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

Top recruits staying at home is not just a Minnesota issue. Just read an article in the Denver Post. With 3 FBS schools in the state, realizing Air Force is a different situation, only 4 Colorado players have committed to a Colorado FBS program with none going to CU.
 

True but let us see that the one great season was in season 4 and was a tie for the conference and a Rose Bowl title. That would buy a decade there or here.
Very different conference landscape at that time. Days of Rose Bowl being determined by which team hadn't been there in the longest is long gone. I would put our 11-2 on a similar par to their 10-1-1 that year.
 

Top recruits staying at home is not just a Minnesota issue. Just read an article in the Denver Post. With 3 FBS schools in the state, realizing Air Force is a different situation, only 4 Colorado players have committed to a Colorado FBS program with none going to CU.
Yep. It really is only a small subset of fans that panic when a local kid doesn't want to stay home and play for the hometown team. It is tough for some fans to accept that a recruits desire to wear the Maroon and Gold might not be as strong as their desire would be.

Happens in every state but we definitely have a fair number of fans that are very concerned about the "one of us" factor.
 

Top recruits staying at home is not just a Minnesota issue. Just read an article in the Denver Post. With 3 FBS schools in the state, realizing Air Force is a different situation, only 4 Colorado players have committed to a Colorado FBS program with none going to CU.
Would be interesting to know how many CO players have gone to Boulder on average over the past X years. Guessing they recruited Texas hard in the Big 8/XII days, and now recruit California hard.
 

I was recently in Atlanta, I saw guys working as towel boys at the hotel that look like they could have started on a Div. 1 team, I do not know HS sports team status down their, but they must have a lot of kids down there to choose from. If they loose their hometown guys there are probably 10 guys behind them, not up here. How do we recently have so many Div. 1 BB guys in our state compared to places like Atlanta?
 


I was recently in Atlanta, I saw guys working as towel boys at the hotel that look like they could have started on a Div. 1 team, I do not know HS sports team status down their, but they must have a lot of kids down there to choose from. If they loose their hometown guys there are probably 10 guys behind them, not up here. How do we recently have so many Div. 1 BB guys in our state compared to places like Atlanta?
I mean....I.....ummm......I don't even have the foggiest idea where to start with a reply to this post.....someone else take it :)
 

I was recently in Atlanta, I saw guys working as towel boys at the hotel that look like they could have started on a Div. 1 team, I do not know HS sports team status down their, but they must have a lot of kids down there to choose from. If they loose their hometown guys there are probably 10 guys behind them, not up here. How do we recently have so many Div. 1 BB guys in our state compared to places like Atlanta?

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I was recently in Atlanta, I saw guys working as towel boys at the hotel that look like they could have started on a Div. 1 team, I do not know HS sports team status down their, but they must have a lot of kids down there to choose from. If they loose their hometown guys there are probably 10 guys behind them, not up here. How do we recently have so many Div. 1 BB guys in our state compared to places like Atlanta?
Blink twice if you’re OK
 

I was recently in Atlanta, I saw guys working as towel boys at the hotel that look like they could have started on a Div. 1 team, I do not know HS sports team status down their, but they must have a lot of kids down there to choose from. If they loose their hometown guys there are probably 10 guys behind them, not up here. How do we recently have so many Div. 1 BB guys in our state compared to places like Atlanta?
“Joey…have you ever seen a grown man naked? Have you ever been to a Turkish prison?”
 



The in-state recruiting is a huge issue because of how it's going down. This year, for really the first time as I don't believe McDonald was viewed as a loss, the Gophers lost an in-state target to Iowa State in Hasert. Last year, the Gophers lost a couple top in-state targets to Wisconsin and another to Iowa. In 2020, they lost at least one it not two in-state targets (depending on what you think of Kaden Johnson's recruitment) and another to Iowa. The issue is this is not reciprocal. We've never taken a kid out of Iowa with an Iowa offer and I believe we got one DE (name escapes me transferred to ECU before Fleck's first year) out of Wisconsin with a Wisconsin offer. If you include Nebraska in the group of B1G West schools, they got a big time OL out of Minnesota a few years ago and the Gophers almost got Dickerson last year. The Gophers are the outliers in the group and now Iowa State has become the 4th school in the area to come in to Minnesota and get a kid (as an aside I hope that puts to rest the idea that last year didn't matter...the Gophers lost a lot of momentum with 2 more rivalry losses and 2 brutal performances on National feature games (Michigan, Iowa).

This staff had been holding their own out of the Nebraska/Iowa/Wisconsin/Minnesota area with all of the B1G West and they should be praised for that. The next step in recruiting then is to either soundly beat all of these schools out of the area OR start to hold their own within the area. The latter is a much more likely (and more sustainable IMHO) way to move forward. I am not particularly panicked about the overall recruiting ranking this year (less exposure for all these kids) even though it looks like a down class at the moment, but I think it's fair to be concerned about a lack of progress (and you argue a regression) in the in-state recruiting.
 


The in-state recruiting is a huge issue because of how it's going down. This year, for really the first time as I don't believe McDonald was viewed as a loss, the Gophers lost an in-state target to Iowa State in Hasert. Last year, the Gophers lost a couple top in-state targets to Wisconsin and another to Iowa. In 2020, they lost at least one it not two in-state targets (depending on what you think of Kaden Johnson's recruitment) and another to Iowa. The issue is this is not reciprocal. We've never taken a kid out of Iowa with an Iowa offer and I believe we got one DE (name escapes me transferred to ECU before Fleck's first year) out of Wisconsin with a Wisconsin offer. If you include Nebraska in the group of B1G West schools, they got a big time OL out of Minnesota a few years ago and the Gophers almost got Dickerson last year. The Gophers are the outliers in the group and now Iowa State has become the 4th school in the area to come in to Minnesota and get a kid (as an aside I hope that puts to rest the idea that last year didn't matter...the Gophers lost a lot of momentum with 2 more rivalry losses and 2 brutal performances on National feature games (Michigan, Iowa).

This staff had been holding their own out of the Nebraska/Iowa/Wisconsin/Minnesota area with all of the B1G West and they should be praised for that. The next step in recruiting then is to either soundly beat all of these schools out of the area OR start to hold their own within the area. The latter is a much more likely (and more sustainable IMHO) way to move forward. I am not particularly panicked about the overall recruiting ranking this year (less exposure for all these kids) even though it looks like a down class at the moment, but I think it's fair to be concerned about a lack of progress (and you argue a regression) in the in-state recruiting.
Let me start by saying I don't disagree with the idea that it would be great if in-state recruiting improved. But where I struggle is that this is super easy to say but how do you actually go about improving it?

If the staff is targeting local guys, offering them scholarships, bringing them in on official visits, and the kid is still electing to go somewhere else, what more can the staff really do to change that?

I guess I don't fret when a local kid picks another power 5 school. If the kid doesn't buy into the local team and vision then I would much rather see them go out and find someone that does as opposed to stressing about losing the in-state kid that doesn't want to be here.

Until we reach a point where kids grow up Gopher fans and dream of playing at the U, we are going to have to deal with the fact that some kids might just want to get away from home and go play somewhere else.
 

The in-state recruiting is a huge issue because of how it's going down. This year, for really the first time as I don't believe McDonald was viewed as a loss, the Gophers lost an in-state target to Iowa State in Hasert. Last year, the Gophers lost a couple top in-state targets to Wisconsin and another to Iowa. In 2020, they lost at least one it not two in-state targets (depending on what you think of Kaden Johnson's recruitment) and another to Iowa. The issue is this is not reciprocal. We've never taken a kid out of Iowa with an Iowa offer and I believe we got one DE (name escapes me transferred to ECU before Fleck's first year) out of Wisconsin with a Wisconsin offer. If you include Nebraska in the group of B1G West schools, they got a big time OL out of Minnesota a few years ago and the Gophers almost got Dickerson last year. The Gophers are the outliers in the group and now Iowa State has become the 4th school in the area to come in to Minnesota and get a kid (as an aside I hope that puts to rest the idea that last year didn't matter...the Gophers lost a lot of momentum with 2 more rivalry losses and 2 brutal performances on National feature games (Michigan, Iowa).

This staff had been holding their own out of the Nebraska/Iowa/Wisconsin/Minnesota area with all of the B1G West and they should be praised for that. The next step in recruiting then is to either soundly beat all of these schools out of the area OR start to hold their own within the area. The latter is a much more likely (and more sustainable IMHO) way to move forward. I am not particularly panicked about the overall recruiting ranking this year (less exposure for all these kids) even though it looks like a down class at the moment, but I think it's fair to be concerned about a lack of progress (and you argue a regression) in the in-state recruiting.
This would be true if there wasn’t 1000s of other guys to recruit. Plenty of people choose to go elsewhere for college. It happens with athletes too. It happens in every state. If Texas was getting 0 Texas kids they’d be in trouble. But Minnesota isn’t Texas.
 



The other thing that is missed by the “recruit Mn kids first” crowd is that many graduates of Wisconsin, Iowa, and Nebraska end up in the Twin Cities to pursue jobs and raise families… it’s much more of a melting pot. No U of M grads move to Madison, Lincoln, or Iowa City for jobs.

The Gophers are certainly on their way to being the hottest ticket in town, but within my nearest 10 neighbors I have an Ohio State couple, an Iowa Couple, a Penn State guy, and 4 gopher houses. At the end of my block are 3-4 Wisconsin grad families. Their kids are being raised with no chance to see the light.
 

The in-state recruiting is a huge issue because of how it's going down. This year, for really the first time as I don't believe McDonald was viewed as a loss, the Gophers lost an in-state target to Iowa State in Hasert. Last year, the Gophers lost a couple top in-state targets to Wisconsin and another to Iowa. In 2020, they lost at least one it not two in-state targets (depending on what you think of Kaden Johnson's recruitment) and another to Iowa. The issue is this is not reciprocal. We've never taken a kid out of Iowa with an Iowa offer and I believe we got one DE (name escapes me transferred to ECU before Fleck's first year) out of Wisconsin with a Wisconsin offer. If you include Nebraska in the group of B1G West schools, they got a big time OL out of Minnesota a few years ago and the Gophers almost got Dickerson last year. The Gophers are the outliers in the group and now Iowa State has become the 4th school in the area to come in to Minnesota and get a kid (as an aside I hope that puts to rest the idea that last year didn't matter...the Gophers lost a lot of momentum with 2 more rivalry losses and 2 brutal performances on National feature games (Michigan, Iowa).

This staff had been holding their own out of the Nebraska/Iowa/Wisconsin/Minnesota area with all of the B1G West and they should be praised for that. The next step in recruiting then is to either soundly beat all of these schools out of the area OR start to hold their own within the area. The latter is a much more likely (and more sustainable IMHO) way to move forward. I am not particularly panicked about the overall recruiting ranking this year (less exposure for all these kids) even though it looks like a down class at the moment, but I think it's fair to be concerned about a lack of progress (and you argue a regression) in the in-state recruiting.
For all this talk, I still am having a hard time understanding how it matters where the kids come from. We do beat Wisconsin, Iowa, and Nebraska for kids from others states pretty regularly. Say we beat Iowa for 2 kids in Illinois and Florida and they beat us for a kid in MN and Iowa, how is what they did more valuable if the players skill is equal across all four players?
 

Like it or not, Iowa State is suddenly at least a top 15 program, maybe top 10 this year (and maybe last year). That's going to be a factor.

They've been up in Minnesota for a few years, offering anyone with a DI pulse, early. Off the top of my head, that kid from I think it was Barnesville (small town near the North Dakota border), his first major offer was Iowa State and he had only Dakota school offers at that time. Eventually the Gophers offered, but it was too late and he stuck with Iowa State.

EDIT: OK, I guess we did not offer him? But we were "keeping an eye on him" https://247sports.com/college/minne...Barnesville-defender-Hunter-Zenzen-130757427/


We've done this exact thing, in other states, I think notably Georgia.
 

For all this talk, I still am having a hard time understanding how it matters where the kids come from. We do beat Wisconsin, Iowa, and Nebraska for kids from others states pretty regularly. Say we beat Iowa for 2 kids in Illinois and Florida and they beat us for a kid in MN and Iowa, how is what they did more valuable if the players skill is equal across all four players?
In the end it doesn’t matter where a kid is from to the vast majority of fans. But there are some who feel the local angle is super important.
 

In the end it doesn’t matter where a kid is from to the vast majority of fans. But there are some who feel the local angle is super important.
To me, the biggest thing is where we are losing them to. If a kid wants to go to Notre Dame or Stanford, I can't really fault a kid for getting a free ride to such a place. But losing kids to WI, IA, IA State, etc. hurts more. For a lot of us, we have neighbors, friends, family members that are fans of these programs living here, and it's more of a pride/ego thing than a thing that is necessarily something that will have a direct tie to wins/losses. If we were consistently winning games against these teams, it wouldn't hurt so bad. But when you lose both on and off the field, it is very much an ego/pride thing. Take NE for example, we've beat them often enough that losing a kid to NE doesn't sting nearly as much. I see a kid go there, and I just say "WTF would you want to go there of all places??"
 

To me, the biggest thing is where we are losing them to. If a kid wants to go to Notre Dame or Stanford, I can't really fault a kid for getting a free ride to such a place. But losing kids to WI, IA, IA State, etc. hurts more. For a lot of us, we have neighbors, friends, family members that are fans of these programs living here, and it's more of a pride/ego thing than a thing that is necessarily something that will have a direct tie to wins/losses. If we were consistently winning games against these teams, it wouldn't hurt so bad. But when you lose both on and off the field, it is very much an ego/pride thing. Take NE for example, we've beat them often enough that losing a kid to NE doesn't sting nearly as much. I see a kid go there, and I just say "WTF would you want to go there of all places??"
Depends on how many we're losing in that way.

The folks in a panic every time this topic comes up think we should get most or every top player from MN... and while we maybe offer it's not really care where on the spectrum of recruiting we are with some of these guys.

I don't think every offer is exactly the same as far as 'how bad do we want this guy'. I suspect some offers are just for PR or 'coach will like it if we offer him but we're not going to invest that much time on this guy' type situations.... Heck schools don't even validate if an offer was even made... it's weird.

Offers aren't all equal they are a weird world and it's really hard to know who the team is targeting hard and who they're not and why.
 

Each player is an individual - and has their own individual reasons for choosing School A over School B.

If players were coming out and saying "MN is a bleep-hole and Fleck is a clown," then you would have something to worry about.

I don't think that's the case.

Some MN kids just want to go somewhere else - get away from parents, etc.
Some MN kids may be looking for a specific major.
Some MN kids may like the idea of being in a "college town" where the FB team is the only show in town.
Some MN kids may have family ties to a different school.

and yes, some MN kids may just connect better with the coaching staff from another school. Just because you're a good salesman does not mean that you're going to close every deal. A MN kid may just like the guy at Iowa State better than Fleck. That doesn't mean Fleck is a bad coach or bad recruiter. It just means that a 17 or 18-year-old kid just liked somebody else more.

trying to figure that out is like trying to figure out why Debbie went to the dance with Larry instead of Chuck.
 

I am elated when a Minnesota kid like Cody Lindenberg wants to be a Golden Gopher. If the likes of Matt Birk, JC Hassenauer, Quinn Carroll, etc.. want to go elsewhere I wish them the best.

Coach PJ Fleck will change all that and have more young kids get connected to the program early on. It takes time to cultivate young minds into believing in Gopher Football. This will still not change kids from chasing their dreams elsewhere.

They seem to have no problems finding equal or better replacements on the same or succeeding recruiting classes. The Gophers are only going to lose sleep if they cannot find players that fit their program. If they can find 4-Star players from elsewhere, that is a bonus.

The important thing to me is the unheralded players from Minnesota and surrounding states who are walk-ons or preferred walk-ons who fill the bulk of the roster. You win with those guys putting in the sacrifice as practice players. These kids stay for the long haul. Many will never get a chance to play a regular game. Some will even surprise and become the next Blake Cashman.
 
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Some quality information. Iowa State has offered 8th graders, they like to throw a big net, the location does not compare to the cities nor does their facility.
 

Depends on how many we're losing in that way.

The folks in a panic every time this topic comes up think we should get most or every top player from MN... and while we maybe offer it's not really care where on the spectrum of recruiting we are with some of these guys.

I don't think every offer is exactly the same as far as 'how bad do we want this guy'. I suspect some offers are just for PR or 'coach will like it if we offer him but we're not going to invest that much time on this guy' type situations.... Heck schools don't even validate if an offer was even made... it's weird.

Offers aren't all equal they are a weird world and it's really hard to know who the team is targeting hard and who they're not and why.
You usually have a pretty sensible and reasonable approach with your POV.

This one wasn't one of them. You're stating/implying the staff offers guys they don't really want. That is ridiculous and if Fleck actually approaches certain offers that way, he ain't ever going to be ELITE.
 

Interesting we're 1 score underdogs for the Colorado game.

I like this class so far, we gotta remember where the program came from. We are getting kids with other P5 offers on the regular.

That wasn't the consistent case for a long time.
 


I’ll agree with the premise that developing O-line guys is easier than d-line guys.

But, I think Callahan is a really good O-Line coach. And, he’s been here and with PJ for a long time. I think longevity, consistency helps.

D-line has been a lotta guys coaching.
 

You usually have a pretty sensible and reasonable approach with your POV.

This one wasn't one of them. You're stating/implying the staff offers guys they don't really want. That is ridiculous and if Fleck actually approaches certain offers that way, he ain't ever going to be ELITE.

According to 247 the Gophers have 209 offers out. Do you think they are all commitable?

I agree for instate offers there's more nuance and probably far less likely to throw out a 'fake', 'PR' offer but you have to agree that not all offers are equal.

For the record Michigan has 339 offers out...so this isn't a uniquely PJ thing.
 

I was recently in Atlanta, I saw guys working as towel boys at the hotel that look like they could have started on a Div. 1 team, I do not know HS sports team status down their, but they must have a lot of kids down there to choose from. If they loose their hometown guys there are probably 10 guys behind them, not up here. How do we recently have so many Div. 1 BB guys in our state compared to places like Atlanta?

Not sure why I am biting on this, but from having spent a couple years as a sports writer in Georgia, I can speak from experience. The answer to your question has many layers
Interesting we're 1 score underdogs for the Colorado game.

I like this class so far, we gotta remember where the program came from. We are getting kids with other P5 offers on the regular.

That wasn't the consistent case for a long time.

I'd take us big with that line. Will be interesting to see how much it moves between now and then
 

According to 247 the Gophers have 209 offers out. Do you think they are all commitable?

I agree for instate offers there's more nuance and probably far less likely to throw out a 'fake', 'PR' offer but you have to agree that not all offers are equal.

For the record Michigan has 339 offers out...so this isn't a uniquely PJ thing.
According to PJ they're first come first serve.

But offering a guy who isn't going to commit costs nothing...and 247 offers aren't verified by the school, could be some inaccurate info too.
 

Interesting we're 1 score underdogs for the Colorado game.

I like this class so far, we gotta remember where the program came from. We are getting kids with other P5 offers on the regular.

That wasn't the consistent case for a long time.
I find this interesting. I’m not a big gambler, but the season win total over/under for MN is 7 and for CO it is 4.5 in a weaker conference. Even with home field advantage, I find it surprising they would be favored by that much. I would think based on over/unders it would be closer to a pick em or slight Gopher favorite.
 




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