Everyone forgets....Joe Mauer never wanted to be a Gopher either

[baseball_stud]

Yes, but the talent on the gophers next year is far, far below the talent level of usc's team. He's thinking NFL right now. How can i prepare myself for the next level. He's playing with better people down there and also playing against better teams more consistently. Throw in how much he will be in the national spotlight and as long as he works hard should be ready for the NFL. Like I said...our program at the U right now is just in the tubes so I cant blame these high-tier prospects for bolting to better programs.

 

[MRJ]

Committed to Florida State IIRC, but that sure didn't hurt his popularity around here. I know he's a star player in another sport but still.

Why no hate for the Baby Jesus? What if SH plays for the Vikings some day?

This board is hilarious! Keep up the good work.

True, Mauer didn't want to play for the Gophers.

However, it turned out he really didn't want to play football at Florida State either. He really just wanted to play baseball for the Minnesota Twins. So I guess you can look at it several different ways.

 

[baseball_stud]

As far as mauer you are 100 percent right...he knew he was never going to actually go to FSU. He knew that the Twins were going to draft him and even if they didnt he woulda been top 10 pick in the draft. He knew he was going to play baseball. Only reason he signed with FSU was for leverage against the Twins and to have a back up plan in the cases of something not working out.

 

[JohnnyGopher]

Mauer was also never going to play College Football.

Like most highly drafted baseball players, Mauer used signing a nation letter of intent with FSU to play football as leverage to have a timeline against the Twins in signing bonus and contract negotiations to play baseball. If he was motivated to play college football he would have went to FSU but you could alway's tell with Joe that even though he was really good at football, he was such a talented baseball player that he would have played for any MLB team and for a long time no matter who drafted him. Can't say that Mauer was ever really a Gopher fan as most Cretin guy's have not traditionally been Gopher fans.



As a couple people just said, Mauer was NEVER going to play college football and he actually did consider the Gophers seriously but in the end his "advisors" thought it would be best to sign with the top program in the nation at that time for signing leverage.

As for Cretin guys being gopher fans, it's not gone well in football but the gophers get alot of Cretin kids in other sports, especially Baseball. Joe's best friend, Tony Leseman, was a gopher baseball player and one reason he considered MN. I also heard that Joe has been very open to the idea of donating toward the new Gopher Baseball stadium. Paul Molitor, Jack Hanahan, Tony Leseman, Ben Brik, Matt Scanlan, Craig Selander are some of the real good Cretin kids to play for the Gophers and we signed David Bettenberg, a stud from Cretin last year, so it is possible to get Cretin kids at Minnesota.

 

[GG Allen]

As for Cretin guys being gopher fans, it's not gone well in football but the gophers get alot of Cretin kids in other sports, especially Baseball. Joe's best friend, Tony Leseman, was a gopher baseball player and one reason he considered MN. I also heard that Joe has been very open to the idea of donating toward the new Gopher Baseball stadium. Paul Molitor, Jack Hanahan, Tony Leseman, Ben Brik, Matt Scanlan, Craig Selander are some of the real good Cretin kids to play for the Gophers and we signed David Bettenberg, a stud from Cretin last year, so it is possible to get Cretin kids at Minnesota.

I was really only talking about the football program. CDH is one of the nation's elite HS football programs, on par with elite teams from Florida and California. Generally, states like Iowa and Wisconsin don't really have teams that are at that level. It should be a great advantage for us that we have a team like that less than 10 miles from campus. However, CDH football players seem more likely to go to Notre Dame (a team really no better than the Gophers in recent history) than their own hometown school. It sucks that they get some of the best talent in the metro area, then send them off to some big time national program.

Also, baseball recruiting is a different situation. It's nowhere near as popular and isn't as dominated by huge schools. Most of the elite programs probably don't even scout all but the most elite Minnesota prospects. Its a lot easier to convince a player to stay at Minnesota when the elite programs are schools like Rice or the less known UC campuses.

 

[kittysparrow]

Simply put, College baseball is no where near as popular as College football. Many people just don't care as much. Does anyone follow the college baseball recruitment process as closely as the football recruitment process?

And I don't hate SH, but that doesn't meant that it wouldn't be extremely satisfying to beat SH and his new team at The Bank.

Never mind that Mauer was slated to play Football at Florida State and was one of the better QB's that year.

 

[Rosemountian]

CDH is not an elite football school by any means. They have 2 state titles in what is probably the 28-32nd best state for high school football.

 

[FireDaveLee]

Paul Molitor, Jack Hanahan, Tony Leseman, Ben Brik, Matt Scanlan, Craig Selander are some of the real good Cretin kids to play for the Gophers and we signed David Bettenberg, a stud from Cretin last year, so it is possible to get Cretin kids at Minnesota.

Matt Scanlon, Gopher baseball player from '97-'99, went to Richfield.

Nitpick over.....the rest of your post is spot on. You're a top-5 poster on Gopherhole, JohnnyGopher & always read your takes.