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

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John Galt said:
Class is currently ranked #10 in the B1G, #38 in the country and continuing to drop. Will probably be around 50 on signing day. Not elite.
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We only have 13 commits. Speculation: this might end up being a small class because the transfers and returning super seniors might be soaking up some potential scholarships. Could be a school-imposed budgetary limit on total number of full football scholarships (even if NCAA limit, factoring in COVID extra year, is theoretically higher). Just don’t know.

Or, because this is an odd year, PJ might be holding some spots for highly-rated players who find, near signing date, that their Ohio State, etc., offers aren’t commitable. The volume of transfer portal activity plus super seniors returning this year might tax the scholarship ability of some (maybe many) top teams to take a full complement of 25 recruits from HS. I think some good recruits who are holding out to the end might, in this very unconventional year, find out near signing date that the top teams are “sold out,” and have to start looking at the next tier.

Really would like to know what the upper limit of HS recruits that PJ can take this year. I assume it is less than the NCAA nominal limit if 25.
 
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MNVCGUY said:
Nothing too cool on if we never offered a scholarship in the first place. No way of knowing why he wasn't offered a scholarship but for one reason or another the coaching staff must have felt he wasn't a fit for our system.
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Or grades, or he wasn't interested, or character issues, or a myriad of other things. Not trying to attack him or his character, just saying it could be something from either side that made it a no go.
 



Jordekorn said:
Or grades, or he wasn't interested, or character issues, or a myriad of other things. Not trying to attack him or his character, just saying it could be something from either side that made it a no go.
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I doubt it was grades or character issues if Iowa and Iowa State offered.

Honestly it just looks bad to not even offer a local guy, even if he told the staff "not interested in staying home, thanks for your time". Just put the non-committable offer out there, so it shows up.
 



GopherPete said:
How else would you describe it in general terms? Unless you know specifics?
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I have no idea.

What is publicly visible is that a guy from Minneapolis has offers from Iowa and Iowa State, and the Gophers didn't even offer him.

Nothing much more to know for sure, as has been said. I've said my piece on it. Moving on
 


MplsGopher said:
I doubt it was grades or character issues if Iowa and Iowa State offered.

Honestly it just looks bad to not even offer a local guy, even if he told the staff "not interested in staying home, thanks for your time". Just put the non-committable offer out there, so it shows up.
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Disagree on making a non-committable offer just for the sake of appearances. If there is not mutual interest between the player and the school then there is zero point in putting a phony offer out there just to make fans think you are going hard after all local guys.

I would argue it looks worse to offer a local kid and have them go somewhere else than it does to not offer the kid.
 



MplsGopher said:
I doubt it was grades or character issues if Iowa and Iowa State offered.

Honestly it just looks bad to not even offer a local guy, even if he told the staff "not interested in staying home, thanks for your time". Just put the non-committable offer out there, so it shows up.
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That’s silly, no need to offer a kid for “looks”. The kid and his coaches would obviously know if it was a non committable offer. Looks worse to be a phony for image than being a straight shooter with local kids. Also why would kids from other high schools care if he was offered.
 

FWIW I feel like all the Minnehaha football and basketball athletes didn't take the Gophers seriously and wanted to get out of state.
 


Bob_Loblaw said:
I'd be cool with never offering a scholarship to a HS kicker or a punter. It doesn't seem like scholarship kickers outperform non-scholar kickers.
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That has for sure been the Gophers experience. Don't know if that's true for all programs.
 



Word said:
That has for sure been the Gophers experience. Don't know if that's true for all programs.
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I kind of think it the same way with drafting kickers and punters too. Maybe I'm biased because free agents/walk ons seem to do just as good of a job from my experience.
 


MNVCGUY said:
Disagree on making a non-committable offer just for the sake of appearances.
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btowngopher said:
That’s silly, no need to offer a kid for “looks”.
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Fair enough. So put a real off on the table then.

You're telling me that Fleck has never offered a kid that he thought they had little or no chance of getting?

Never??


MNVCGUY said:
I would argue it looks worse to offer a local kid and have them go somewhere else than it does to not offer the kid.
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Disagree 1000%. 10000%.

That's exactly no different than saying "better to just give Ohio St the win, than to lose by 35 and have a guy get injured".
 

MplsGopher said:
Fair enough. So put a real off on the table then.

You're telling me that Fleck has never offered a kid that he thought they had little or no chance of getting?

Never??



Disagree 1000%. 10000%.

That's exactly no different than saying "better to just give Ohio St the win, than to lose by 35 and have a guy get injured".
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Disagree with your Ohio State analogy as I don't think those things are the same in any way shape or form.

But to your first part, if the Gophers don't want the kid there is zero reason to extend an offer to him. I have no doubt they have offered lots of long shot guys scholarships in hopes of getting them.

My guess is that they have very limited scholarships to use this year, and they already have a couple of much more college ready D-Lneman signed. So they aren't going to extend an offer to a project D-Lineman just because he is from Minnesota.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Disagree with your Ohio State analogy as I don't think those things are the same in any way shape or form.

But to your first part, if the Gophers don't want the kid there is zero reason to extend an offer to him. I have no doubt they have offered lots of long shot guys scholarships in hopes of getting them.

My guess is that they have very limited scholarships to use this year, and they already have a couple of much more college ready D-Lneman signed. So they aren't going to extend an offer to a project D-Lineman just because he is from Minnesota.
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OK, perfectly reasonable.


Just one question: you're telling me that Iowa wanted him -- and I don't know, does Iowa have kind of track record with DL??? -- but we did not want him?

......
 

MplsGopher said:
OK, perfectly reasonable.


Just one question: you're telling me that Iowa wanted him -- and I don't know, does Iowa have kind of track record with DL??? -- but we did not want him?

......
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It’s almost like different teams can like players more or less and coaches don’t just extend offers because another team offers. Fleck clearly likes the DL we signed early. No reason to throw an offer out if you like the guys you have committed more
 

upnorthkid said:
It’s almost like different teams can like players more or less and coaches don’t just extend offers because another team offers. Fleck clearly likes the DL we signed early. No reason to throw an offer out if you like the guys you have committed more
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Weak response, doesn't address my point.
 

MplsGopher said:
OK, perfectly reasonable.


Just one question: you're telling me that Iowa wanted him -- and I don't know, does Iowa have kind of track record with DL??? -- but we did not want him?

......
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Obviously none of us know all the details. I am making my assumptions based on us most likely bringing in a small class this year. If that is the case and our class doesn't grow much beyond where it is now, the top 2 guys in our class are Defensive Lineman who are much more college ready size wise.

If we were taking a full class of 25 or so a guy like Carter would probably be on the radar but if the class is going to stay in the area of 15 or so then you have to be more selective. They probably have a certain number of spots they are willing to use on particular position groups so with Bixby and Smith on board already they don't have interest in another D-Lineman like Carter who is going to need some time to fill out and get ready for the college game. They are probably going to be very selective with whatever remaining spots they have for this class.

Again, assuming this is going to be a small class as all indications have been to this point.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Obviously none of us know all the details. I am making my assumptions based on us most likely bringing in a small class this year. If that is the case and our class doesn't grow much beyond where it is now, the top 2 guys in our class are Defensive Lineman who are much more college ready size wise.

If we were taking a full class of 25 or so a guy like Carter would probably be on the radar but if the class is going to stay in the area of 15 or so then you have to be more selective. They probably have a certain number of spots they are willing to use on particular position groups so with Bixby and Smith on board already they don't have interest in another D-Lineman like Carter who is going to need some time to fill out and get ready for the college game. They are probably going to be very selective with whatever remaining spots they have for this class.

Again, assuming this is going to be a small class as all indications have been to this point.
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Fair and good response, thank you
 


MplsGopher said:
Fair enough. So put a real off on the table then.

You're telling me that Fleck has never offered a kid that he thought they had little or no chance of getting?

Never??



Disagree 1000%. 10000%.

That's exactly no different than saying "better to just give Ohio St the win, than to lose by 35 and have a guy get injured".
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Who said anything close to that?
 

We have someone suggesting that Fleck should offer a kid, that he doesn't want, because Iowa and Iowa State did. That is could be a non-commitable offer? So that when he commits elsewhere it could look like Fleck missed on him and even worse if he commits to Iowa or Iowa State that Fleck lost him to there? Or it could be a commitable offer and Fleck gets stuck with a guy he didn't want? Exactly where is the upside? What possible benefit does this give to the program? Richard Pitino bizarrely did this in basketball a few times and all it resulted in were articles on how he went for 0-6 in a particular class in-state including a loss to Wisconsin (on a kid he gave the fake offer to BTW).

This class is going to be small. I want to say Ryan Burns threw out a guess of 12-15 on one of his podcasts, but I am probably remembering wrong because we're at 13 and Burns expects more on the OL for sure (also expects us to be active in the portal on the OL). I am not really concerned about the rank nationally because of the small class size, but will be concerned if our average recruit remains low relative to much of the B1G. With less film on everyone this cycle it's very possible that guys see major adjustments between now and signing day. The one area I might be most disappointed in is at WR. We didn't land a 4 star WR after Bateman and Johnson both were ALL B1G in the '21 class and, it doesn't appear that they will land one in this cycle after Bateman gets drafted in round 1. Just looking through the '22 WR rankings and Ohio State and Penn State both have at least three 4 or 5 star commits, Michigan has a couple, Maryland has one, Northwestern has one, Indiana has one, and Michigan State is the leader for one. Then you have schools like SMU, Virginia, Iowa State, Georgia Tech, and Boston College that also have one. It just seems like with PJ being a former WR and our recent history at the position that we could do better there as it's one of the spots we have the most to sell at (and of course it's possible that we like the guys we took better than some of these 4 stars as I am not arguing it's a perfect system).
 

EG#9 said:
We have someone suggesting that Fleck should offer a kid, that he doesn't want, because Iowa and Iowa State did. That is could be a non-commitable offer? So that when he commits elsewhere it could look like Fleck missed on him and even worse if he commits to Iowa or Iowa State that Fleck lost him to there? Or it could be a commitable offer and Fleck gets stuck with a guy he didn't want? Exactly where is the upside? What possible benefit does this give to the program? Richard Pitino bizarrely did this in basketball a few times and all it resulted in were articles on how he went for 0-6 in a particular class in-state including a loss to Wisconsin (on a kid he gave the fake offer to BTW).

This class is going to be small. I want to say Ryan Burns threw out a guess of 12-15 on one of his podcasts, but I am probably remembering wrong because we're at 13 and Burns expects more on the OL for sure (also expects us to be active in the portal on the OL). I am not really concerned about the rank nationally because of the small class size, but will be concerned if our average recruit remains low relative to much of the B1G. With less film on everyone this cycle it's very possible that guys see major adjustments between now and signing day. The one area I might be most disappointed in is at WR. We didn't land a 4 star WR after Bateman and Johnson both were ALL B1G in the '21 class and, it doesn't appear that they will land one in this cycle after Bateman gets drafted in round 1. Just looking through the '22 WR rankings and Ohio State and Penn State both have at least three 4 or 5 star commits, Michigan has a couple, Maryland has one, Northwestern has one, Indiana has one, and Michigan State is the leader for one. Then you have schools like SMU, Virginia, Iowa State, Georgia Tech, and Boston College that also have one. It just seems like with PJ being a former WR and our recent history at the position that we could do better there as it's one of the spots we have the most to sell at (and of course it's possible that we like the guys we took better than some of these 4 stars as I am not arguing it's a perfect system).
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I’m guessing the biggest issue for landing higher rated wrs is that the closest place that consistently produces them is Illinois. Has there ever been a four star wr from MN other than Bryce McNeal?
 

btowngopher said:
I’m guessing the biggest issue for landing higher rated wrs is that the closest place that consistently produces them is Illinois. Has there ever been a four star wr from MN other than Bryce McNeal?
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I think Michael Floyd was a 5-star and Larry Fitzgerald Jr was a 4. Along with Eric Decker, three Minnesota receivers who went onto solid (or great) NFL careers.

But there definitely aren't a ton of good WR recruits coming out of MN. McNeal never did much at Clemson and that was well before the Dabo Dynasty really got rolling.
 
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Recruiting class national or conference ranking should only be done in retospect after the said recruits have been on campus for three years.
Fleck's recruiting rankings will be seen at the end of this season since MN is playing with Fleck's recruits.
 

This year is so screwed up thanks to covid. Coaches couldn't travel last year and do in-person interviews or observation. Some HS teams played a limited schedule, or moved to a spring schedule.
Then, you add in all D1 athletes being offered an extra year of eligibility. I don't have # but I'm guessing that some schools have more people coming back than others. And - it's up to each individual school to determine how many scholarships they are willing to fund for next year (up to a limit), so some schools will have more people on scholarship compared to other schools.

that makes it very hard to do any apples-to-apples comparisons on number of recruits. School A may have room to take 20 HS recruits - Team B may only have room for 12.

And - some teams may decide to keep a certain number of schollys open for late signings and transfers/grad transfers.

It will take a few years for all of this to settle down and get back into something close to normal. and even then, the new transfer rules will still have an impact and make for more fluid rosters.
 

I don't remember who made the point (it was some time ago and in the 2021 thread, I think?), but to have a strong two-deep a team really only needs about 8-9 players per class to be contributors (with redshirts, 9x5=45). Obviously bringing in 20 good to great recruits dramatically increases the likelihood of that happening, but at the end of the day, if 1/3-1/2 of each class are hits, you can have a good team. Given the weirdness around COVID and everything else this year, I feel pretty confident that at least 5-6 guys will emerge from this group as competitive B1G caliber players, and that will be just fine, regardless of what the national rankings end up saying.
 

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