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


For a program like the Minnesota Golden Gophers, it is all about paying attention to details. They want recruits that fit their program. They cannot afford too many recruiting mistakes. If all they do is rely on camp stats and recruiting ratings, there will be many misses.

High school football in Minnesota is not going to get the same level of scrutiny by the recruiting sites as the football hotbeds in other parts of the country unless there is an equivocally obvious talent. Hockey saps a lot of athletes away from football. To a certain extend basketball too. When was the last time that Minnesota got a 5-Star football player rated by the recruiting sites? Seantrel Henderson? With hockey and basketball, Minnesota gets a lot of attention.
Basketball takes far more athletes who specialize than hockey. There’s 425 Hs basketball teams and 165 hockey teams in MN.
 



So that's unique to Fleck? Plenty of reports on how quickly he and staff took advantage and transitioned to virtual...ahead of a lot of other programs.
I'm talking on rating services that are short on star chasing you so desperately need.

If you want to panic, that's cool. I was just offering an explanation of why some of us aren't up in arms
 


I don’t think 6’4” and 265 is considered “undersized” for a DE.
I only gave Mafe as an example of a "Rush End" in our system, not as an example someone who was too undersized to play a traditional 40 front, hand in the dirt DE.
 

Are we bringing in guys with legit power 5 offers/interest? If the answer is yes on the majority of the recruits then the recruiting class is just fine, even if the recruiting sites give the kid a .84 instead of a .87.
This is the key point.

You look at: https://247sports.com/Season/2022-Football/TeamRankings/?Conference=Big-Ten

Mich St #4 - 20 commits (5 - 4*) - average commit rating is 87.05
Purdue #8 - 17 commits (2 - 4*) - average commit rating is 85.35
Minnesota #11 - 13 commits (2 - 4*) - average commit rating is 86.15
Nebraska #14 - 8 commits (0 - 4*) - average commit rating is 86.88


You can't just blindly look at how 247 determines the class ranking, which is some bullshit, massaged "metric" called "Points".

I would bet anything that metric is highly slanted to reward teams that essentially provide the most and most exciting recruiting news, that the site can sell. It's just BS.


And this completely ignores the growing impact that transfers are going to play in each overall class of "new counters".
 

I'm talking on rating services that are short on star chasing you so desperately need.

If you want to panic, that's cool. I was just offering an explanation of why some of us aren't up in arms
Who said I'm panicking but you? Not up in arms, I'm just being real. It's OK to say he's having a down year recruiting at this point...really it's OK.
 

Football is 25% god given athletic talent (measurable), 25% worth ethic, 25% competitiveness/drive and 25% luck (avoiding injuries). Only one of these is easily measured. The recruiting sites (247 is my favorite to peruse) can give you a broad based look at an overall class to gain a basic understanding of how that class will be but in no way is an accurate predictor of an individual kids future success.
I like that we are recruiting people who have, at minimum, 110% to give. I see it as an advantage over the 100%ers.
 



This is the key point.

You look at: https://247sports.com/Season/2022-Football/TeamRankings/?Conference=Big-Ten

Mich St #4 - 20 commits (5 - 4*) - average commit rating is 87.05
Purdue #8 - 17 commits (2 - 4*) - average commit rating is 85.35
Minnesota #11 - 13 commits (2 - 4*) - average commit rating is 86.15
Nebraska #14 - 8 commits (0 - 4*) - average commit rating is 86.88


You can't just blindly look at how 247 determines the class ranking, which is some bullshit, massaged "metric" called "Points".

I would bet anything that metric is highly slanted to reward teams that essentially provide the most and most exciting recruiting news, that the site can sell. It's just BS.


And this completely ignores the growing impact that transfers are going to play in each overall class of "new counters".
This is largely correct.

With that said, getting to .87 or .88 consistently will make us perennial contenders in the West if development remains constant.
 

You can't just blindly look at how 247 determines the class ranking, which is some bullshit, massaged "metric" called "Points".

I would bet anything that metric is highly slanted to reward teams that essentially provide the most and most exciting recruiting news, that the site can sell. It's just BS.
If I understand it correctly, you get points for each player that is rated above a .70. I.e. if a player is .89 you get 19 points for that player.
 

Right. So, it's BS that you get ranked higher for nothing other than having more recruits in a class.

How silly.
 

To be honest - when it comes to Division 1 athletes. Athleticism is 75% of the equation. Work Ethic, competitiveness and Luck make up the other 25%. If you are not a top 10% in the world athlete it doesn't matter. The key is finding those athlete's who want to get the most out of their natural abilities. Having a family member who trains professional athletes for a living help put this in perspective for me. Prior to then I would have said the same thing.

Still, an incredible athlete without those other things can only go so far. However, a person with those other traits doesn;t stand a chance without incredible God given talent

I like that we are recruiting people who have, at minimum, 110% to give. I see it as an advantage over the 100%ers.
LOL!! yes. Guaranteed National Champs!
 



To be honest - when it comes to Division 1 athletes. Athleticism is 75% of the equation. Work Ethic, competitiveness and Luck make up the other 25%. If you are not a top 10% in the world athlete it doesn't matter. The key is finding those athlete's who want to get the most out of their natural abilities. Having a family member who trains professional athletes for a living help put this in perspective for me. Prior to then I would have said the same thing.

Still, an incredible athlete without those other things can only go so far. However, a person with those other traits doesn;t stand a chance without incredible God given talent.
To clarify my original post, those percentages were obviously meant to illustrate the four main "qualities" that determine an athletes success AGAINST other athletes at the college level. No D1 Power 5 football players are less than elite level athletes when compared to the normal population. When you get to the elite levels, the other determining factors like motivation and competitiveness are impossible to measure statistically but are HUGE factors in the individual athletes performance. And to say luck is not a big factor is naive at best. Luck being not just injuries, but other tangibles like exposure to better coaches, teammates, training, etc.
 

This is largely correct.

With that said, getting to .87 or .88 consistently will make us perennial contenders in the West if development remains constant.
And I would contend that we don't have to hit .87 or .88 consistently to be contenders.

From 2017-2021 here are the times these West teams had a composite average of .87 or better according to 247.

Minnesota - 2021
Iowa - 2021
Wisconsin - 2019, 2020, 2021 (and their current team looks like one of their worst in a while)
Northwestern - Never
Purdue - Never
Illinois - Never

There is one team in the West however that has had a .87 or better in all those years.

Yep, yearly contender for the West Crown....Nebraska

Northwestern has won the West twice in that time in spite of never topping .87 in a single recruiting class. Iowa would be viewed as a regular contender and we were a contender in 2019 and look we will be one again in 2021.
 

Who said I'm panicking but you? Not up in arms, I'm just being real. It's OK to say he's having a down year recruiting at this point...really it's OK.

I used to share your view, but I do less and less every year.

Everyone points to the huskers, of course.

But look at the badgers, who had a huge uptick in their recruiting rankings in 2019 and again in 2020. The uptick in the 2019 class was powered largely by two players 5 * Logan Brown and 4* Graham Mertz.

The badger faithful have been disappointed so far. Mertz has underperformed, and Brown hasn't cracked the starting lineup yet. (He was supposed to be the next Josh Oglesby, who was a starter by this time in his career.) And Jalen Berger, the 3rd highest recruit in their 2020 class, just bailed.

Peruse the badger blogs, and they think the on the field product has taken a step back, even as their recruiting rankings go up.

I'm no longer sold on the idea that there's much to differentiate between a class average of 86 and a class average of 88, even though that differential represents a big jump in a team's national rank.
 

I used to share your view, but I do less and less every year.

Everyone points to the huskers, of course.

But look at the badgers, who had a huge uptick in their recruiting rankings in 2019 and again in 2020. The uptick in the 2019 class was powered largely by two players 5 * Logan Brown and 4* Graham Mertz.

The badger faithful have been disappointed so far. Mertz has underperformed, and Brown hasn't cracked the starting lineup yet. (He was supposed to be the next Josh Oglesby, who was a starter by this time in his career.) And Jalen Berger, the 3rd highest recruit in their 2020 class, just bailed.

Peruse the badger blogs, and they think the on the field product has taken a step back, even as their recruiting rankings go up.

I'm no longer sold on the idea that there's much to differentiate between a class average of 86 and a class average of 88, even though that differential represents a big jump in a team's national rank.

I love looking at the info as a data point… I 100% believe that Fleck looks more at how hard a kid is going to work…
 

Last night, Jacob Knuth (230 yards passing, two passing touchdowns; 89 yards rushing, one rushing touchdown) leads Harrisburg,SD to 9-0 over undefeated Brandon Valley.
Great to hear our guy is still playing great but how did he account for three TDs when they had nine points?
 



Seems our incoming freshmen quality is similar to previous seasons. But we are waiting to fill out the class with a bunch of transfers, so presently our commits are down, and as a result our ranking.
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They're still playing catch up and missed out on current players junior years and camps.

Considering most our guys had legit p5 interest. It's going be smaller class, there will be transfers again.

Sure, I'd like see more 4star kids, but not going to hyperventilate over class rankings before class is done.
Not going for hyperventilate over how Clint Brewster ranks recruits, especially knowing there is some incentive to rank schools with large amounts of subscribers a bit higher to get the cash flowing. I’d want those schools fighting it out for the rare 6-star recruit with the latest daily update behind the paid firewall.
 



Were there any recruit at the game today?
 
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