Chip Scoggins: Life's a beach for bonding Gophers football recruits
The perception of Kill’s program is changing.
“The Gophers program now is a lot different than what it was even two years ago,” Coughlin said. “I think with us staying home, it’s going to start a trend for kids around the state to want to stay home and be a part of the program.”
Coughlin has become an unofficial recruiter. He contacts players who receive scholarship offers from the Gophers to give his own sales pitch.
“I’ve DM’d so many kids [on Twitter] I can’t even give you a number,” he said.
Mostly, he sends messages to his cabin buddies through their ongoing group chat. They stay in contact almost daily now.
“I think we’re going to have an unusually tight-knit group,” Coughlin said, “just from the bonding that we’ve been able to have and will continue to have.”
Just plain smart on his part. 100% committed to the U of M and knows that he can help make the team around him even better by firming up other recruits now. Kid that age understanding goal setting and forward thinking is going to be highly successful in life regardless of how football pans out.
You'll often read stories about a recruit who is lobbying other prospects to join him at a school. And it's commonplace for players to go on team-building adventures once they are at a program (like the Ohio State running backs' recent paintball excursion, for instance).
But I've never heard of a situation quite like what happened this summer with a group of committed Minnesota recruits in the Class of 2016. As Chip Scoggins of the Minneapolis Star Tribune explains in this story, it all started when linebacker prospect Carter Coughlin realized he didn't know most of the other players in his class who have pledged to the Gophers. So he went about changing that.