Bobek to Minnesota

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upnorthkid said:
you can't analyze it on this basis. if the class is overloaded with a particular type of player, we will have what happens at bigger programs. Transfers out. Also if we are winning games and someone gets recruited at that position and beats out the incumbent, well then its pretty likely he will transfer out as well. it will take several years until the classes balance out.
Haven't you ever played NCAA football on Xbox with a bad team??? lol ;)
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True enough. And again, I'm not saying he was wrong, but I think people who are questioning it have a legitimate concern. And indeed not all o-linemen can play center, so we very well may have been thin at that position.

It makes for an interesting discussion if nothing else! :)
 

I don't think this is really an issue right now, but I would be surprised if the staff took another lineman in this class. Outside of Mayes it doesn't seem like they were working anyone that hard anyway. It's probably a good idea to take 2-3 lineman in each class in most years, but we took 3 last year, and much more the year before, so it's not a problem.
 

highwayman said:
That's where I'm at--it's nice to know, but after that I don't care. All I care about is that we have 85 scholarships, and enough coming up the next year to fill our needs. I just don't worry about it.
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This is where I stand as well.
 

Why is that every time we get a new coach someone freaks out? I think if people showed a little faith you'd enjoy yourselves more. I don't think people realize how bad things got in the Brewster era. By 2014 we should have a fairly competitive team if all goes according to plan.
 

gophmeister said:
Why is that every time we get a new coach someone freaks out? I think if people showed a little faith you'd enjoy yourselves more. I don't think people realize how bad things got in the Brewster era. By 2014 we should have a fairly competitive team if all goes according to plan.
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I think you answered your question a little there lol
 


gophmeister said:
Why is that every time we get a new coach someone freaks out? I think if people showed a little faith you'd enjoy yourselves more. I don't think people realize how bad things got in the Brewster era. By 2014 we should have a fairly competitive team if all goes according to plan.
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If its according to plan we should win a National Championship but that doesn't mean it will happen.

Its all about winning and when that doesn't happen, people stress.
 

gophmeister said:
Why is that every time we get a new coach someone freaks out? I think if people showed a little faith you'd enjoy yourselves more. I don't think people realize how bad things got in the Brewster era. By 2014 we should have a fairly competitive team if all goes according to plan.
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Actually....most of us DO realize how bad things got during the Brewster era - at least those of us with season tickets know.
 

O-line is the least glamorous of all positions, yet the most important to football success. All the skill players in the world will get you nowhere if the O-line isn't able to set up the play. All positions are important, of course, but IMHO the priority of positions is 1) O-line, 2) D-backs, and 3) Linebackers. These are the positions that can compensate for lack of exceptional skill in other areas. Conversely, exceptional skill in other areas cannot make up for lack of quality play in these areas. Welcome aboard Mr. Bobek!
 




It just seems to me when you get the opportunity to get a top notch player at any (or almost any) position anyway, you make room for that player.
 

calminnfan said:
It just seems to me when you get the opportunity to get a top notch player at any (or almost any) position anyway, you make room for that player.
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I agree. (hoops example here) That's pretty much how I think Tubby should have responded when Trent Lockett reportedly was offering his services. Find a way to make it work.

Bobek sounds like a great get for Kill and the Gopher program, especially considering the other schools he was looking at (Iowa, Michigan State and West Virginia).
 

Parski1 said:
Actually....most of us DO realize how bad things got during the Brewster era - at least those of us with season tickets know.
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The Brewster Era wasn't what we hoped but otherwise it was standard for Gopher football. So was Kill's 1st season. We ain't far enough down the road to say the 2011 3-9 season was an improvement.
 

SelectionSunday said:
I agree. (hoops example here) That's pretty much how I think Tubby should have responded when Trent Lockett reportedly was offering his services. Find a way to make it work.

Bobek sounds like a great get for Kill and the Gopher program, especially considering the other schools he was looking at (Iowa, Michigan State and West Virginia).
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The differences with Tubby is that he did not have a scholarship to give in the first place and would have had to strip another player of his...personally not a big fan of that process and in this case I do respect Tubby for that. Along with that, from what I have read Lockett was not a good fit for Tubby's style of play.

My basic point was that even though the amount of OLmen on Scholarship seems high, a player of that calibre is worth spending another scholarship on. It is easier with football to spend an extra scholarship on a position even if they have a number of bodies already there if the player is a top notch player.
 



No argument here, different set of circumstances for the two situations.
 

wait!what? said:
The Brewster Era wasn't what we hoped but otherwise it was standard for Gopher football.
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At the risk of sending the conversation down that road (which I absolutely DO NOT WANT to do), you are exactly right. That is what bothers me so much about the constant vilification of Brewster. By Gopher football coach standards, especially post-1967 standards, Brewster was fairly pedestrian. Nonetheless, to many, he is the devil incarnate simply because he failed to reverse decades of mediocre-to-poor football. If one knew nothing of Gopher football history, they would think by reading the posts on this forum that Brewster drove Alabama football into the ground.
 

How do you measure improvement?

wait!what? said:
The Brewster Era wasn't what we hoped but otherwise it was standard for Gopher football. So was Kill's 1st season. We ain't far enough down the road to say the 2011 3-9 season was an improvement.
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It is clear that we all measure improvement here differently. Some of us are of the wren school that all that counts is wins, or specifically Big Ten wins. Others, like me, take a much broader perspective when it comes to measuring improvement. We are not as concerned with wins as we are with how this program is being rebuilt. As coach Kill has said often we need to rebuild this program on a solid base not sand and that is exactly what coach Kill is doing. It is about changing the culture. After that is accomplished the wins will come. If we look at what has been accomplished in academics, conditioning, recruiting players that will fit into the program, retention of the coaching staff, the buy in of most of the players to the program, the recognition of Kaler and the new athletic director of the importance of investing in the football program, the work that been down to better communicate with stakeholders, etc. etc. etc. a great deal of improvement has occured.

So if you think that Kill first season was standard Gopher football you were not paying attention as to what was taking place. I couldn't have been more pleased with the improvement that happened. A lot of sand was removed and replaced with the beginning of a solid base.
 

Killjoy said:
It is clear that we all measure improvement here differently. Some of us are of the wren school that all that counts is wins, or specifically Big Ten wins. Others, like me, take a much broader perspective when it comes to measuring improvement. We are not as concerned with wins as we are with how this program is being rebuilt. As coach Kill has said often we need to rebuild this program on a solid base not sand and that is exactly what coach Kill is doing. It is about changing the culture. After that is accomplished the wins will come. If we look at what has been accomplished in academics, conditioning, recruiting players that will fit into the program, retention of the coaching staff, the buy in of most of the players to the program, the recognition of Kaler and the new athletic director of the importance of investing in the football program, the work that been down to better communicate with stakeholders, etc. etc. etc. a great deal of improvement has occured.

So if you think that Kill first season was standard Gopher football you were not paying attention as to what was taking place. I couldn't have been more pleased with the improvement that happened. A lot of sand was removed and replaced with the beginning of a solid base.
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I see what you're getting at, but but a lot of the same exact things could have been said about Brewster in June of 2008.

The mindsight back then was that we were finally recruiting at a Big 10 level, including locking up a local kid that was surprising (Maresh) and getting a good local players to transfer back home (Carufel / Royston).

Brew got a lot of flack for going the JuCo route. He signed 6 of them in 2008 but Kill signed 6 of them in 2012.

Academically Kill has done a nice job, but when Brew arrived out academics improved.
http://www.gophersports.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/052010aab.html

In 2008, we finished with 7 wins and a bowl game.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
I see what you're getting at, but but a lot of the same exact things could have been said about Brewster in June of 2008.

The mindsight back then was that we were finally recruiting at a Big 10 level, including locking up a local kid that was surprising (Maresh) and getting a good local players to transfer back home (Carufel / Royston).

Brew got a lot of flack for going the JuCo route. He signed 6 of them in 2008 but Kill signed 6 of them in 2012.

Academically Kill has done a nice job, but when Brew arrived out academics improved.
http://www.gophersports.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/052010aab.html

In 2008, we finished with 7 wins and a bowl game.
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Agree. At the end of 2008 it looked like we really would be taking a trip to Pasedena. In 2009 I think some people started to see that there were some serious cracks in the foundation. Then 2010 came and the foundation crumbled. But if you had asked almost any Gopher fan after 2008 if Brewster would still be coaching at the U of MN in 2011 I think you would have heard a resounding "YES!".

I'm very hopeful in three years that we can look back and say that Kill made some great decisions, but it will take a while for that to play out...
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
I see what you're getting at, but but a lot of the same exact things could have been said about Brewster in June of 2008.

The mindsight back then was that we were finally recruiting at a Big 10 level, including locking up a local kid that was surprising (Maresh) and getting a good local players to transfer back home (Carufel / Royston).

Brew got a lot of flack for going the JuCo route. He signed 6 of them in 2008 but Kill signed 6 of them in 2012.

Academically Kill has done a nice job, but when Brew arrived out academics improved.
http://www.gophersports.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/052010aab.html

In 2008, we finished with 7 wins and a bowl game.
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Very interesting perspective Bob. I think you are right that there certainly were a lot of positive things that one could have pointed to during Brewster’s early period. I can see why one might believe that Brewster could be the solution. Having said that though, I have to say that there were three key differences or things that Coach Kill brought to the table that Brewster didn't. They are: (1.) Significant successful head coaching experience; (2.) Significant successful experience in turning programs around; (3.) An intact experienced coaching staff that had worked together for several years. The lack of these things with Brewster should have been warning flares to all of us.

The problem Brewster faced was that the Big Ten is not the place for on-the-job training for an inexperienced coach. From my perspective he was set up to fail. Coach Kill on the other hand has learned how to do the job over many years. He is going to need all of that experience because his new job requires him to change a football culture that has been neglected for fifty years. I don’t know if he will be successful in doing it but he is far more prepared to do it than Brewster was. Yes, the situations may look similar and in some ways they may be, but in reality the two head coaches are not even close to being similar.
 

I guess I have an issue with him and I am not sure why everyone is so up on Bobek. My concern is he was slated to be the starting center at Ohio and ended up as the third string! Then instead of fighting for the job he gets baby pants and runs away. Being a good lineman takes toughness in body and mind. What if this guy doesn't get to be the starter, will he run down to a 1AA team?

Also, I am sure Kill and Limegrover said that he would get a scholarship after spring ball. If you think about it he is unproven. screw all the stats and stars from the recruiting service . Let's face it they can't factor mental toughness and ambition, this is the Big Ten not a high school program.

I think it is great to have some depth, Bobek and Mottla are the only guys on the line that played center their whole carreer (yes Eddie O did too) in high school so having that ball handling experence will be helpful. Mottla played last year as well as Bobek so they have a feel for the game. Hayes and Christenson are not from that background and still are unproven in the center position so it was good to bring him in. Mottla will be the starter this year since he played all spring and a little birdie told me ( yes it is the cousin of the little birdie, who is friends with that birdie who got the info from another birdie who is in the know at the U) that Kill and Limegrover really like him.

My two cents
 

kearsm said:
I guess I have an issue with him and I am not sure why everyone is so up on Bobek. My concern is he was slated to be the starting center at Ohio and ended up as the third string! Then instead of fighting for the job he gets baby pants and runs away. Being a good lineman takes toughness in body and mind. What if this guy doesn't get to be the starter, will he run down to a 1AA team?

Also, I am sure Kill and Limegrover said that he would get a scholarship after spring ball. If you think about it he is unproven. screw all the stats and stars from the recruiting service . Let's face it they can't factor mental toughness and ambition, this is the Big Ten not a high school program.

I think it is great to have some depth, Bobek and Mottla are the only guys on the line that played center their whole carreer (yes Eddie O did too) in high school so having that ball handling experence will be helpful. Mottla played last year as well as Bobek so they have a feel for the game. Hayes and Christenson are not from that background and still are unproven in the center position so it was good to bring him in. Mottla will be the starter this year since he played all spring and a little birdie told me ( yes it is the cousin of the little birdie, who is friends with that birdie who got the info from another birdie who is in the know at the U) that Kill and Limegrover really like him.

My two cents
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the state university of ohio brought in a new coach. that could be a big reason why he left. didn't fit the scheme. didn't see eye to eye with meyer.
 

bigtenchamps1899 said:
the state university of ohio brought in a new coach. that could be a big reason why he left. didn't fit the scheme. didn't see eye to eye with meyer.
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Many people have already commented that his game doesn't really fit what Urban wants to do.
 

bigtenchamps1899 said:
the state university of ohio brought in a new coach. that could be a big reason why he left. didn't fit the scheme. didn't see eye to eye with meyer.
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Yep, that pretty much sums it up. He may be a complete bust, but hey, any prospect can be a complete bust. No matter how many stars you got, if you don't come in, do the work, mentally bring your game, and produce on the field, it won't matter. BUT, with that, the raw skills are in this kid's game, and so you just hope with coaching and proper scheme fit, it will pay dividends.
 

For the sake of the negative's argument, let's say that he really was the 3rd string center on OSU talent-wise. That would still get me excited that after another year of working out and maturing, he would probably be an upgrade over whoever we were planning on throwing out there at center in 2013. But, as others have pointed out, it appears that it wasn't his talent that caused him to drop on the depth chart so I don't really see the downside to this calculated risk.
 

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