Class of 2013 - Recruting Update

[Seany]

We should follow the Wisconsin model of recruiting. Wrap up your state border as best as you possibly can, build a massive offensive line with all of the big strong guys in your state, and recruit the necessary speed from southern states. You can certainly build around some of the skill talent in the state, but there isn't enough to field a competitive team.

This is very similar to the model that Nebraska has been using for decades as well, building up their lines with all those beefy Nebraska farm boys, then grabbing the best skill position players from the Omaha and Lincoln areas, and then just recruiting tons of Southerners and Californians/West Coasters to fill the speed positions. Obviously, that is a model that's worked very well for them.

 

[Gopherprof]

If you asked me off the top of my head what the difference is, between high schools in Minnesota and high schools in, say, Ohio, it's investment and community pressure, as well as weather (spring ball). Having lived grades 7 through 11 in Ohio and seeing the "big time" high school football, it molds a different breed of player. Schools invest in their facilities and the community puts a lot of pressure on the kids to perform. The high school football experience is huge, the high school football star revered, even in the larger cities. Front page stories. Everyone going to games on Friday nights. 10,000-seat stadiums. 200-piece marching bands. Field turf, video boards.

I don't get that same feeling in Minnesota (**although to be fair, I cannot claim to have been too connected to Minnesota high school sports**)

I also grew up, and played football, in Ohio. While the entire state is obsessed with football, the vast majority of the college talent comes from the big cities (Cleveland, Columbus, Cincy, Akron/Canton). There is a common theme among urban areas, and it isn't greater investment and community pressure (and most Ohio high schools don't have spring ball).

There are over 1.4 million black people in Ohio. There are roughly 275,000 black people in Minnesota. That's a 5:1 ratio. If you take out African-Americans, Ohio also has twice as many non-blacks as Minnesota.

So, when you consider that about 2/3 of all college football players are black, you can put together the numbers to deduce that we should expect, all things being equal, for Ohio to produce at least 4 times as many college football players than Minnesota per year. The numbers are even greater than that, of course, and that's when things like culture, investment, etc. come in. All of those things are seriously lacking in Minnesota. I was surprised how little most people here cared, or even noticed, high school football. There is a ton of room for improvement on that front. BUT, that first number is the most glaring, and makes the biggest difference.

These are the states with a smaller # of black population than Minnesota:
-Arizona, Washington, Nevada, Colorado, Delaware, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, Oregon, West Virginia, Rhode Island, New Mexico, Utah, Alaska, Hawaii, Maine, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Idaho, North Dakota, Vermont, Wyoming, Montana

Look at that list and find me one state that produces enough talent to field a team that could compete in a BCS conference. There isn't one.

 

[50PoundHead]

This is very similar to the model that Nebraska has been using for decades as well, building up their lines with all those beefy Nebraska farm boys, then grabbing the best skill position players from the Omaha and Lincoln areas, and then just recruiting tons of Southerners and Californians/West Coasters to fill the speed positions. Obviously, that is a model that's worked very well for them.

I am way old and I don't know if it is as pertinent now as it was in the 1960s and 1970s when Devaney and Osborne were building the Cornhusker juggernaut, but they used to have the best walk-on program of anyone in the nation back then. They would bring in those corn-fed youngsters off the farm, beef them up, and make solid contributors out of them (usually on the O-line). The announcers would go on-and-on about walk-on after walk-on. Of course, it helped that those walk-ons were blocking for Johnny Rodgers, Jeff Kinney, Turner Gill, and Mike Rozier (and many others).

 

[RoyalGopher]

I also grew up, and played football, in Ohio. While the entire state is obsessed with football, the vast majority of the college talent comes from the big cities (Cleveland, Columbus, Cincy, Akron/Canton). There is a common theme among urban areas, and it isn't greater investment and community pressure (and most Ohio high schools don't have spring ball).

There are over 1.4 million black people in Ohio. There are roughly 275,000 black people in Minnesota. That's a 5:1 ratio. If you take out African-Americans, Ohio also has twice as many non-blacks as Minnesota.

So, when you consider that about 2/3 of all college football players are black, you can put together the numbers to deduce that we should expect, all things being equal, for Ohio to produce at least 4 times as many college football players than Minnesota per year. The numbers are even greater than that, of course, and that's when things like culture, investment, etc. come in. All of those things are seriously lacking in Minnesota. I was surprised how little most people here cared, or even noticed, high school football. There is a ton of room for improvement on that front. BUT, that first number is the most glaring, and makes the biggest difference.

These are the states with a smaller # of black population than Minnesota:
-Arizona, Washington, Nevada, Colorado, Delaware, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, Oregon, West Virginia, Rhode Island, New Mexico, Utah, Alaska, Hawaii, Maine, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Idaho, North Dakota, Vermont, Wyoming, Montana

Look at that list and find me one state that produces enough talent to field a team that could compete in a BCS conference. There isn't one.

In general, I agree with what you're saying, but the bolded statement above is false. Not to be nitpicky, but Arizona had one 5 star, seven 4 stars, forty one 3 stars, and tons of 2 stars in their Class of 2012. They had 40 recruits end up at a Big 6 school.

 

[Gopherprof]

A lot of those players are junior college and community college players from California. Minnesota has an almost non-existent junior college program.

 

[Gopher07]

I also grew up, and played football, in Ohio. While the entire state is obsessed with football, the vast majority of the college talent comes from the big cities (Cleveland, Columbus, Cincy, Akron/Canton). There is a common theme among urban areas, and it isn't greater investment and community pressure (and most Ohio high schools don't have spring ball).

There are over 1.4 million black people in Ohio. There are roughly 275,000 black people in Minnesota. That's a 5:1 ratio. If you take out African-Americans, Ohio also has twice as many non-blacks as Minnesota.

So, when you consider that about 2/3 of all college football players are black, you can put together the numbers to deduce that we should expect, all things being equal, for Ohio to produce at least 4 times as many college football players than Minnesota per year. The numbers are even greater than that, of course, and that's when things like culture, investment, etc. come in. All of those things are seriously lacking in Minnesota. I was surprised how little most people here cared, or even noticed, high school football. There is a ton of room for improvement on that front. BUT, that first number is the most glaring, and makes the biggest difference.

These are the states with a smaller # of black population than Minnesota:
-Arizona, Washington, Nevada, Colorado, Delaware, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, Oregon, West Virginia, Rhode Island, New Mexico, Utah, Alaska, Hawaii, Maine, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Idaho, North Dakota, Vermont, Wyoming, Montana

Look at that list and find me one state that produces enough talent to field a team that could compete in a BCS conference. There isn't one.

You got me curious, so I created the spreadsheet here which looks at percent of black population versus percent of players signed to a D1 school. Rivals results are from http://highschool.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1182411.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkNgrvTKSW4sdHZYcU5ZLTF6V1ZtampNbFBHVmk4OGc

Correlation is strong between number of black residents and number of D1 signees, although I would argue that's not the best measure (larger states will tend to produce more prospects, Texas or Florida for example). Probably the better comparison is to look at percent of residents who are black versus percent of football players who signed with a D1 school. There we find a moderate correlation - and there are certainly outliers (Oklahoma, Utah, Arizona, and the other way, Illinois and New York).

I'm not making any conclusions based on it, but it's sure interesting (for me...at least) to look at.

 

[Gopherprof]

I'd say it's more than moderate. While there are a few outliers (Oklahoma being the primary one you mentioned) I'm still skeptical that Oklahoma by itself could sustain a BCS program. New York is easily explainable: most kids living in New York City neither have the space or the interest to play football. That's why so much basketball talent comes from NYC. Chicago is the same issue to a lesser degree.

One only need to look at our recruiting patterns. Think of how many players from the Gulf area this coaching staff has offered in the last two years. Jay Sawvell practically lives there. The Florida panhandle and southern Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana aren't heavily populated areas, and there's certainly no obvious connection to Minnesota, but they produce a tremendous amount of NFL talent relative to their populations. They also, for the most part, aren't exactly the richest areas in the country, so I don't see how it could be chalked up to investment.

Hell, the biggest reason why Minnesota was so great pre-1960 and so mediocre/poor afterwards also has a great deal to do with race. Once the south decided that they were more interested in winning than being racist morons, they started keeping a lot of their talent that was previously either (a) barred from playing completely or (b) came to the more accepting northern schools (Bobby Bell, for example)

 

[Gopher07]

I'd say it's more than moderate. While there are a few outliers (Oklahoma being the primary one you mentioned) I'm still skeptical that Oklahoma by itself could sustain a BCS program. New York is easily explainable: most kids living in New York City neither have the space or the interest to play football. That's why so much basketball talent comes from NYC. Chicago is the same issue to a lesser degree.

One only need to look at our recruiting patterns. Think of how many players from the Gulf area this coaching staff has offered in the last two years. Jay Sawvell practically lives there. The Florida panhandle and southern Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana aren't heavily populated areas, and there's certainly no obvious connection to Minnesota, but they produce a tremendous amount of NFL talent relative to their populations. They also, for the most part, aren't exactly the richest areas in the country, so I don't see how it could be chalked up to investment.

Hell, the biggest reason why Minnesota was so great pre-1960 and so mediocre/poor afterwards also has a great deal to do with race. Once the south decided that they were more interested in winning than being racist morons, they started keeping a lot of their talent that was previously either (a) barred from playing completely or (b) came to the more accepting northern schools (Bobby Bell, for example)

Fair enough, what you point out above isn't incorrect.

Getting back to Minnesota, I will point out that the state does under-perform based purely on these figures and your hypothesis (31st in percent of black population/43rd in percent of football players signing in D1). If the correlation were 1.0 we'd expect to see around 21 D1 signees based on the number of participants. So, yes, I will agree that race distributions play a factor. It is not, however, the only factor, and certainly it isn't the easiest to "fix".

 

[Unregistered User]

Freakonomics: GopherHole

Coming to a Barnes and Noble near you.

 

[phipho]

If you asked me off the top of my head what the difference is, between high schools in Minnesota and high schools in, say, Ohio, it's investment and community pressure, as well as weather (spring ball). Having lived grades 7 through 11 in Ohio and seeing the "big time" high school football, it molds a different breed of player. Schools invest in their facilities and the community puts a lot of pressure on the kids to perform. The high school football experience is huge, the high school football star revered, even in the larger cities. Front page stories. Everyone going to games on Friday nights. 10,000-seat stadiums. 200-piece marching bands. Field turf, video boards.

I don't get that same feeling in Minnesota (**although to be fair, I cannot claim to have been too connected to Minnesota high school sports**)

It also has a great deal to do with the fact that Texas allows sports to be taught as a class. They practice not only in season, but throughout the winter and spring as well. In the school I work at we are on block schedule. Football is a double blocked course meaning that they meet every day for 90 minutes. Its hell on academics, but it sure produces football players. The kids are cheated in their ability to leave high school with the skills and knowledge to compete in the business world, but then again reading , writing and eating have always been highly over rated.

 

[vames]

More offers for the Minnesota Preps Class of 2013:

DeLeSalle LB Jareid Combs (6'3 220) picked up his second FCS offer from SDSU.

Minneapolis Washburn WR Noah Scarver (6'4 200) picked up his first FCS offer from North Dakota.

Minnetonka LB/Athlete Mike Redmond (6'4 220) picked up his first FCS offer from North Dakota.

Star Tribune is tracking HS recruiting now and is maintaining the list at the following link:

http://www.mnfootballhub.com/page/show/464705-2013-recruitment

 

[ndsugopherfan]

vames, a kid picking up an offer from north dakota isnt impressive, they have over 100+ offers out there, desperation reek's. kinda like Ole Miss sending out 1000 offers.


Vames, You might need to understand the difference between NDSU & und, 1 is national champs, the other is national chumps. because Oscar got an offer from NDSU.

 

[positively4thstreet]

vames, a kid picking up an offer from north dakota isnt impressive, they have over 100+ offers out there, desperation reek's. kinda like Ole Miss sending out 1000 offers.


Vames, You might need to understand the difference between NDSU & und, 1 is national champs, the other is national chumps. because Oscar got an offer from NDSU.

I assure you that not a soul on this message board cares.

 

[RoyalGopher]

Vames, You might need to understand the difference between NDSU & und, 1 is national champs, the other is national chumps.

No one is arguing with you that NDSU has a much better program than UND.

vames, a kid picking up an offer from north dakota isnt impressive, they have over 100+ offers out there, desperation reek's. kinda like Ole Miss sending out 1000 offers.Vames, You might need to understand the difference between NDSU & und, 1 is national champs, the other is national chumps. because Oscar got an offer from NDSU.

This has absolutely nothing to do with Gophers football. I also don't think there's anything wrong with vames posting who is getting FCS offers. I'm interested in who is picking FCS offers.

 

[Bob_Loblaw]

vames, a kid picking up an offer from north dakota isnt impressive, they have over 100+ offers out there, desperation reek's. kinda like Ole Miss sending out 1000 offers.


Vames, You might need to understand the difference between NDSU & und, 1 is national champs, the other is national chumps. because Oscar got an offer from NDSU.

Why are all NDSU fans complete a-holes who feel the need to post about the achievements of NDSU?

Vames compiled a list of all of the MN kids who have been offerred or are attending certain schools. If he made a mistake on NDSU / UND it was unintentional.

 

[GoAUpher]

Hooray for NDSU fans! Always here to bring us commentary that is both silly (vames never called the UND offer impressive, just said it happened) and unneeded.

 

[GoAUpher]

If he made a mistake on NDSU / UND it was unintentional.

If the NCAA doesn't care enough to differentiate between the 2, why should we?

 

[Gopherprof]

vames, a kid picking up an offer from north dakota isnt impressive, they have over 100+ offers out there, desperation reek's. kinda like Ole Miss sending out 1000 offers.


Vames, You might need to understand the difference between NDSU & und, 1 is national champs, the other is national chumps. because Oscar got an offer from NDSU.

You might need to understand the difference between a Gopher message board and a Bison message board. Nobody gives a damn. Bye.

 

[vames]

vames, a kid picking up an offer from north dakota isnt impressive, they have over 100+ offers out there, desperation reek's. kinda like Ole Miss sending out 1000 offe


Vames, You might need to understand the difference between NDSU & und, 1 is national champs, the other is national chumps. because Oscar got an offer from NDSU.

ndsugopherfan, As a native of grand forks, I can only say I wish the UND-NDSU rivalry for the Nickel Trophy would resume. Currently UND leads the series 35-30 and won the last 4 out of 5.

Regarding posts on Minnesota Preps and FCS offers, many of the players that pick up a number of FCS offers are recruits with potential FBS and BCS potential. Or players that we would like to see Kill recruit as a PWO. Hayes, Anyanwu, and Lauer are a players from last year's class that didn't receive BCS offers immedicately, but picked up a number of FCS and FBS offers. Larson, Michaelson, and Pierce were players that received multiple FBS and FCS offers, and were offered PWO by the U but decided not accept.

As a few posters indicated, it is interesting to see what Minnesota Preps have picked up D1 offers and might be players to watch for the U!

On that note, we all know that Wipson picked up an offer from the Gophers and Rucker committed to Iowa. DeLaSalle OL Chad Fahning (6'7 280) picked up his third FCS offer from Northern Iowa. Providence Academy DL/OL Michael Warren (6'5 260) picked up his fifth FCS offer from Gardner-Webb. Washburn DB Jamison Whiting (6'4 190) picked up first offer from Northern Iowa.

 

[Seany]

Nice work, vames. Thank you for keeping us up to date.

 

[upnorthkid]

ndsugopherfan, As a native of grand forks, I can only say I wish the UND-NDSU rivalry for the Nickel Trophy would resume. Currently UND leads the series 35-30 and won the last 4 out of 5.

Regarding posts on Minnesota Preps and FCS offers, many of the players that pick up a number of FCS offers are recruits with potential FBS and BCS potential. Or players that we would like to see Kill recruit as a PWO. Hayes, Anyanwu, and Lauer are a players from last year's class that didn't receive BCS offers immedicately, but picked up a number of FCS and FBS offers. Larson, Michaelson, and Pierce were players that received multiple FBS and FCS offers, and were offered PWO by the U but decided not accept.

As a few posters indicated, it is interesting to see what Minnesota Preps have picked up D1 offers and might be players to watch for the U!

On that note, we all know that Wipson picked up an offer from the Gophers and Rucker committed to Iowa. DeLaSalle OL Chad Fahning (6'7 280) picked up his third FCS offer from Northern Iowa. Providence Academy DL/OL Michael Warren (6'5 260) picked up his fifth FCS offer from Gardner-Webb. Washburn DB Jamison Whiting (6'4 190) picked up first offer from Northern Iowa.

I go to school at UND and I do as well. UND had a golden opportunity to give a reason to ignite the rivalry. They should've taken the banner that the NCAA sent them wrongly and said if you want it back you have to play us for it. It was set up so perfectly!
That being said, thank you for doing the updates on all the kids to receive offers. Its always interesting to see any kids that get offers and where they are from. Any rural kids that you guys have heard of getting talked to/getting offers?

 

[vames]

Interesting to see that Washburn TE/WR Noah Scarver (6'5 215) picked up a greyshirt offer from Wisconsin. He must have had an impressive camp down there to pick one up. That brings us up to 6 players with BCS offers.

 

[Purple Gator]

Thats good but we have a long ways to go.

 

[Bob_Loblaw]

Interesting to see that Washburn TE/WR Noah Scarver (6'5 215) picked up a greyshirt offer from Wisconsin. He must have had an impressive camp down there to pick one up. That brings us up to 6 players with BCS offers.

Here are some Noah Scarver highlights, he seems like a pretty talented kid. He's not very fast but he looks like a natural receiver and he already has good size.

http://www.hudl.com/athlete/1060516/#highlights/10078374

 

[vames]

Cretin-Derham Hall DT Akeem Roller (6'4 280) is the next player to pick up FBS offers. Following his performance at the Northwestern Showcase event, both Western Michigan and Eastern Michigan offered as well as FCS school Western Illinois.

 

[corcoran1]

Any strong opinions on here about Whether this kid can play at the B1G level?

 

[Bob_Loblaw]

Any strong opinions on here about Whether this kid can play at the B1G level?

If you're talking about Roller, I'm not really sure. I've seen him play a lot but he's a tough kid to really gauge. Part of the difficulty is that Harden was so dominant in HS, that it was hard to tell how good the guy playing next to him really was. Roller has a better build than Harden, but HArden was WAY more of a dominant HS football player. It'll be interesting to see Roller this year without Harden playing next to him.

He has a relatively athletic build for a 280 lbs kid and he actually moves pretty well.

I'm not expert, but if I had to guess, I'd say that Roller is not a Big 10 caliber player. In fairness though, part of that is simply that after watching Harden and Roller and knowing that HArden didn't get a single BCS offer, it's impossible for me to think that Roller could be a Big 10 prospect.

 

[vames]

Imagine if Harden had Roller's body last year! Quite possibly could have been a 5 star player.

It will be interesting to see how much off season work Roller has put in and his intensity level playing in the trenches this season. He obviously is impressing enough D1 coaches to pick up offers. Is that based on his potential? Or has he stepped it up a notch and has been dominating in the camps that he has been attending.

 

[ndsugopherfan]

ndsu has sent out a ton of offers to wisconsin kids for 2013, is wisconsin hs d1 prospects outnumbering minnesotan's? or is that perception wrong of me.