Not securing the borders?

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Buttcheeks McGaffigan

Buttcheeks McGaffigan

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At least not the Class of 2013.

The top four MN players according to Rivals are all committed to other schools. In a pretty weak senior class losing out on four of the best in state players is frustrating. Kill did a good job last year so what's gone wrong this year.
 

Don't care. I'd like to have Onwualu, but that was an uphill battle. Rucker isn't a done deal and Brookins is damaged goods right now. The top players in MN this year get a collective, "Meh." With a small class, I'm not concerned with reeling in kids just because they are in state.
 

Despite this class not being particularily strong, it's always an issue when you are losing kids from your own backyard.

The guys who are going elsewhere, are all going to better or similar caliber schools, so it's not like the weakness of this class has anything to do with why they aren't Gopher commits. It's a problem that Coach Kill is going to have to turn around.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
Despite this class not being particularily strong, it's always an issue when you are losing kids from your own backyard.

The guys who are going elsewhere, are all going to better or similar caliber schools, so it's not like the weakness of this class has anything to do with why they aren't Gopher commits. It's a problem that Coach Kill is going to have to turn around.
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There is such a limited amount of talent in the state to begin with that it is absolutely key to make sure you get the majority of guys that are good enough to play at this level. No coach is going to get all of them but right now things do not look good for Kill and his staff in terms of in-state recruiting this year. A lot can change between now and signing day though.
 

MNVCGUY said:
There is such a limited amount of talent in the state to begin with that it is absolutely key to make sure you get the majority of guys that are good enough to play at this level. No coach is going to get all of them but right now things do not look good for Kill and his staff in terms of in-state recruiting this year. A lot can change between now and signing day though.
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I am not saying losing in state players is fine, but if there was ever a year to have a bad local recruiting class, this is it. i think there are only three potential scholarship players in state, that we want at this point; we are not going to get Onwualu, Rucker will probably go to Iowa, and Wipson we did get. We lost Brookins, but if he has ripped up both knees in high school, what are his chances of getting through a college footbal career? Good luck to him, seriously, I hope he does well, but it is not where I would spend a scholarship with 14 to give.
Cottrell may be a great fit for BC, but the staff here obviously wants a different style of MLB.
If we had 25 scholarships to offer, this would be a bigger problem, but this year it is not a huge problem except for fans who make it one. IMO
 


Rucker is not a done deal. I think he's in Maroon and Gold come next fall.

One of the weakest Senior classes in memory. Let's just get some good players. If we get one of the top 5 this year, I'm satisfied.
 

Tom Lemming called it one of the worst classes in the last 10 years. I remember what OL coach Gordie Shaw said several years ago at a Goal Line golf outing in Alexandria.
If you get a legit 10-12 prospects out of Minnesota that are D1 thank the lucky
stars. Maybe one or two of these will be players at the skilled positions. Last year was a better
than average class and Kill pretty much made a clean sweep. Our neighbor's to the south and east
have the same problem. Minnesota and Iowa about the same. Wisconsin a tad better. I still think Rucker might switch. I'm sure his visit to Iowa City for the Penn State game opened his
eyes.
 

Breakin' The Plane said:
Don't care. I'd like to have Onwualu, but that was an uphill battle. Rucker isn't a done deal and Brookins is damaged goods right now. The top players in MN this year get a collective, "Meh." With a small class, I'm not concerned with reeling in kids just because they are in state.
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This is the type of response that would be the complete opposite if these players signed with Minnesota. Suddenly they wouldn't be so "Meh" or "Don't care".
 




scools12 said:
This is the type of response that would be the complete opposite if these players signed with Minnesota. Suddenly they wouldn't be so "Meh" or "Don't care".
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No, it wouldn't. If they were all coming here, it wouldn't change the fact that this year's class isn't very highly regarded. Nice try though.
 

I don't really get why it matters if this class is small. There are still a handful of players (smaller than most years) that are god enough to play at the U and they aren't committed here right now. I'm not bashing Kill, but that is a problem.


As far as Shaw's comment, that might have been true about 10 years ago, but he's wrong now. Even this year, when the state is down in talent, there are that many kids with FBS offers (not even counting FCS).
Brookins, Combs (IA State), Cottrell, Fahning (Eastern Michigan), Onwualu, Reinke, Roller (couple MAC schools), Rucker, Scarver (MAC and WI(GS)), Wilson (Air Force), Wipson, Zeimer (Miami-OH).
 

Breakin' The Plane said:
No, it wouldn't. If they were all coming here, it wouldn't change the fact that this year's class isn't very highly regarded. Nice try though.
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He's not saying that it would change the caliber of the class. He is saying that your "Don't Care" response would have changed to something more excited.
 

Breakin' The Plane said:
No, it wouldn't. If they were all coming here, it wouldn't change the fact that this year's class isn't very highly regarded. Nice try though.
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No one said anything about "highly regarded." If all those players come to Minnesota fans are bragging about kill closing borders and how he takes the average player and coaches them up. There would be an exact opposite of "meh" and "don't care" attitudes.
 



Breakin' The Plane said:
No, it wouldn't. If they were all coming here, it wouldn't change the fact that this year's class isn't very highly regarded. Nice try though.
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The point gets made all the time by Kill and people here that it is key to get the best players in the state and to close the boarders. For all intensive purposes they pulled that off last year. Now this year it looks like most of the top talent (thin as it might be) is headed elsewhere and there are those playing it off like no big deal. It is a big deal, it is not going to kill the program not getting these players but if you want to establish that the best players in the state stay home and play for the home town school than in any given year you need to sign the majority of those guys.

Is it the end of the world if these guys sign elsewhere, of course not, but to act like it doesn't matter that they are leaving is foolish.
 

There are only 3-4 players worth a 1-15 offer from the Gophers, with limited scholarships available we simply can't offer more than preferred walkons, to those players that are worthy of 16-25 level offers. The 15 or so tenders we have available have to be productive.
 

If the Instate kids are the value to be B1G players, it is up to Coach Kill to try lock them in.

If they aren't, he has to go elsewhere to get them.

some of you sound like you are recruiting experts because you "saw him in a game".

I expect Coach Kill and his Staff to recruit the best players they can. I don't care where they are from.

Go Gophers!!!
 

Some on here complain about not being able to win in the B1G with 3 star recruits. Now people are complaining we are not closing the borders. I know recruiting rankings are debatable, but there's only 1, 4 star instate recruit.

Granted we didn't get him, but you can't complain about the other top recruits if you are complaining about not being able to win with 3 star recruits.
 

Breakin' The Plane said:
Don't care. I'd like to have Onwualu, but that was an uphill battle. Rucker isn't a done deal and Brookins is damaged goods right now. The top players in MN this year get a collective, "Meh." With a small class, I'm not concerned with reeling in kids just because they are in state.
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Sorry for the lateness of my reply. Totally disagree that it's okay to lose the top in state kids leave. I think it's the wrong mentality even in a down year. Also this early in his tenure it doesn't look like Kill his replacing lost MN talent with great out of state talent.
 

OddStack said:
Some on here complain about not being able to win in the B1G with 3 star recruits. Now people are complaining we are not closing the borders. I know recruiting rankings are debatable, but there's only 1, 4 star instate recruit.

Granted we didn't get him, but you can't complain about the other top recruits if you are complaining about not being able to win with 3 star recruits.
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If we can get an entire class of strictly 4* players we won't have anything to complain about. That would mean we are winning a hell of a lot more than we are losing! Keeping kids in state helps forge the future. Helps in state kids belive
 


Hayes, Pirsig, Nelson, Lauer, McDonald > Onwualu, Rucker, Brookins, Cottrell. Wipson is way better than Cottrell and Brookins injury probably ends his career. That leave Rucker whose father has some vendetta against the U and Onwualu who goes to a school that pushes its kids to Notre Dame. So we lost this round. Maybe Darius Hill gets a late offer from us, but the rest of the kids in Minnesota are no better than PWOs as of right now.
 

I'd like to keep them too, BUT, like others...I'm not devastated like I would've been last year or w/ Floyd, Henderson, McCullough, Laurenitis, Carlson, Binns, Klug, Powers-Neal, Laws, etc. I'm not as impressed with this class or individuals and think we can do better out of state. Furthermore, the size of this class makes keeping the MN kids secondary.
 

If the program is gonna be competitive we gotta start getting the best in state kids, no matter how deep the class is, to stay at the U and play. Minnesota doesn't produce many D1 athletes as it is compared to most schools in the B1G so we gotta lock up the ones we can. That being said, the only recruit I think we truly "missed" on in this Minnesota class is Brookins, to have him be committed to Minnesota and flip to Wisconsin is just an absolute kick to the gut. I can't speak to Rucker's dad's uncle's brother's vendetta against the U or whatever it is, but apparently its bad enough that they weren't ever getting much consideration before his commitment. Could that change? Maybe, nothing is final until the name is on the dotted line.

In regards to Onwualu I wouldn't really count him as someone Kill could have ever gotten. Onwualu wasn't going to Minnesota if ND offered and they did, and frankly it wasn't the mystical CDH pipeline that made the decision. Just trust me when I say Minnesota could be a top 5 ranked team this year and Notre Dame could be 4-3 and he would still pick the Irish 10 times out of 10. You can't win em all and some kids want a different experience than the hometown university for school. It is what it is.

I hope Kill makes a commitment to developing a strong walk on program as well, as I think that will be more key than many of the recruitment crazies understand. Getting kids with low FBS or high FCS offers to walk on here and stay 4-5 years will go a long way towards building the kind of depth we need. And if you can find a couple diamonds in the rough there is no doubt we can find some starters or capable players come out of that program to complement the recruiting we are doing elsewhere. The key is making the kids appreciate a chance to play at the Minnesota as opposed to getting a full ride at say NDSU.
 

Dr.Don said:
If the Instate kids are the value to be B1G players, it is up to Coach Kill to try lock them in.

If they aren't, he has to go elsewhere to get them.

some of you sound like you are recruiting experts because you "saw him in a game".

I expect Coach Kill and his Staff to recruit the best players they can. I don't care where they are from.

Go Gophers!!!
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What in the world.....

Coach Kill DID offer those three players. The question isn't if they are worthy of a Gopher offer. Of course they are, as proven by the fact that the head coach offered them.
 

gophmeister said:
Wipson is way better than Cottrell.
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He is? Is this based on anything other than Wipson being a Gopher commit? I've seen a decent amount of both of them. Totally different styles, but no way would I say that either is "way better" than the other.
 

Coach Kill and his staff must have a large recruiting board where they align potential players, positions, recruiting territories, and value. They most likely are involved in every form of communication with these athletes and their families. None of us (I don't think) are part of that process, so conversation here is just speculation.

I am more concerned with the effort that is put into recruiting. According to previous comments on this board, the knock on Mason was his recruiting effort. Brewster's troubles stemmed from the revolving door with assistants. Coach Kill and his staff seem to put those concerns to rest. If the coaching staff is working to get some of Minnesota's '13 talent to walk-on, we might not know about that until the current season is over.

If I were a talented senior in Minnesota, I might need the time to come to grips with being a walk-on. When the offers don't come from other B1G schools, or the MAC, those athletes will be able to decide if a UofM preferred walk-on is as valuable as FBS or Division II scholarships.

Since I don't know the inside information, I will trust that the coaching staff is trying to increase the talent level and create depth in our roster. Obviously we won't have answers until February.
 

Gopherprof said:
He is? Is this based on anything other than Wipson being a Gopher commit? I've seen a decent amount of both of them. Totally different styles, but no way would I say that either is "way better" than the other.
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How does someone who spends so much time on the Internet find time to attend so many Wayzata and Eden Prairie games?
 

To me this is pretty simple. If we offer an in-state kids and he ends up going to another BCS school then to me that is the equivalent of a recruiting loss. No staff is going to win them all but you should get the majority of the in-state kids you offer and at Minnesota with the limited talent that is available on a yearly basis it becomes even more vital to land those kids. Not the end of the world that we are losing these guys but also has to raise a few red flags that in a thin class talent wise in this state most of the guys that are considered good enough to play at this level (by the recruiting sites and our staff) are headed somewhere else.
 

We are worrying about the wrong class

It is not this year's instate recruiting class that we need to be worried about. It is next year's class. It is stronger and deeper than this year's class and we should have more scholarships available. We need to have the same kind of success with the 2014 class as we did with Philip Nelson's class.
 

gophmeister said:
How does someone who spends so much time on the Internet find time to attend so many Wayzata and Eden Prairie games?
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.....you have twice as many posts as I do....

Also, glad to see that you have no response to my post, because you are clearly full of *&^!#*&^!#*&^!#*&^!#.
 

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