Official 2026 Roster Movement Thread - Who's In and Who's Out?

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GopherGuy82 said:
You are correct. Maybe it was a combo of how he played at the end of the season and losing two upper class linebackers that year. The memory works in mysterious ways. I do recall thinking he was going to be a stud and help mask linebacker deficiency in pass coverage.
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I think with Flip he went into the portal the day after Nubin announces he was coming back. It sucked to lose him but getting one more year of Nubin and in hindsight Koi's freshman year was the tradeoff, plus the emergence of Kerry Brown at the other safety position.
 

Bayfield Gopher said:
Simon's high school recruits for the 21-24 classes have been absolutely horrendous. The only guys that have made any substantial contribution to the passing game are Lemeke from '21 and Smith from '24. Just an awful display of recruiting and/or development.

This has to be a concern but I assume PJ had his hand in this also being a CFB and NFL receiver. We realize the cream of the crop usually go the blue bloods but there have been plenty of lower rated HS receivers that have done well at lesser programs. And we have missed out with very few exceptions. Loya had decent numbers prior to coming here and has struggled to find the field.
Guys like Coleman have dreams and goals. For some reason they don't have confidence that Minnesota is the place for them to develop.

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I used to rag on Kill and Limegrover for their Pop Warner passing game, but outside of Johnson/Bateman/Bell (and to some extent Jackson), Fleck hasn't been any better. Who can blame any high-profile WR for not wanting to play for the Gophers? WRs want the ball and get pretty adamant about it. QBs want to sling it. Both positions are usually manned by the uber-confident (whether that confidence is ill-founded or not) and unless the Gophers show more inventiveness to their passing game, we're going to be in a WR desert.
 

50PoundHead said:
I used to rag on Kill and Limegrover for their Pop Warner passing game, but outside of Johnson/Bateman/Bell (and to some extent Jackson), Fleck hasn't been any better. Who can blame any high-profile WR for not wanting to play for the Gophers? WRs want the ball and get pretty adamant about it. QBs want to sling it. Both positions are usually manned by the uber-confident (whether that confidence is ill-founded or not) and unless the Gophers show more inventiveness to their passing game, we're going to be in a WR desert.
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Our passing game has left a lot to be desired and can get a lot better but what we have seen under Fleck is still light years ahead of what we had during many of the Kill years where it looked like the team didn't believe the forward pass was a legal play that could be called.
 

50PoundHead said:
I used to rag on Kill and Limegrover for their Pop Warner passing game, but outside of Johnson/Bateman/Bell (and to some extent Jackson), Fleck hasn't been any better. Who can blame any high-profile WR for not wanting to play for the Gophers? WRs want the ball and get pretty adamant about it. QBs want to sling it. Both positions are usually manned by the uber-confident (whether that confidence is ill-founded or not) and unless the Gophers show more inventiveness to their passing game, we're going to be in a WR desert.
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I dunno man.

I'm not a fan of the current offensive staff ... but Kill's offenses would get one penalty call and the drive was just OVER. That was it, go no farther. PJ's offenses / teams has shone the ability to be more resilient.

And Kill just refused to change coordinators...
 


A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
I dunno man.

I'm not a fan of the current offensive staff ... but Kill's offenses would get one penalty call and the drive was just OVER. That was it, go no farther. PJ's offenses / teams has shone the ability to be more resilient.

And Kill just refused to change coordinators...
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Yep....Limegrover was a great guy but he was not a very good OC. Since leaving Minnesota has been mostly a position coach with some Run Game Coordinator titles tossed but has never gone back to being a solo OC anywhere. He knows his niche the same way Claeys knew he was more suited to be a coordinator than a head coach.
 

Yeah the WR recruiting has been a huge disappointment. At one point I thought it was going to be a major weapon where we could use to get a leg up on teams like Wisconsin and Iowa. Just seems to have faded away. You’d think with some of the past successes and Fleck’s experience we’d be able to attract four stars every year at the position.
 

btowngopher said:
Yeah the WR recruiting has been a huge disappointment. At one point I thought it was going to be a major weapon where we could use to get a leg up on teams like Wisconsin and Iowa. Just seems to have faded away. You’d think with some of the past successes and Fleck’s experience we’d be able to attract four stars every year at the position.
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I feel like it's been the development that has been more disappointing. They've been able to bring in some talented WRs but just aren't getting a lot out of them.
 

GophersInIowa said:
I feel like it's been the development that has been more disappointing. They've been able to bring in some talented WRs but just aren't getting a lot out of them.
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Part of the problem is the bar set by the Bateman/Johnson combo was so high it is tough to get anywhere close to it.
 



MNVCGUY said:
Part of the problem is the bar set by the Bateman/Johnson combo was so high it is tough to get anywhere close to it.
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We were spoiled by their presence and that might be the peak, but since them we're really at the bottom of the mountain. And it can't just be raw talent that's at the crux of the issue.
 


A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
I dunno man.

I'm not a fan of the current offensive staff ... but Kill's offenses would get one penalty call and the drive was just OVER. That was it, go no farther. PJ's offenses / teams has shone the ability to be more resilient.

And Kill just refused to change coordinators...
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Plus our WRs are actually running real routes instead of the grade school playground routes we saw under Kill.
 







Word said:
Yeah WR has probably been out consistently weakest position post-Bateman/Johnson but Simon gets cut a lot of slack here. He should probably be one of the first coaches to go if we are replacing coaches based on performance.
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When everyone is mad at the offense how could you possibly give any blame to the co-OC? Come on. He is the only one holding things together
 

MNVCGUY said:
Part of the problem is the bar set by the Bateman/Johnson combo was so high it is tough to get anywhere close to it.
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They were literally the first pair of teammates to both be first team all big ten wideouts (I think it has happened since with Ohio state guys)
It will likely never happen again for the gophers if they are in the big ten another 100 years
 


Some guy said:
They were literally the first pair of teammates to both be first team all big ten wideouts (I think it has happened since with Ohio state guys)
It will likely never happen again for the gophers if they are in the big ten another 100 years
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Yeah but Gopherchase thinks my comment was dumb and Barnburner agrees with him so I should probably retract it. Bateman and Johnson were nothing special, we should be able to find that kind of production every year with ease :)
 

Some guy said:
They were literally the first pair of teammates to both be first team all big ten wideouts (I think it has happened since with Ohio state guys)
It will likely never happen again for the gophers if they are in the big ten another 100 years
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I believe that in 2019 Johnson and Bateman were the No. 1 and No, 2 WRs by yardage in the B1G. That is not going to happen often for any team, even tOSU.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Yeah but Gopherchase thinks my comment was dumb and Barnburner agrees with him so I should probably retract it. Bateman and Johnson were nothing special, we should be able to find that kind of production every year with ease :)
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How does anything that those two superstars, and by the way I have a helmet signed by Johnson in my office, have anything to do with recruiting good wide receivers now. You are on a roll with all kinds of dumb posts today. I hope you wake up tomorrow and have a more insightful look at life.
 

Gopherchase said:
How does anything that those two superstars, and by the way I have a helmet signed by Johnson in my office, have anything to do with recruiting good wide receivers now. You are on a roll with all kinds of dumb posts today. I hope you wake up tomorrow and have a more insightful look at life.
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My point was if the standard is Johnson/Bateman it is going to be tough to come anywhere close to that. We have had some good receivers since then but not enough of them and it has been tough to get more then one at a time.

Hope that reply is up to your lofty standards?.....if not I sincerely apologize and will try and do better.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Our passing game has left a lot to be desired and can get a lot better but what we have seen under Fleck is still light years ahead of what we had during many of the Kill years where it looked like the team didn't believe the forward pass was a legal play that could be called.
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Mitch threw for 7300 yards in his career so while he certainly was no Peyton Manning and we weren’t a reincarnation of the Walsh 49ers back then, ya maybe have a bit of hyperbole going on above.
 

GopherTheJugular said:
Plus our WRs are actually running real routes instead of the grade school playground routes we saw under Kill.
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Can't remember if it was a Gopher game or not, but I recall Bill Walsh calling some teams passing attack "primitive." That term does describe some Gopher squads ability to pass. I'm thinking the Gutey years, but it was more than that. Go Gophers!
 


Gopherchase said:
Mitch threw for 7300 yards in his career so while he certainly was no Peyton Manning and we weren’t a reincarnation of the Walsh 49ers back then, ya maybe have a bit of hyperbole going on above.
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I mean Connor Rhoda could’ve put up similar passing numbers in Fleck’s offense if given the opportunity.
 


studentgopher94 said:
Any news on roster movement ? Offers out, rumors on players leaving, or just conversations about old QB's and WR's?
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Crickets of late....would think we will hear soon about any players that intend to opt out of the bowl game.

Will be interesting to see how many more players jump into the portal between now and when it officially opens. As it stands right now we will only have room for a couple of transfers assuming the 105 roster size is enforced and there are not a bunch of players still grandfathered in and not counting against that total.
 

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