Minnesota HS All Quarter Century Team per SI

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Good find. Lyndon Murtha, Walker Ashley Jr. and Seantrel Henderson sure had a lot of commentary on this forum, especially for not playing for the Gophers.
 


Gophers7NatTitlesBadgers0 said:
It's interesting MBIII is in as DB and didn't even get honorable mention as a RB.
www.si.com

Minnesota high school football All-Quarter Century Team

The 2025 Minnesota high school football season is fast approaching, so High School On SI is looking at the top players from the past 25 years of high school foo
www.si.com www.si.com
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He was recruited as a DB for the Gophers. The story at the time was that he asked for the opportunity to show them what he could do as a RB before committing.

He didn't make it out of the first fall camp before he was switched to RB and demonstrated a toughness that made him exciting to watch, hard to tackle, and likely contributed to his untimely demise.

I loved watching him play.

Mason had a history of taking defensive players and shifting them to offense. Matt Spaeth was a linebacker who turned out to be one in a long line of tight ends under Mason that were outstanding college football players (and Mr. Spaeth had a very nice NFL career as well).
 

caliGopher said:
He was recruited as a DB for the Gophers. The story at the time was that he asked for the opportunity to show them what he could do as a RB before committing.

He didn't make it out of the first fall camp before he was switched to RB and demonstrated a toughness that made him exciting to watch, hard to tackle, and likely contributed to his untimely demise.

I loved watching him play.

Mason had a history of taking defensive players and shifting them to offense. Matt Spaeth was a linebacker who turned out to be one in a long line of tight ends under Mason that were outstanding college football players (and Mr. Spaeth had a very nice NFL career as well).
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Wasn’t he planning on doing that with JJ Watt?
 


Trey Lance not even making honorable mention? I think this list demonstrates pretty well why it’s difficult to win here.
 



btowngopher said:
Trey Lance not even making honorable mention? I think this list demonstrates pretty well why it’s difficult to win here.
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His HS team almost never threw the ball. I think I read that he never threw more than 100 passes in a season in HS. He has thrown fewer passes in his entire career (HS, college, and NFL) than Brady threw in last season in Tampa.

He was a great athlete, but probably doesn't belong on any all century teams.
 



I'm surprised no Ben Utecht and no AJ Barker.

Barker has a ton of receiving records (or he's close) while at DeLaSalle and Ben Utecht was one of the better HS TEs out of MN and was one of the better players during Hastings late 90s/2000s run of athletes that may or may not have been chemically enhanced.
 

I think it’s safe to say the program turned a corner late in this quarter century. Thankfully some of the recent guys have been signing here and the future all-staters are starting to more and more.

It’s interesting that to me some of the recent ones that sting more are the RBs and OL. However we’ve always had solid/good RBs in that time. Similar with OL, they went to schools with better track records on draft picks. I think our OL would have been better with someone like Alt but it was still serviceable through that time.

The real killer is when we miss on a good local kid and that position group sucks for 4 years. I don’t think that’s happened recently though.
 

The rbs are interesting in that Williamson is the only one who earned an offer from the gophers to play RB. Robinson was offered to be a cb and ended up having a great career with ISU. Hull had a nice career playing on mostly bad NW teams. Hansen is off to a great start with ISU and E. Johnson has been decent for Nebraska. Grimsley became a great safety for NDSU. The gophers have signed a handful of other instate rbs not listed like Shady Salamon, Brylee Callender (who was fantastic his one season of play in H.S.), Jeff Jones, Lamonte Edwards, and Dominik London. Amazingly Salamon outproduced all of the others combined despite moving to defense after his freshman year.
 




Bob_Loblaw said:
I'm surprised no Ben Utecht and no AJ Barker.

Barker has a ton of receiving records (or he's close) while at DeLaSalle and Ben Utecht was one of the better HS TEs out of MN and was one of the better players during Hastings late 90s/2000s run of athletes that may or may not have been chemically enhanced.
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No Brendan Kelly either. He wouldn't be on the first team, but he seemed to warrant honorable mention.
 

caliGopher said:
He was recruited as a DB for the Gophers. The story at the time was that he asked for the opportunity to show them what he could do as a RB before committing.

He didn't make it out of the first fall camp before he was switched to RB and demonstrated a toughness that made him exciting to watch, hard to tackle, and likely contributed to his untimely demise.

I loved watching him play.

Mason had a history of taking defensive players and shifting them to offense. Matt Spaeth was a linebacker who turned out to be one in a long line of tight ends under Mason that were outstanding college football players (and Mr. Spaeth had a very nice NFL career as well).
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So true. Sometimes it worked (Barber, Spaeth) and sometimes it didn't (Alex Daniels). It's always important to remember that JJ Watt was being recruited as a TE when he committed to the Gophers (de-committed after Mason was fired). Watt should probably send Bruininks and Maturi a thank-you note.
 
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btowngopher said:
The rbs are interesting in that Williamson is the only one who earned an offer from the gophers to play RB. Robinson was offered to be a cb and ended up having a great career with ISU. Hull had a nice career playing on mostly bad NW teams. Hansen is off to a great start with ISU and E. Johnson has been decent for Nebraska. Grimsley became a great safety for NDSU. The gophers have signed a handful of other instate rbs not listed like Shady Salamon, Brylee Callender (who was fantastic his one season of play in H.S.), Jeff Jones, Lamonte Edwards, and Dominik London. Amazingly Salamon outproduced all of the others combined despite moving to defense after his freshman year.
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I thought Jeff Jones would have been listed as well.

In regard to linebackers, wasn’t Sam Maresh ranked a lot higher than a few of those listed? If I remember correctly he was considered a pretty big get when when signed him. Although recruiting at that time was a bit mediocre.
 

paulser21 said:
I thought Jeff Jones would have been listed as well.

In regard to linebackers, wasn’t Sam Maresh ranked a lot higher than a few of those listed? If I remember correctly he was considered a pretty big get when when signed him. Although recruiting at that time was a bit mediocre.
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IF I remember right, Sam Maresh was the 2nd highest rated LB ever in Minnesota, behind James Lauerenitis (sp)?
 

50PoundHead said:
So true. Sometimes it worked (Barber, Spaeth) and sometimes it didn't (Alex Daniels). It's always important to remember that JJ Watt was being recruited as a TE when he committed to the Gophers (de-committed after Mason was fired). Watt should probably send Bruininks and Maturi a thank-you note.
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JJ played TE his Freshman year at Central Michigan
 

LeftofThaDial said:
JJ played TE his Freshman year at Central Michigan
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Thanks. Did not know that. It's often difficult to figure out how decisions are made regarding some players. Obviously in Watt's case, DL was where he should have been. Of course, he got a lot bigger between high school and when he got to Wisconsin.
 




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