Official 2018 Recruiting Updates Thread: Links, Tweets, Videos, Stories, Rumors, etc.

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per Greder:

Heading into Saturday’s game against Nebraska, the Gophers (4-5, 1-5 Big Ten) have struggled in the passing game, ranking 118th among 129 programs nationwide. Quarterbacks Conor Rhoda and Demry Croft have had an increasingly difficult time finding open receivers — primarily Tyler Johnson, whose early success has drawn more attention from defenses and left the Gophers short on other options.

Enter the crop of receivers in the 2018 recruiting class: Jornell Manns of Mansfield, Ohio, Eric Gibson of Detroit and Rashod Bateman of Tifton, Ga.

At 6-foot-2 and 180 pounds, Bateman attends Tift County about 200 miles south of Atlanta. He has climbed the Georgia high school record book for receiving yards in a season. He has 1,249 yards in 10 games in the state’s biggest class and is a deep, potentially five-game playoff run away from surpassing Demarco Robinson’s top mark of 1,655 yards in 2010.

Before the season, Bateman had been offered basketball scholarships to Penn State and Viriginia Tech. As a shooting guard, he scored 18 points in Tift County’s state championship game victory in March.

Bateman’s first love is football, so when the Gophers secondary coach Mo Linquist developed a relationship with him last summer, he proved himself at a camp and then jumped at the scholarship offer to come to Minnesota. Fleck and Simon’s development of Davis at Western Michigan was a catalyst in picking Minnesota.

“It’s a nice place,” Bateman said. “To be around elite people with this coaching staff, I’ve seen them do big things, and I know we can do big things. I want to be a part of something special at Minnesota.”

“I’m locked in with Minnesota all the way,” Bateman said Wednesday. He plays to sign a letter of intent during the early signing period in December and enroll next summer, after he plays his senior basketball season and graduates from high school.

http://www.twincities.com/2017/11/0...d-bateman-will-arrive-just-in-time-next-fall/

Go Gophers!!
 

Not unexpected, but noticed that the Crystal Ball Prediction over at 247 has changed Heavily to Virginia for Brennan Armstrong
 

jfhlavka said:
Not unexpected, but noticed that the Crystal Ball Prediction over at 247 has changed Heavily to Virginia for Brennan Armstrong
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We know he's gone. The question is whether Fleck can find a starting qb for next year that is Big Ten worthy, or if he'll join JK and TC as recruiting failures at the QB position.
 

jfhlavka said:
Not unexpected, but noticed that the Crystal Ball Prediction over at 247 has changed Heavily to Virginia for Brennan Armstrong
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Bronco Mendenhall had an impressive run at BYU and has Virginia on the upswing.
 

Sparlimb said:
We know he's gone. The question is whether Fleck can find a starting qb for next year that is Big Ten worthy, or if he'll join JK and TC as recruiting failures at the QB position.
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Zack Annexstad is really having a great senior year, out playing the other QB on his IMG Academy team, who's rated as a 4*. All I get to see is highlight films, but I'd much rather have Annexstad than Armstrong.
 




Going back to the JUCO signings argument I worked the numbers a while ago and it seems like eight is the magic number. Over eight JUCO signings and you start getting into a numbers problem that forces you to keep going back to the JUCO ranks to fix holes. Eight or less and you you can have a fairly normal five year program for HS recruits. The key number is that if you keep each recruit for 5 years you can only sign 17 a year. The eight extra signings allowed can be used to replace attrition in each base year class.
 

Livingat45north said:
Zack Annexstad is really having a great senior year, out playing the other QB on his IMG Academy team, who's rated as a 4*. All I get to see is highlight films, but I'd much rather have Annexstad than Armstrong.
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Legit question, does PJ end up giving him a schollie to avoid him getting poached by a better offer or does he think he has him locked down no matter what? follow up on that, are PWOs able to sign during the early signing period?
 



upnorthkid said:
Legit question, does PJ end up giving him a schollie to avoid him getting poached by a better offer or does he think he has him locked down no matter what? follow up on that, are PWOs able to sign during the early signing period?
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Maybe but why would they? From wiki..NLIs and the recruiting process[edit]

Blue chip athletes often end recruiting with a hat selection ceremony in which they make a verbal commitment, which generally leads to the formal signing of a National Letter of Intent.
National Letters of Intent may only be signed by prospective student-athletes who will be entering a four-year institution for the first time in the academic year after they sign the NLI.[4] Recruits who have signed NLIs must attend the schools they have signed with in order to receive financial aid, and NCAA rules forbid coaches from recruiting them further; these restrictions aim to add certainty to the recruiting process for players (who are certain to receive aid) and coaches (who are certain that a recruit will attend their school).[5] By contrast, verbal commitments are nonbinding; recruits may change or revoke a verbal commitment at any time, and coaches may continue to recruit a verbally committed player.[6]

The restrictive nature of the NLI is designed to be advantageous to both prospective student-athletes and intercollegiate athletics programs. Intercollegiate athletics departments are not required to provide financial aid in cases where a student-athlete is not admitted for academic reasons. Seth Davis, a columnist for Sports Illustrated, has suggested that this arrangement is actually disadvantageous to student-athletes, as they have no recourse if an athletics department decides not to admit a player for non-academic reasons; for example, an athletics department could replace a signed recruit with another recruit by claiming that the first one was not admitted for academic reasons.[7]

Regarding whether PJ gives him a scholarship... He already has offers from Cincinnati, So. Miss. and Western Kentucky according to 247. He has unorthodox footwork in his passing delivery. Seems he just wants to be here? I'd like to see us get a better guy on paper with a QB scholarship. But, I hope he walks on.
 

You know who threw high school career best 4 TDs in a game? This #Minnesota! Great work @ZackAnnexstad
 

Armstrong is gone. Annexstad and Viramonte would be a great pair to bring in. I am much higher on Croft after the Huskers game. He could be a decent backup.
 






diehard said:
Armstrong is gone. Annexstad and Viramonte would be a great pair to bring in. I am much higher on Croft after the Huskers game. He could be a decent backup.
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Croft will probably start next year unless we land someone on the level of Hank in this next class. He's shown he can throw the ball decent enough. Our wr's need to work on their game more than Croft does, although he isn't perfect by any means.
 




Could it be the Annexstad boys have something to do with this?
 

Wouldn't it be a huge recruiting coup if we can get OG Curtis Dunlap at 6'4" 368 lbs and OT Randon Haynes 6'4" 330 lbs?

And wouldn't these two becoming Gophers give pause to a couple of highly regarded in state O Linemen to seriously consider the Gophers?
 

hungan1 said:
Wouldn't it be a huge recruiting coup if we can get OG Curtis Dunlap at 6'4" 368 lbs and OT Randon Haynes 6'4" 330 lbs?

And wouldn't these two becoming Gophers give pause to a couple of highly regarded in state O Linemen to seriously consider the Gophers?
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No. I would think landing these guys would only bolster our chances with guys like Quinn and Benhart. Haynes feels like a depth guy long term. No way he starts over a 5 star kid. Maybe he can move inside.
 

MinnesotaNice said:
No. I would think landing these guys would only bolster our chances with guys like Quinn and Benhart. Haynes feels like a depth guy long term. No way he starts over a 5 star kid. Maybe he can move inside.
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I'm pretty sure that's what he means.

And I'm pretty sure that Dunlap or Haynes committing will have any zero impact at all on what Carroll and Benhart choose to do.
 





What stands in the way of us and Dunlap is that he has an official visit with Florida on 11/24.

If he makes it to his official with the Gophers on 12/8, maybe PJ Fleck can do his hard sell and convince Dunlap to venture in the Great Up North.
 


hungan1 said:
What stands in the way of us and Dunlap is that he has an official visit with Florida on 11/24.

If he makes it to his official with the Gophers on 12/8, maybe PJ Fleck can do his hard sell and convince Dunlap to venture in the Great Up North.
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Sounds like he's waiting to see who Florida hires too.
 

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