful more or less the same (Lauer, Lee?, Simmet?, Sauer?, etc.), and used school as the tiebreaker for which one to offer. They passed on all of the above who you mentioned because they have what they consider better players (in some cases multiple better players) already committed at their positions. In the case of Harden, I vehemently disagree (as do you), but I guess that's why Kill gets paid seven figures and we don't.
 

dpodoll68 said:
What I'm saying is, my guess is that Kill and staff have decided that they need another OT, liked a handful more or less the same (Lauer, Lee?, Simmet?, Sauer?, etc.), and used school as the tiebreaker for which one to offer. They passed on all of the above who you mentioned because they have what they consider better players (in some cases multiple better players) already committed at their positions. In the case of Harden, I vehemently disagree (as do you), but I guess that's why Kill gets paid seven figures and we don't.
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Yeah, I definitely think that's plausible, but I don't think Sam Lee is a Guard. I would really have liked to have seen Simmet get a scholarship offer. He is 6'9" 335 and a really good basketball player (not simply a big kid who takes up space). He was good at Hill Murray last year, but he's one of those kids like Jonah Pirsig (IMO), that could be an absolute monster in 3-4 years.

But yeah, like you said, you just have to defer to Coach Kill.
 

This may well be a back up offer that turns into a grey shirt offer if we land other players that we have offered. This kid is definately 2-3 years away and a grey shirt would not hurt him...
 



Bob_Loblaw said:
Yeah, I definitely think that's plausible, but I don't think Sam Lee is a Guard. I would really have liked to have seen Simmet get a scholarship offer. He is 6'9" 335 and a really good basketball player (not simply a big kid who takes up space). He was good at Hill Murray last year, but he's one of those kids like Jonah Pirsig (IMO), that could be an absolute monster in 3-4 years.



But yeah, like you said, you just have to defer to Coach Kill.
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I thought I heard that Simmet was going to St. Thomas to play basketball and football. I could be wrong.
 

MaxyJR1 said:
I thought I heard that Simmet was going to St. Thomas to play basketball and football. I could be wrong.
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Yeah, he is. I just assumed that if he got a D1 football offer, that would override his chance to play both at D3.
 

GopherinPhilly said:
This may well be a back up offer that turns into a grey shirt offer if we land other players that we have offered. This kid is definately 2-3 years away and a grey shirt would not hurt him...
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I think we are in a position with our OL where we need to evaluate players based on who we think will be the best in 2-3 years. There just might not be much of an opportunity for a kid to play right away, so who is more ready right now, probably doesn't matter.
 

We already have 25 committed. So Lauer can't commit now can he?
 



Class of 2012

RoyalGopher said:
We already have 25 committed. So Lauer can't commit now can he?
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I believe up to 3 of the early enrollees can be moved to the 2011 class which means we can sign a total of 28 if we don't exceed 85 total scholarships.
 

Grayshirt? Doesn't appear to be alot of OLine talent in-state next year.
Seemed like a high ceiling type when people discussed him earlier, 6'7 with a big frame and good athleticism.

It really does seem to me that Kill is looking to stock the cupboards with as many "athletic, developmental types" now, get them in the program and hope they pan out 2-3 years from now.
Not a bad way to do it since Kill's strength seems to be a solid system and player development.
 


mkAz said:
Roullier committed to Wyoming yesterday BTW.
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Yeah, I saw that. He's a good football player, I actually thought he looked better than Lauer. The thinking was that he was definitiely a C/G prospect and that we were looking for a T. (Kill knows way more than I do about football (hopefully), so I am not complaining about offering Lauer instead of Roullier. I am just saying that from my novice eye, Roullier looked pretty good).
 

MaxyJR1 said:
I thought I heard that Simmet was going to St. Thomas to play basketball and football. I could be wrong.
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That is correct. I would have loved to have him here for obvious reasons. He turned down preferred a walk on from Wisconsin for sure and I believe (could be wrong) from here as well.

But with Lauer Kill getsa foothold into a proven football powerhouse. That's just something Hill isn't. Now if this were hockey...
 

Because we have little scholarships left, he's an in-state kid, and he has no other BCS offers, is the general consensus that Lauer is going to commit in the near future?
 

RoyalGopher said:
Because we have little scholarships left, he's an in-state kid, and he has no other BCS offers, is the general consensus that Lauer is going to commit in the near future?
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Are little scholarships different from big scholarships? :)
 

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