Official 2019 Recruiting Updates Thread: Links, Tweets, Videos, Stories, Rumors, etc.

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Livingat45north said:
Are kickers (and punters and long snappers) capped at three stars? Kickers are one area where it's pretty easy to compare stats, plus there's the kicker camps where detailed evaluations are compiled. My point being that of all the positions in football, the kickers (and punters and snappers) are the easiest ones to accurately rank from top to bottom - the ranking isn't perfect, but it's easier than any other position. So why does the top rated kicker/punter/LS only get a rating of three stars? Seems like if you're number 1 in your position for the country you should be a five star. Just my rambling thoughts, I'll go back to my coding day job now...
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Yes. The best kicker I have ever seen rated was a .83 or something. I imagine even a kicker who was on Sebastian Janikowski's level would be .85 max. Idk why it is that way *shrug*
 

fraternity2017 said:
So when a guy greyshirts can he also redshirt? Or is he essentially redshirting without taking a roster spot?


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Yes he can redshirt as he hasn't started school until after the football season.


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Donovan said:
Couple of 2019 recruiting tidbits. I was on 247 looking at other P5 schools. Alabama's class is all 4 and 5 stars except for their kicker. Kansas and Utah have 3 commits, Washington State has 4. Our message board would be interesting if we only had 3 or 4 commits at this point. Didn't realize Purdue has put together a really nice class (their best rated in many years).
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Fleck really seems to have made it his strategy to fill the classes early. This is very unusual compared to past gopher coaches, and probably compared most coaches at schools of our pedigree. Often times it is the big time schools filling up quickly.
 

Oregon Gopher said:
Yes he can redshirt as he hasn't started school until after the football season.


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Please excuse my slow jam here. Do greyshirts count toward this years scholarship count and do we know for sure if this new recruit is a greyshirt?
 

I would think it counts against 2020. Logan Richter's grey shirt from the 2018 counts against 2019.
 


hungan1 said:
I would think it counts against 2020. Logan Richter's grey shirt from the 2018 counts against 2019.
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It would. I don't know for sure that he is grey shirting, but that is what the 247 site is showing.
 

btowngopher said:
Fleck really seems to have made it his strategy to fill the classes early. This is very unusual compared to past gopher coaches, and probably compared most coaches at schools of our pedigree. Often times it is the big time schools filling up quickly.
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Overall I like the strategy, but it smells a little bit like desperation over the past 2 weeks. Last year it seemed like the strategy worked perfectly: fill up most of the class and save a few spots for top-rated recruits. We ended up with 3 of our higher rated recruits committing towards the end of the cycle: Faalele, Dunlap and Reigelsperger. Right now it feels like we are just trying to add bodies.
 

Do you sense frustration over not being able to sway QB Max Duggan, RBs Barlow or Brock, and several OL targets? I do think the Gophers are ahead of last year t this time recruiting-wise. It will be interesting if the Gophers will land higher rated recruits with the remaining slots. If not, would they switch Peter Udoibok from Grey Shirt?
 

Much of Fleck's success or lack of will be based on last years class and this year.
Just on numbers alone, it appears he's banking heavy on this class and last.

I'm sure if there are a couple higher level recruits he wants to land, he'll find a way to make it work.
 




John Galt said:
Overall I like the strategy, but it smells a little bit like desperation over the past 2 weeks. Last year it seemed like the strategy worked perfectly: fill up most of the class and save a few spots for top-rated recruits. We ended up with 3 of our higher rated recruits committing towards the end of the cycle: Faalele, Dunlap and Reigelsperger. Right now it feels like we are just trying to add bodies.
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These two new grey shirt guys I feel like Fleck could've waited on. The thing with waiting though is once people get another look at senior season tape and other top targets start disappearing more eyes might fall on the guy you're slow playing. But then again you don't have the senior film to look at either if you offer early, so less to judge a guy on. I do wonder if we didn't land 4 star Verdis Brown last year due to running out of room.
 


btowngopher said:
These two new grey shirt guys I feel like Fleck could've waited on. The thing with waiting though is once people get another look at senior season tape and other top targets start disappearing more eyes might fall on the guy you're slow playing. But then again you don't have the senior film to look at either if you offer early, so less to judge a guy on. I do wonder if we didn't land 4 star Verdis Brown last year due to running out of room.
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Our last 3 commits are the lowest rated for the class (excluding specialists). Seems like there was a mad dash to get all spots filled up prior to the start of camp.
 



hungan1 said:
Do you sense frustration over not being able to sway QB Max Duggan, RBs Barlow or Brock, and several OL targets? I do think the Gophers are ahead of last year t this time recruiting-wise. It will be interesting if the Gophers will land higher rated recruits with the remaining slots. If not, would they switch Peter Udoibok from Grey Shirt?
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If they can't attract higher rated guys than Peter with the last couple spots then PJ is failing.


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#2Gopher said:
I was in an awesome Holiday Inn the other night. Holiday Inns aren't all the same any more.
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Agreed, my family and I just stayed in one for a week. Very nice 3[emoji294] hotel. [emoji41]
 


Seems to me recruiting success is often about momentum - year to year, month to month, heck during camp times even week to week. I expected PJ to build on the successes he had last year on the recruiting trail. Last year his final few recruits really made the class one of the best we've seen in the modern era.

This year after some great early successes it seems we've lost momentum and that PJ lately has been more concerned with filling the class early to claim a class standing prejudiced by number of commits rather than quality. I'm not a stars or numbers is everything guy but since that's all the "objective" data we have compare this year to last. Last year less than 40% commits rated <0.8500, this year~60% (even excluding the 2 specialists) are below that rating. Our avg rating is well behind last year and is 2nd to last in the Big10- and our last 3 recruits have 1 P5 offer between them. Hopefully PJ has another IMG connection this year and can finish strong with top talent and fill some needs- like safety. If he finishes with the perceived talent of the last 3 young men we'll have lost all the momentum of last year's wonderful finish and be competing with Rutgers for 13th.
 



I've noticed some three star hotels end up being even nicer than a 4 star or 5 star after a couple years.
 

btowngopher said:
These two new grey shirt guys I feel like Fleck could've waited on. The thing with waiting though is once people get another look at senior season tape and other top targets start disappearing more eyes might fall on the guy you're slow playing. But then again you don't have the senior film to look at either if you offer early, so less to judge a guy on. I do wonder if we didn't land 4 star Verdis Brown last year due to running out of room.
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Yep, I'm pretty sure that's what happened with Verdis. If I remember, he ended up in Illinois. The gray shirt approach is a nice way to create some flexibility. PJ offers a recruit who doesn't have a lot of other P5 offers the chance to gray shirt. That way if a "Verdis" shows up at the last minute there's still a scholarship slot; and if a "Verdis" doesn't happen then the gray shirt becomes an immediate scholarship.
 

IMHO, Gopher Recruiting recruiting rankings will surge and dip. We can't expect one hundred % improvements over the previous year each succeeding year.

That is okay as long as the overall trend is improving and staying in the high 30s/low 40s in rankings consistently. At some point in time if they win more and more games, they'll create their own luck.

I hope to goodness that Callahan builds a reliable offensive line with good depth. From what I hear he is a great O-Line coach. He has a couple of O-Linemen at WMU on the NFL watch. Everything pivots on these guys to protect the QB, and to run an offense with multiple options.

I like to see the Gophers' favorite play, RUTM, used not as much. They have been too predictable for so long. If only they had WRs that are playmakers the last few seasons, that could have been a couple of B1G victories that would have changed the Gophers' football fortunes.
 


In my opinion, Kansas made a huge mistake in their head coach hire for football. Was supposed to be a hot shot recruiter in Texas. Looks like he has “Brewster” written all over him.

Meanwhile, Iowa St is on the upswing with their hire from the MAC.
 


Oregon Gopher said:
Seems to me recruiting success is often about momentum - year to year, month to month, heck during camp times even week to week. I expected PJ to build on the successes he had last year on the recruiting trail. Last year his final few recruits really made the class one of the best we've seen in the modern era.

This year after some great early successes it seems we've lost momentum and that PJ lately has been more concerned with filling the class early to claim a class standing prejudiced by number of commits rather than quality. I'm not a stars or numbers is everything guy but since that's all the "objective" data we have compare this year to last. Last year less than 40% commits rated <0.8500, this year~60% (even excluding the 2 specialists) are below that rating. Our avg rating is well behind last year and is 2nd to last in the Big10- and our last 3 recruits have 1 P5 offer between them. Hopefully PJ has another IMG connection this year and can finish strong with top talent and fill some needs- like safety. If he finishes with the perceived talent of the last 3 young men we'll have lost all the momentum of last year's wonderful finish and be competing with Rutgers for 13th.
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You really think Fleck is trying to fill the class early to obtain the perception of having a highly rated class?
 

Yes. If Deja vu has been successful with '97 beautiful women and 3 ugly ones', Fleck has certainly followed a similar suit. Yeah, yeah... the recent commits are all 'diamonds in the rough' or maybe he just wanted to get the Minnesota name out there early (I actually agree with this move) for national recognition. However his latest commits (hey, it's a long time till December signing day) are certainly not of the same caliber as those previous. We'll see how it finishes for certain, as we're all here in hopes of some sort of glory, but let's keep the homer-esque mentality at bay.
 

magpie said:
Yes. If Deja vu has been successful with '97 beautiful women and 3 ugly ones', Fleck has certainly followed a similar suit. Yeah, yeah... the recent commits are all 'diamonds in the rough' or maybe he just wanted to get the Minnesota name out there early (I actually agree with this move) for national recognition. However his latest commits (hey, it's a long time till December signing day) are certainly not of the same caliber as those previous. We'll see how it finishes for certain, as we're all here in hopes of some sort of glory, but let's keep the homer-esque mentality at bay.
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I don't think it's homer-esque to think that this "recruiting strategy" you guys believe is taking place is ridiculous. You really think think this is even a strategy? Like having the #24 class in July is a huge selling point to highly rated prospects...come on. This idea is a huge stretch, based on no real evidence.
 

magpie said:
Yes. If Deja vu has been successful with '97 beautiful women and 3 ugly ones', Fleck has certainly followed a similar suit. Yeah, yeah... the recent commits are all 'diamonds in the rough' or maybe he just wanted to get the Minnesota name out there early (I actually agree with this move) for national recognition. However his latest commits (hey, it's a long time till December signing day) are certainly not of the same caliber as those previous. We'll see how it finishes for certain, as we're all here in hopes of some sort of glory, but let's keep the homer-esque mentality at bay.
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So, if Fleck and Simon didn't like the last two WRs quite a bit, why would he have offered?

He offered in July, not November, so the desperation angle doesn't make sense.
We've also just recruited 9-10 WRs in classes 2017-2019, so we really don't have a huge need.

Like, what would be the motivation?

If you start seeing unheralded recruits in November pop up, it's a bit suspicious.

This situation, at that position, I'd venture to guess he liked the guys quite a bit.

That isn't a homer-esque mentality and I'm pretty far from being a Fleckophile, but I can't see a more rationale way to read these signings.
 

I always wondered if filling a class early means the coaches and "coach" the recruits through their senior year, and advise them how to improve. Maybe offer them weight room advice for workouts, and give them a head start on the culture/team experience.

The question is how much of an advantage is that?
 

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