Official 2022 Gophers Football Recruiting Thread: Links, Tweets, Videos, Rumors

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MNVCGUY said:
6. You are just looking for reasons to be negative about the class with this one.
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I think that this take is a bit easy. In this years high school recruiting class we will see many less players given a scholarship which should allow lesser schools (like ourselves) to be recruiting more highly rated players. Bud Elliot of 247 was interviewing an FCS school and was told that they expect to get some P5 quality players due to the lack of scholarships surrounding the "super" senior scholarship crunch. If we are recruiting players rated inline with Fleck's other classes we are in fact doing a worse job.
 


To my very unscientific eye, this is a lackluster class. My expectations have risen over the last 5 years.
 


John Galt said:
When our recruiting rankings are good, it’s ‘way to go staff, we sure are recruiting well.’ When our recruiting rankings aren’t good, it’s “trust the coaches” and the “staff knows way more than you.” You win either way.
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That's because we are recruiting well.
 


I enjoy the back and forth on these threads. The use of stars and rankings to grade players has proven to be somewhat predictive, not perfect but a guide. In that respect I'd have to side with those who think this is less than a stellar class. BUT there is something else to consider:

From 1991 to 2016 the Gopher's big ten record was 69 wins and 140 losses, a "winning" percentage of 33%. Good if compared to the Timberwolves but not much else.

Mr. Fleck's teams have a combined big ten record of 15 wins and 19 losses, a "winning" percentage of 44%. Although under 500 it is a dramatic improvement. So, who should I trust?

Go Gophers and yes, I trust Fleck not the pundits.
 




BroncoRedux said:
I enjoy the back and forth on these threads. The use of stars and rankings to grade players has proven to be somewhat predictive, not perfect but a guide. In that respect I'd have to side with those who think this is less than a stellar class. BUT there is something else to consider:

From 1991 to 2016 the Gopher's big ten record was 69 wins and 140 losses, a "winning" percentage of 33%. Good if compared to the Timberwolves but not much else.

Mr. Fleck's teams have a combined big ten record of 15 wins and 19 losses, a "winning" percentage of 44%. Although under 500 it is a dramatic improvement. So, who should I trust?

Go Gophers and yes, I trust Fleck not the pundits.
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Class just got a nice bump on the 247 rankings with the three unranked guys all getting .86 composite rankings and Smith being included as well.

For the star chasers this is not an exciting class at this point. But looks like a very solid class from top to bottom.

By all accounts we are bringing in players with legit power 5 interest who should hopefully be able to contribute. That is all that really matters in recruiting. From there it is on the coaches to find the right mix of players and develop a championship team.
 

BroncoRedux said:
I enjoy the back and forth on these threads. The use of stars and rankings to grade players has proven to be somewhat predictive, not perfect but a guide. In that respect I'd have to side with those who think this is less than a stellar class. BUT there is something else to consider:

From 1991 to 2016 the Gopher's big ten record was 69 wins and 140 losses, a "winning" percentage of 33%. Good if compared to the Timberwolves but not much else.

Mr. Fleck's teams have a combined big ten record of 15 wins and 19 losses, a "winning" percentage of 44%. Although under 500 it is a dramatic improvement. So, who should I trust?

Go Gophers and yes, I trust Fleck not the pundits.
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From 2011-2016 Gophers B1G record was 20-29...41%, so not dramatic but an improvement.
 

You can judge a class by 247 ratings coming in; you can judge a class by performance on the field. I favor the latter, since win and loss records are determined on the field.
 

Good bump today. I'd love to see us get above .86.

When need to get above .88 to consistently compete for the West title.
 



Radical suggestions: (1) Empirically, a team doesn't need to be rated above 0.8800 by 247 to win the West, though it could certainly help; (2) If 247 ratings were determinative of success, Nebraska should win the West every year and Northwestern would never, never win. Simply put, there are many other other factors.
Bottom Line for me: in years when complete data is available on HS prospects, 247 ratings help (high is better than low), but there are nonetheless a lot of misses, high and low, since the ratings never seem to give full credit to "development" players and in the high-study HS leagues a lot of guys seem to get over-rated. In a year, however, when HS data is spotty and hit-or-miss (because of COVID), 247 ratings are likely to be off the ULTIMATE mark more than usual. Finally, while gross differences in class rankings are meaningful--say one team at 0.9300 and another at 0.8500--it really is kind of silly to put huge import into a difference of 0.8548 versus 0.8610 or whatever. Over the span of a few years, given player development; recruitment by "eye test" as opposed to 247 ratings; attrition or lack thereof (commitment to the program); and "heart" (which isn't measured by 247, as far as I know), the kind of tiny statistical differences some of us are obsessing over here are negligible and meaningless.
Chart below is my compilation; any errors are mine.
Screen Shot 2021-06-22 at 12.30.46 PM.png
 
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The stars or numbers for recruits mean very little compared to the BIG W/L record over the next few years.
PJ seems to be recruiting better than his predecessors but given the MN BIG W/L record over the last 25 years that bar has been set very low.
What conference W/L record is going to be good enough two or three years from now for PJ to keep his job?
 

Gophergrandpa said:
Radical suggestions: (1) Empirically, a team doesn't need to be rated above 0.8800 by 247 to win the West, though it could certainly help; (2) If 247 ratings were determinative of success, Nebraska should win the West every year and Northwestern would never, never win. Simply put, there are many other other factors.
Bottom Line for me: in years when complete data is available on HS prospects, 247 ratings help (high is better than low), but there are nonetheless a lot of misses, high and low, since the ratings never seem to give full credit to "development" players and in the high-study leagues a lot of guys seem to get over-rated. In a year, however, when HS data is spotty and hit-or-miss (because of COVID), 247 ratings are likely to be off the ULTIMATE mark more than usual. Finally, while gross differences in class rankings are meaningful--say one team at 0.9300 and another at 0.8500--it really is kind of silly to put huge import into a difference of 0.8548 versus 0.8610 or whatever. Over the span of a few years, given player development; recruitment by "eye test" as opposed to 247 ratings; attrition or lack thereof (commitment to the program); and "heart" (which isn't measured by 247, as far as I know), the kind of tiny statistical differences some of us are obsessing over here are negligible and meaningless.
Chart below is my compilation; any errors are mine.
View attachment 13129
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If you round the numbers to a two significant figures which is all the data allow;
NE NW WI Winner
.89 .86 .88 NW

.89 .86 .88 WI
.87 .85 .86 NW
.88 .85 .86 WI
..87 .86 .87 WI
Just looking at these numbers tell you that there are no real significant differences in recruiting as measured by 247 but WI won 3/5 titles. or 60%.
So as mentioned above coaching etc etc play a major role, all other things being equal.
 

Look every team has five recruiting classes on it. NW has shown that you can win the west while not recruiting in the ball park of the top teams in the West. They also have shown they can follow that up with a historically bad offense and 3-9 record. A good coach can take a team to the west title with lower rated classes, but to consistently be near the top you should be in the ball park of the best competition, Fleck has us in the ball park. It’s not like Iowa has an amazing class right now either. And after all the talk about average rating, we are higher than Wisconsin now, although I’m sure that will likely change. But it’s just one class of five.
 

I know Iowa definitely wanted the QB that is coming here. That’s gotta be a plus for the class at the most important position.
 

I might be wrong, but I believe that one of the ratings factors 247 considers is other P5 offers. If true, guys like our OL recruit Nelson—a Minnesota kid who accepted his early offer the instant it was made and essentially shut down his recruiting—might well have missed out on a subsequent uptick in 247 ratings, since he rendered other P5 offers fruitless (and therefore not made). If Nelson hadn’t committed instantly to the Gophers, if he had dragged it out—going to multiple camps and perhaps taking some official visits—he might be more highly rated on 247 at this point. But he would still be the exact same player, with the same potential—which Fleck and the coaches saw and offered.
 


TruthSeeker said:
Good bump today. I'd love to see us get above .86.

When need to get above .88 to consistently compete for the West title.
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2022 class, with 13 commits, is currently rated on 247 at 0.8562. If you take away the single outlier, Alvarez (at 0.7943), who was injured last year (but is a tall, rangy, all around athlete with TE or OL prospects), the remaining 12 commits in the class already exceed 0.86: we would be at 0.8613. And I suspect Pyburn and maybe even Alvarez might get nudged some in the future as their physical abilities become more studied (or more offers come in for Pyburn). This will be a very decent class, one picked at camps and by the "eye test."
 

Gophergrandpa said:
2022 class, with 13 commits, is currently rated on 247 at 0.8562. If you take away the single outlier, Alvarez (at 0.7943), who was injured last year (but is a tall, rangy, all around athlete with TE or OL prospects), the remaining 12 commits in the class already exceed 0.86: we would be at 0.8613. And I suspect Pyburn and maybe even Alvarez might get nudged some in the future as their physical abilities become more studied (or more offers come in for Pyburn). This will be a very decent class, one picked at camps and by the "eye test."
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Great information about Alvarez. Fleck is about on par with last year.
 


btowngopher said:
Does anyone in the west consistently recruit above .88?
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I think Wisconsin and Nebraska are about there.

Getting above .88 would get us to contending for 1st every year in the West. It's a lofty goal, but one to aspire to and where we want to be.
 

TruthSeeker said:
I think Wisconsin and Nebraska are about there.

Getting above .88 would get us to contending for 1st every year in the West. It's a lofty goal, but one to aspire to and where we want to be.
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Nebraska has to get much better players than those ranked .88 to compensate for Frost and his staff coaching them down :p
 

MNVCGUY said:
Class just got a nice bump on the 247 rankings with the three unranked guys all getting .86 composite rankings and Smith being included as well.

For the star chasers this is not an exciting class at this point. But looks like a very solid class from top to bottom.

By all accounts we are bringing in players with legit power 5 interest who should hopefully be able to contribute. That is all that really matters in recruiting. From there it is on the coaches to find the right mix of players and develop a championship team.
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Still 12th of 14 based on AVG in the B1G, and only one player inside the top 500 at this point.
 

Many on this site stated in 2019 that the success of that banner season wouldn't bear fruit until the 2022 recruiting class.

At this juncture, it hasn't happened. Many posters here say they judge the recruiting on who else is offering our commits. Then...when the kids don't have great offer lists, they say they trust Fleck's judgment.

You can't take both sides in that opinion.

Maybe PJ is just taking guys he knows won't be poached later or are less likely to decommitt?
 

Gophergrandpa said:
I might be wrong, but I believe that one of the ratings factors 247 considers is other P5 offers. If true, guys like our OL recruit Nelson—a Minnesota kid who accepted his early offer the instant it was made and essentially shut down his recruiting—might well have missed out on a subsequent uptick in 247 ratings, since he rendered other P5 offers fruitless (and therefore not made). If Nelson hadn’t committed instantly to the Gophers, if he had dragged it out—going to multiple camps and perhaps taking some official visits—he might be more highly rated on 247 at this point. But he would still be the exact same player, with the same potential—which Fleck and the coaches saw and offered.
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To quote Bud Elliot again -- he said that 247 does use the offers someone has in order to fill out their rating in order to account for the "market"
 

Boomtime said:
Many on this site stated in 2019 that the success of that banner season wouldn't bear fruit until the 2022 recruiting class.

At this juncture, it hasn't happened. Many posters here say they judge the recruiting on who else is offering our commits. Then...when the kids don't have great offer lists, they say they trust Fleck's judgment.

You can't take both sides in that opinion.

Maybe PJ is just taking guys he knows won't be poached later or are less likely to decommitt?
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I see you're new out here on GH... ;-p.

Anyway, Fleck isn't picking them, they are committing to offers...a potential downside to the idea of making a ton of offers, having a bunch of lower rated players commit.
 

Boomtime said:
Many on this site stated in 2019 that the success of that banner season wouldn't bear fruit until the 2022 recruiting class.

At this juncture, it hasn't happened. Many posters here say they judge the recruiting on who else is offering our commits. Then...when the kids don't have great offer lists, they say they trust Fleck's judgment.

You can't take both sides in that opinion.

Maybe PJ is just taking guys he knows won't be poached later or are less likely to decommitt?
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You absolutely can take both sides of that opinion. The vast majority of our recruits have legitimate power 5 interest from other schools. These days it is very rare to see us as the lone power 5 offer for one of our recruits, whereas in the past that was much more common.

In those rare cases where Fleck offers and gets a commitment from a kid with little to no power 5 interest then you have to assume the staff saw something they really liked in the player. Look at the two that fit this bill in this class: Nelson is a small town Minnesota kid who would have to work pretty hard to get a lot of National attention. He didn't go hunting for that attention because he caught the eye of the only school he was really interested in.

Alvarez is the really interesting one. Why did they offer a kid with seemingly no other D1 or power 5 options? They had to have seen something that told them this kid has something special otherwise the decision to use a scholarship on him makes no sense. This would traditionally be the kind of kid that ends up as a PWO. None of us know exactly what led to the decision to offer but they clearly saw something. At a time when scholarships are most likely going to be limited they wouldn't just throw one away.

But hey, maybe you would prefer to go back to the Mason or Kill days of recruiting when we were stuck at the bottom of the conference filling the classes with guys that bound for the MAC if we didn't offer.
 

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