Gophers Final Recruiting Rankings

[DougMN]

Haven't seen these listed in one place- seems like fodder for it's own thread.

ESPN- 58th- Behind Indiana, Illinois and Rutgers. (12th in B1G Ten)
Scout.com - 38th (8th in B1G Ten)
Rivals- 58th (10th in B1G Ten)
USA Today- 49th (11th in B1G Ten)

With the hype that I've seen on Social Media- you would think Fleck and staff came in here and started hitting home runs and had us at least in the top half of the conference. I know recruiting rankings do not always reflect reality- but these rankings look pretty much 'business as usual' as any other year...just with a lot more patting on the back.

I'm excited for this class and I hope the staff has an eye for underrated talent and even more of a knack for developing it. I'm not quite ready to anoint Fleck yet, though.

 

[upnorthkid]

I would go with much of the patting on the back has to do with filling the class in a few short weeks and the fact that the rankings are reportedly higher than when Claeys was still HC this season (ie recruiting improved from where Tracy's group had it for a whole season).

 

[TurfGopher]

He has been here 1 Month! It is not a true sample size of his recruiting, next year he should do better.

 

[Gopher07]

He came on really late in the process. Would it have been great to have a top 30 class? Of course. But realistically I didn't see it happening. Too short a window to develop relationships with kids.

For comparison, here are the class rankings for recent coaches in their first class after being hired (using 247):

Fleck: 57th
Claeys: 46th (next class N/A)
Kill: 55th (next class 59th)
Brewster: 54th (next class 26th)

If Fleck is the recruiter some think, we could expect to see a similar trajectory in rankings as we saw with Brew - the second class seeing a big jump in ranking. Of course, everyone will point out that class didn't do much for us but in looking solely at rankings it's our best in the modern era.

 

[A_Slab_of_Bacon]

Scout has always been the better site.... good people there.

Anyway everyone gets upset about giving fleck high fives and such, but that is all within the context of him arriving way late.

If he had a full year I don't think we'd be seeing those high fives, so folks upset about that can maybe take it easy a bit.

He did fine for the time he had.

Next year everyone will be more critical.

 

[DougMN]

I agree- next year will be a better indicator...but I think next season will tell us more than a recruiting class ranking.

 

[Golden_Sloth]

He came on really late in the process. Would it have been great to have a top 30 class? Of course. But realistically I didn't see it happening. Too short a window to develop relationships with kids.

For comparison, here are the class rankings for recent coaches in their first class after being hired (using 247):

Fleck: 57th
Claeys: 46th (next class N/A)
Kill: 55th (next class 59th)
Brewster: 54th (next class 26th)

If Fleck is the recruiter some think, we could expect to see a similar trajectory in rankings as we saw with Brew - the second class seeing a big jump in ranking. Of course, everyone will point out that class didn't do much for us but in looking solely at rankings it's our best in the modern era.

Good info but I think it's important to add when they were hired. Kill on December 6th, Fleck on Jan 6th, Brewster on Jan 16th. So Kill had twice as much time or more compared to Fleck or Brewster. Claeys obviously was a completely different situation.

 

[hungan1]

All indications are, he will bring the Gophers to new heights in recruiting.

He is already cultivating relationships forward two recruiting classes, and has maybe ten times the resources that Tracy Claeys had.

Claeys did not enjoy the kind of attention and support that Fleck has. It is like he was always meant to be an interim coach, almost wanting him to fail. The bowl victory probably put a little damper on their plans, but the sexual scandal gave cover to Mark Coyle. It is a dirty business.

 

[MNBadgerGuy]

Scout has always been the better site.... good people there.

This is interesting and certainly hasn't always been the case. I used to think Rivals was the standard with the others lagging behind. I don't follow the recruiting stuff as closely as I used to but it seems 247 has taken the lead a bit.

Conspiracy theory/Stay Woke - from my outsiders perspective Ryan James and Ryan Burns have always seemed to be the two biggest gopher homers in local "media." I find it no surprise that Scout has the gophers class ranked highest by a good margin.

As for the current class? We'll see over the next few years. Fleck clearly puts in a lot of time and effort, but it's tough at places like Minnesota to recruit a top 20 class. And not to open the recruiting rankings can of worms, but it's possible to have a top 20 program without consistently recruiting in the top 20.

 

[Nate]

This is interesting and certainly hasn't always been the case. I used to think Rivals was the standard with the others lagging behind. I don't follow the recruiting stuff as closely as I used to but it seems 247 has taken the lead a bit.

Conspiracy theory/Stay Woke - from my outsiders perspective Ryan James and Ryan Burns have always seemed to be the two biggest gopher homers in local "media." I find it no surprise that Scout has the gophers class ranked highest by a good margin.

As for the current class? We'll see over the next few years. Fleck clearly puts in a lot of time and effort, but it's tough at places like Minnesota to recruit a top 20 class. And not to open the recruiting rankings can of worms, but it's possible to have a top 20 program without consistently recruiting in the top 20.

247/CBS bought Scout just a day or so ago.

 

[bottlebass]

It's weird scout is such an out layer. As others have said i don't think we can judge fleck on this class as he had just a few weeks to work his magic. I'm happy he just filled it out while addressing immediate areas of need (OL, DL, DBs). His press conference was fun to watch and he thinks very highly of the kids he recruited. Next year I expect to be in the top half the B1G, I don't really care about national rankings I guess but do want to compete in the B1G.

Time is going to tell with Fleck. So far there has just been a whole bunch of show. He himself has said this isn't a rebuilding season and he expects to improve on last season. His expectations seem to be in line with mine for now, lets get to 9-10 wins next season. If he can do that, I think his recruiting job will become much easier.

 

[Spoofin]

I think the point is the class, based on rankings, was typical for us. There may very well be reasons for that, but the class was typical.


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[DRJ]

Good info but I think it's important to add when they were hired. Kill on December 6th, Fleck on Jan 6th, Brewster on Jan 16th. So Kill had twice as much time or more compared to Fleck or Brewster. Claeys obviously was a completely different situation.

One needs to consider the situation when Kill came in. The gopher program was in a mess. Problems with winning and academics, plus no facilities with the exception of the stadium. Fleck comes into the situation with much better players, winning 3 of the last 4 seasons, good academic standings, and new facilities just around the corner. Total different situation, not a fair comparison, comparing apples to oranges.

 

[Meyerchiro34]

Does anyone think Claye's recruiting efforts would have been better? Jerry and Tracy brought in mostly smart hard working athletes with good gpa and not always the best athlete based on stars. My feeling is Fleck will take a few more risk and hope the culture changes them and bring in better athletes in the long run.

 

[MNVCGUY]

One needs to consider the situation when Kill came in. The gopher program was in a mess. Problems with winning and academics, plus no facilities with the exception of the stadium. Fleck comes into the situation with much better players, winning 3 of the last 4 seasons, good academic standings, and new facilities just around the corner. Total different situation, not a fair comparison, comparing apples to oranges.

No doubt Fleck inherited a better situation then Kill but that isn't really what this thread is about. It is about recruiting ranks and in regards to that very first class Kill had an extra 30 days to put his together. Anyone that expected Fleck to do great things with less than a month to work with fooling themselves. Frankly no coach taking over a team after a season should be judged on their first recruiting class but everyone is so desperate to put numbers on things and then use those numbers to prove their point. As others have said, what Fleck is able to do with the 2018 class will be a far better indicator of his recruiting ability.

 

[MennoSota]

Let's remember that recruiting ranks don't win football games. I'll judge Panama Jack Fleck based upon wins and losses.

 

[BarnBoy]

Fleck: 57th
Claeys: 46th (next class N/A)
Kill: 55th (next class 59th)
Brewster: 54th (next class 26th)

For what it's worth...

Fleck hired on Jan 6
Claeys interim tag removed on Nov 11
Kill hired on Dec 6th
Brewster hired on Jan 15

 

[GopherWeatherGuy]

In 26 days Fleck landed 20 recruits. 16 of them (80%) had other Power 5 offers.

In 13.5 months as a head coach Claeys was responsible 26 recruits that were signed/verbally committed. 13 of them (50%) had other Power 5 offers.

 

[foodog8]

Fleck's class this year was not ranked as high as Claeys 2016 class, but is better than any of Kill's by a considerable margin. Kill's first and second full classes were terrible, according to the rankings:

(Rivals-247-Scout)

Kill 2012: 78-59-66
Kill 2013: 61-66-74
Kill 2014: 54-57-59
Kill 2015: 53-63-56
Claeys16: 51-46-41
Fleck 17: 58-57-38

 

[PMWinSTP]

No doubt Fleck inherited a better situation then Kill but that isn't really what this thread is about. It is about recruiting ranks and in regards to that very first class Kill had an extra 30 days to put his together. Anyone that expected Fleck to do great things with less than a month to work with fooling themselves. Frankly no coach taking over a team after a season should be judged on their first recruiting class but everyone is so desperate to put numbers on things and then use those numbers to prove their point. As others have said, what Fleck is able to do with the 2018 class will be a far better indicator of his recruiting ability.

It was in response to a post that did the comparison...

 

[stocker08]

He nabbed some good players with no time to do so. He did good considering the situation.

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[Hates Monikers]

Does anyone think Claye's recruiting efforts would have been better? Jerry and Tracy brought in mostly smart hard working athletes with good gpa and not always the best athlete based on stars. My feeling is Fleck will take a few more risk and hope the culture changes them and bring in better athletes in the long run.

I think Claeys's class would've been ranked similarly (in the 50s) if he had been able to complete it (probably not by Scout). He had, what, 12 or 13 commits in early December. Fleck ended up with a larger class than we were all talking about Claeys having, but Claeys would've added eight or nine, and average stars were very similar.

Fleck essentially swapped the out of state commitments Claeys had for his WMU guys. Fleck did a really nice job of bringing in a few more guys in a short time frame, and I'll be excited to see what he does next year with more time. But I'm already tired of the media focusing on our ranking of 72 or whatever when Claeys was fired. That was going to go up just by bringing more guys in.

 

[DoubleB]

I would go with much of the patting on the back has to do with filling the class in a few short weeks and the fact that the rankings are reportedly higher than when Claeys was still HC this season (ie recruiting improved from where Tracy's group had it for a whole season).

This is false below are the averages

coach	Scout	Rival	Rival num	ESPN	247 stars	247	ESPN Num
Claeys-1	2.95	2.70	5.54	3.11	2.95	84.72	75.00
Claeys/Fleck-1	2.88	2.58	5.48	2.78	3.00	83.36	73.57

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[pk2]

College Football News has the Gophers 7th in the B1G:

7. Minnesota Golden Gophers

All things considered, P.J. Fleck did an amazing job in the short time he had to work. The secondary got several good prospects, while the offensive line got special attention. The real key will be the guys for the passing game, with three quarterbacks coming aboard relatively late in the process, and three good tight ends who already have the right frames and skills to look the part.

http://collegefootballnews.com/2017/2017-big-ten-recruiting-national-signing-day-class-rankings

Their national analysis will come out later today.

 

[corcorangopher]

The 2016 class wasn't fully Claeys' class. He inherited a good start, particularly the local recruits. This class had a good start largely due the positive momentum of the Kill program and the Citrus Bowl berth. The class scores well because of Coughlin early and backing into Green late. As had been the Kill/ Claeys strength, some lower scoring recruits were probably better than their assessments (Winfield, Devers, Durr). They had five JC recruits who have proven solid players but point to gaps in the the previous years roster development.

Like Claeys, Fleck was able to hold onto local recruits. A competent Minnesota program should be able to land most local recruits (though wasn't this a gap for Mason?). Fleck's class appears focused on needs and is relatively balanced.

If no scandal, Claeys should have been able to play 9-4 into a decent class. With scandal, fairly likely he would have limped in and maybe even lost a local recruit in the process. Fleck's staff delivered a solid class and we can hope that this can keep the team in a comparable competitive position near term and allow for personnel improvements in future recruiting classes.

 

[Lakeville Goldy]

I think Claeys's class would've been ranked similarly (in the 50s) if he had been able to complete it (probably not by Scout). He had, what, 12 or 13 commits in early December. Fleck ended up with a larger class than we were all talking about Claeys having, but Claeys would've added eight or nine, and average stars were very similar.

Fleck essentially swapped the out of state commitments Claeys had for his WMU guys. Fleck did a really nice job of bringing in a few more guys in a short time frame, and I'll be excited to see what he does next year with more time. But I'm already tired of the media focusing on our ranking of 72 or whatever when Claeys was fired. That was going to go up just by bringing more guys in.

Hard to say. Maybe. He also may have convinced a couple 4* or settled for a handful of 2* players. We'll never know. The only player that transferred is Moore, where Rhoda was going to transfer so the number of scholarships likely would have been the same.

The things that I'm less sure about Claeys is who was he even going after to fill those spots? Obviously there were the decommits, but he should have been trying to sign more players, and I guess I don't know who any of those guys are. Were some of the guys Fleck got on Claeys' radar? Was he going after other positions? Was he even trying to sign more players? I don't follow recruiting enough to know where he was.

I do question whether he would have assumed the players involved in the hearing were going to return or not. I personally think he would have assumed all would be back and he wouldn't have any of the scholarships available. It was clear to me last night that Fleck is assuming the opposite. After hearing a couple comments he made (great place to be a quarterback - anyone could be a starter; only have three DB's on the roster, etc.) I'm wondering whether any of those guys will be back regardless.

That was my personal take, whomever reads this may completely disagree with me and you may be right. I may have read more into it than there was, but it just seemed like he's already moved on from all those guys.

I will say the most awkward moment last night had to be when he talked about Neil McLaurin. It was something like, "uh, I don't know much about him because he signed up under the previous regime and was already here". That was pretty embarrassing. He's one of 25 players. You couldn't at least look at his highlight reel and find some basic info on him? He might as well have said "he's on the team, not by my choice".

I went to Brewster's first one and he did the same thing for one of the players (except I think it was someone his staff recruited, which made it even more awkward).

The other thing I'm surprised about is that if it's true Carpenter got a scholarship they'll have 3 kickers on scholarship next year. That seems unusual based on what I recall from the past. Has that happened at the U before that people can think of off the top of their head?

 

[upnorthkid]

This is false below are the averages

coach	Scout	Rival	Rival num	ESPN	247 stars	247	ESPN Num
Claeys-1	2.95	2.70	5.54	3.11	2.95	84.72	75.00
Claeys/Fleck-1	2.88	2.58	5.48	2.78	3.00	83.36	73.57

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Results from??? I'm talking about this year only, not previous years. Which is what has been reported via recruiting guys, not saying these are my own claims because I haven't looked back at it. Just conjecturing where people are making the stance from