Fickell... Extended???

[mngg11]

The rankings I gave are the combined HS and Transfer rankings. The Gophers were 50th in HS recruiting and 22nd in Transfer recruiting, for a combined ranking of 41. Wisconsin was 27th in HS recruiting and 12th in Transfer recruiting for a combined ranking of 25th. Don't get me wrong, I really like our recruiting class, HS + Transfers. But on paper, Fickell has really had a true recruiting haul this year. Nebraska-esque. I give him credit for that.

Fickell's issue at Wisconsin is that the high rankings of his recruits haven't translated into a corresponding level of success on the field. What I give PJ credit for is that he is a great judge not only of a player's athletic ability but of the player's emotional maturity and civic engagement, commitment to the team over self, and even parental support for the player. So, I think the Gophers are unusually cohesive and lose fewer true starting caliber B1G talent to the portal year over year. Fickell on the other hand has lost a lot of talent over the past two years. In this sense, PJ is accretive: he is building upon an existing solid base; Fickell is still trying to build the base itself--which keeps crumbling. Maybe Fickell's name says it all?

Moreover, I think PJ recruits very specifically to the desired identity of the Gophers and to specific needs on the roster. Fickell, based on the past few years, is flirting with the Scott Frost trap: his teams' identity is in flux--making it difficult to recruit efficiently to solidify the base. So, like Frost, he ends up recruiting based on high rankings, giving you a great team on paper. Maybe it works, or maybe you end up with a roster with a spongey base and poor depth a key positions, that isn't cohesive enough to consistently win enough tough games.

Stated another way: PJ does more with less (viewed as player rankings), because he is very efficient in player integration, development and utilization. Fickell, so far has been much less efficient. A lot of entropy.

I feel like the whole "we make more with less" narrative has been the norm for numerous Gopher coaching regimes now, starting with Mason (which is also around the time Rivals took off). I've always had the opinion that these recruiting analytics are not anywhere close to accurate outside the top 50-150 players in the country and it's all a crapshoot outside of that based on some educated guesses/comparisons. A ton of guys across the country are high star talent who fizzle at the college level, and a ton are late or unevaluated nobodies who end up NFL draft picks. You can attribute it to the coaching, which I certainly think is a strength of ours, but I also think our coaches are far better talent evaluators than guys getting paid to scout for a website. These rankings seem phony more often than not outside of the top dogs and it's why we frequently play well beyond our recruiting rankings.

In short, I think you're 100% right about Fleck and his ability to target the right guys and coach them to an above average or greater performance level. I also think that the recruiting sites are garbage if they're being leaned on to assess how successful a class of high schoolers is going to make a program who isn't traditionally in the top 10-15 in the country. Minnesota doesn't drive profits for recruiting services. Fickell sucks. Wisconsin sucks. End of story.

 

[Word]

The rankings I gave are the combined HS and Transfer rankings. The Gophers were 50th in HS recruiting and 22nd in Transfer recruiting, for a combined ranking of 41. Wisconsin was 27th in HS recruiting and 12th in Transfer recruiting for a combined ranking of 25th. Don't get me wrong, I really like our recruiting class, HS + Transfers. But on paper, Fickell has really had a true recruiting haul this year. Nebraska-esque. I give him credit for that.

Fickell's issue at Wisconsin is that the high rankings of his recruits haven't translated into a corresponding level of success on the field. What I give PJ credit for is that he is a great judge not only of a player's athletic ability but of the player's emotional maturity and civic engagement, commitment to the team over self, and even parental support for the player. So, I think the Gophers are unusually cohesive and lose fewer true starting caliber B1G talent to the portal year over year. Fickell on the other hand has lost a lot of talent over the past two years. In this sense, PJ is accretive: he is building upon an existing solid base; Fickell is still trying to build the base itself--which keeps crumbling. Maybe Fickell's name says it all?

Moreover, I think PJ recruits very specifically to the desired identity of the Gophers and to specific needs on the roster. Fickell, based on the past few years, is flirting with the Scott Frost trap: his teams' identity is in flux--making it difficult to recruit efficiently to solidify the base. So, like Frost, he ends up recruiting based on high rankings, giving you a great team on paper. Maybe it works, or maybe you end up with a roster with a spongey base and poor depth a key positions, that isn't cohesive enough to consistently win enough tough games.

Stated another way: PJ does more with less (viewed as player rankings), because he is very efficient in player integration, development and utilization. Fickell, so far has been much less efficient. A lot of entropy.

Wisconsin wasn't 12th in the portal if you account for the players that left. They did much worse than us if you account for that.

 

[mngolf]

The rankings I gave are the combined HS and Transfer rankings. The Gophers were 50th in HS recruiting and 22nd in Transfer recruiting, for a combined ranking of 41. Wisconsin was 27th in HS recruiting and 12th in Transfer recruiting for a combined ranking of 25th. Don't get me wrong, I really like our recruiting class, HS + Transfers. But on paper, Fickell has really had a true recruiting haul this year. Nebraska-esque. I give him credit for that.

Fickell's issue at Wisconsin is that the high rankings of his recruits haven't translated into a corresponding level of success on the field. What I give PJ credit for is that he is a great judge not only of a player's athletic ability but of the player's emotional maturity and civic engagement, commitment to the team over self, and even parental support for the player. So, I think the Gophers are unusually cohesive and lose fewer true starting caliber B1G talent to the portal year over year. Fickell on the other hand has lost a lot of talent over the past two years. In this sense, PJ is accretive: he is building upon an existing solid base; Fickell is still trying to build the base itself--which keeps crumbling. Maybe Fickell's name says it all?

Moreover, I think PJ recruits very specifically to the desired identity of the Gophers and to specific needs on the roster. Fickell, based on the past few years, is flirting with the Scott Frost trap: his teams' identity is in flux--making it difficult to recruit efficiently to solidify the base. So, like Frost, he ends up recruiting based on high rankings, giving you a great team on paper. Maybe it works, or maybe you end up with a roster with a spongey base and poor depth a key positions, that isn't cohesive enough to consistently win enough tough games.

Stated another way: PJ does more with less (viewed as player rankings), because he is very efficient in player integration, development and utilization. Fickell, so far has been much less efficient. A lot of entropy.

The ranking i saw had Minnesota as 4th in conference for transfer portal and wisky around 16th in conference.

 

[Word]

The ranking i saw had Minnesota as 4th in conference for transfer portal and wisky around 16th in conference.

Yes, when you account for players lost.

 

[gophernut1]

I had no idea how stuck with Fickell that Wisconsin is. If they let go of Fickell - they are on the hook for 80% of his contract. The $8 million buyout is if someone else comes along and/r

Luke Fickell’s contract includes $8 million buyout if he leaves before 2027

A copy of new Wisconsin Badgers football head coach Luke Fickell’s contract obtained by News 3 Now indicates Fickell would be required to pay several millions to the University of

www.channel3000.com

 

[Some guy]

I had no idea how stuck with Fickell that Wisconsin is. If they let go of Fickell - they are on the hook for 80% of his contract. The $8 million buyout is if someone else comes along and/r

Luke Fickell’s contract includes $8 million buyout if he leaves before 2027

A copy of new Wisconsin Badgers football head coach Luke Fickell’s contract obtained by News 3 Now indicates Fickell would be required to pay several millions to the University of

www.channel3000.com

That’s a big deal but if they’re fire him next fall the buyout is only 32-33 million also known as less than half of one Jimbo