Gopher football

[Pompous Elitist]

That’s a good question, and honestly it’s hard to tell, but

On3 reports this for the top 10.

Rank	Program	Football-only spend (est.)
1	Texas	$38 – 40 M
2	Ohio State	$35 – 37 M
3	Oregon	≈ 30 M
4	Texas A&M	≈ 30 M
5	Texas Tech	≈ 28 M
6	Miami	≈ 27 M
7	Michigan	≈ 22 M
8	USC	≈ 21 M
9	Tennessee	≈ 20 M
10	Auburn	≈ 18 M

But i couldn’t find Gophers total. The source is behind their pay wall. At some point I did come across $3-5MM, but I can’t find the source now.

What I could find is, and the source isn’t behind a pay wall, the average NIL for 2025 commits is:

• Minnesota is listed as $23,000.
• Michigan: $245,000
• Ohio State: $165,000
• USC: $113,000

Now keep in mind this was just for 2025 commits, OhSt pay to Jeremie Smith isn’t included in this list, and he and many others of their returning Nat Champ team are probably higher paid, but the same goes for many teams.

Here is the link.

On3 B1G rankings of 2025 per player average NIL

That’s another good data point.

If you go to the On3 data, it shows in 2023 and 2024 Iowa average per commit as $23 and $28k, respectively. 2025 is $46k, double 2023.

I am not sure how that ties out with what this “the swarm” data is showing showing, but it does show that they doubled the 2023 spending.

Well, even those 2023 and 2024 numbers are suspect as the Swarm distributes to 22 Iowa teams. Sure, the majority of that undoubtedly goes to football but even then these on3 numbers are educated guesses at best.

To my knowledge there are only a few collectives that claim non-profit status and file publicly available documents so the REAL numbers that are out there are extremely sparse. There is no way any numbers reported from coaches, ADs, etc are close to real. I do think the Swarm numbers are close and there are certainly other private deals with NDAs but as far as the actual number allocated to football I don’t know. Sub $2M likely?

The 2024 numbers will be out later assuming anyone bothers to file taxes anymore…j/k.
Sorta.

 

[btowngopher]

Good grief, trotting this one out again.

Why do people think it’s not difficult? What coach has ever shown that it’s easy?

 

[DEGopher]

Well, even those 2023 and 2024 numbers are suspect as the Swarm distributes to 22 Iowa teams. Sure, the majority of that undoubtedly goes to football but even then these on3 numbers are educated guesses at best.

To my knowledge there are only a few collectives that claim non-profit status and file publicly available documents so the REAL numbers that are out there are extremely sparse. There is no way any numbers reported from coaches, ADs, etc are close to real. I do think the Swarm numbers are close and there are certainly other private deals with NDAs but as far as the actual number allocated to football I don’t know. Sub $2M likely?

The 2024 numbers will be out later assuming anyone bothers to file taxes anymore…j/k.
Sorta.

Yeah, the real numbers will never be known. Contracts can remain private, so you will always have that.

I believe in the first year of NIL, Gable Stevens was projected as the highest earning student athlete, because it was like 2022, the consortiums weren’t set up yet and Gable had a contract with WWE. However, no one knew what was in the contract so no one knew what he actually got paid.

 

[PMWinSTP]

Why do people think it’s not difficult? What coach has ever shown that it’s easy?

Why does it have to be an either/or?

 

[WindyCityGopher]

Nobody has scored more than 9 points against Ohio State this season. They have allowed 2 TD through 5 games. Only scoring 3 is frustrating but this Ohio State defense is unreal.

Ohio State is the clear favorite to win the National Championship this year. There might be a few teams out there that can hang with them but there are not many.

For us to compete in a game with a team like that we need them to make some mistakes and they didn't. That goes for us and 95% of the other teams in college football. There are very few (might not be any) teams that can line it up and beat Ohio State straightup right now.

Patricia has been the DC for 2 Super Bowl champions (plus another ring as a defensive assistant). He’s gone up against the greatest offensive minds in the world and won…multiple times. I don’t think he sweats facing the Fleck/Harbaugh brain wizards, or pretty much anyone else in college football. And it sure helps that he effectively has NFL personnel to scheme with. It’s just unfair.

 

[BilldGopher]

I sure didn't know what the tOSU defense was going to do for most plays. Pretty sure it was pretty much guesses for Drake too.

 

[GopherVotary]

This team is young. They have talent but nearly all of their impact players are Freshman, Sophomores, and a few Juniors. They will likely return nearly everyone of importance next season. Ohio St is currently the best team in the country coming off of a national championship. Relax.

I wish I could take solace in the youth of the team, but with the flood of players rushing through the portal each year, who knows what the roster will look like next year.

 

[Mulligan]

I sure didn't know what the tOSU defense was going to do for most plays. Pretty sure it was pretty much guesses for Drake too.

And there were multiple plays where it looked like we going to gain some yards only to have them swarm to the ball, and we ended up with no gain or even a loss. Not sure I've seen a faster overall defense.

 

[mngg11]

I wish I could take solace in the youth of the team, but with the flood of players rushing through the portal each year, who knows what the roster will look like next year.

Valid point, but we've been pretty stable in terms of losses. Bucky and Daniels are our two major portal losses and those were to the conference big dawgs. Otherwise we've benefitted from the portal

 

[BilldGopher]

Valid point, but we've been pretty stable in terms of losses. Bucky and Daniels are our two major portal losses and those were to the conference big dawgs. Otherwise we've benefitted from the portal

Utilizing The Portal effectively to identify and bring in good players is something that Coach Fleck and staff have done pretty well.

However, this does require really a "plug in and play" mentality that has to have some degree of challenge no matter how good the player or system. The risk vs reward element is off the charts with any given player. Then of course you've got to manage the egos of the youngsters trying to earn their spot on the field. Yikes.

I can see why a lot of middle tier HCs seem to be less than enthusiastic.

 

[MNVCGUY]

And there were multiple plays where it looked like we going to gain some yards only to have them swarm to the ball, and we ended up with no gain or even a loss. Not sure I've seen a faster overall defense.

There were times it felt like there were 15 guys out there on D....that unit is special.

 

[btowngopher]

Why does it have to be an either/or?

Well it has to land somewhere on the scale. I’d love to hear an argument about how it’s not more towards the difficult end.

 

[Ope3]

Go ahead and quote one stat or illogical thing I've said during this discussion that indicates the fanning of flames.
I've been a Gopher football fan for 40 plus years including 16 as a season ticket holder. My question is rooted in frustration and embarrassment. How anyone could have watched that game last night and not felt some of the same embarrassment and frustration is mind boggling to me.
Like I said earlier I didnt expect them to win but I expected more than that.

Embarrassing is Nebraska in 1983.

I could probably name at least 50 losses since then that were far more embarrassing than last night, including several in the Fleck era.

There's 3 losses to the Illini alone that were more embarrassing under PJ, especially 2018.

They rebounded the next week against Purdue. Hopefully the same happens in 2025.

 

[Tech Machine]

Ohio State, Maybe Oregon, Possibly Indiana could be National Contenders.

The rest of the conference fighting for 4-8 place. That includes Michigan and Penn State, neither of whom usually kick our @sses like OSU. It isn’t just a Minnesota problem, it’s just that we had some horrible losses in the 90’s until the Kill regime started to change the feeling a bit.
Now the last 14 years or so, we have gotten bored with being OK, want the next step. With a quality QB, maybe we can jump a notch. Obviously with the lack of separation, receivers is a must and O-line needs upgrading. It sucks to get squished, but I think the whole college football structure has gone downhill, although there are a lot of good games every week, so there is that.

OSU right now, I believe is just head and shoulders over probably everyone. The way it is in 2025.

 

[gopherphil]

My guess is no. But a performance like yesterday disinterests in college fb. I went to a weeding and am glad I had something else to do then watch that shit show. I won’t even watch YouTube highlights