PJ and Prime College Football Recruiting Perspective Discussion

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60's Guy

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2023 Overall Football Team Rankings
Imagine you are PJ Fleck...you are excited about your years of long work in building relationships to recruit the 2023 Gophers to the #41 Ranked class overall. You feel good about it. Proud of your accomplishments.

Then you hear in about a weeks time that Deion has put together the #29 ranked overall class. And I don't think anybody would argue that by February or sooner it will be a Top 20 overall class.

Gotta chafe you a little bit if you're a guy worried when people are saying you're gonna get fired after losing to Iowa 7 times in a row and you feel you gotta try and shame Wisconsin for talking to one of your recruits. Man, how do live with yourself when Deion raced past your years of work in a few days?
PS They are 29 and 41 at 11:30 pm Dec 21...sure the numbers will bounce.
 

I'm sure he really isn't too worried about it. I feel like Dion being a Flashy coach gets lot of players who also view themselves as potential "flashy" players themselves and go to him because of that.
 

Rhule came in a bested PJ’s class as well with 3 weeks of work. PJ needs to recruit better to take the next stop with the program
 


AF_Howie_2180 said:
I'm sure he really isn't too worried about it. I feel like Dion being a Flashy coach gets lot of players who also view themselves as potential "flashy" players themselves and go to him because of that.
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And you don't think PJ considers himself a "flashy" coach? I would agree Deion is "Flashier" for sure. :)
 




GopherGod said:
Rhule came in a bested PJ’s class as well with 3 weeks of work. PJ needs to recruit better to take the next stop with the program
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Ya, Nebraska is #32 on list. That's impressive too.
For me, I thought PJ maybe has one of his better classes. Just questioning if Nebraska and Colorado can do that, why wouldn't we be doing better?
I know PJ is looking for the right fit versus the best athletes....important part is how they all fit together. Just thought it was interesting.
 

NIL, philosophies, personalities, athletic departments, etc, all couldn’t be more different. Deion is literally a celebrity and Rhule/Neb are incredibly well resourced (and delusional). I think Rhule could really be an issue for us but I’m not sold on Deion sustaining success at the P5 level.

Not even worth comparing classes with those two schools at this point.
 




Gopher_Devil said:
NIL, philosophies, personalities, athletic departments, etc, all couldn’t be more different. Deion is literally a celebrity and Rhule/Neb are incredibly well resourced (and delusional). I think Rhule could really be an issue for us but I’m not sold on Deion sustaining success at the P5 level.

Not even worth comparing classes with those two schools at this point.
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Because overall Colorado is far behind Minnesota and they won't win for awhile or what?
 

60's Guy said:
What recruiting advantage does Nebraska have over Minnesota to constantly have better recruiting classes?
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Almost every single advantage.

More prominent program;
Bigger and more dedicated fan base;
More dedicated athletic department;
More recent prominence.

Our only advantages are that we’ve been better the last few years. Everything else (program wise) favors Nebraska. For example, I don’t think if we came off a 3 win season and looking for a coach a Matt Rhule type would even consider us.
 

60's Guy said:
Because overall Colorado is far behind Minnesota and they won't win for awhile or what?
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The programs will be built in completely different ways and they are at completely different stages.

One important note, the U’s class with hs kids is better than Colorado’s. Colorado has a really highly rated portal class of (7th in country) and that’s rated thst high solely because of JSU transfers (hunter and his kid).
 



60's Guy said:
What recruiting advantage does Nebraska have over Minnesota to constantly have better recruiting classes?
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Is that a serious question?

They have resources and a fan base that donate like there is nothing else that matters. There are several teams like this across CFB. Look at Miami. #4 class this year again and haven't won a conference championship since 2003 or 10 games since 2017 (and it was 2003 before that), but their fan base (and the parents of these kids) still view it as THE U. Nebraska is much the same.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
Almost every single advantage.

More prominent program;
Bigger and more dedicated fan base;
More dedicated athletic department;
More recent prominence.

Our only advantages are that we’ve been better the last few years. Everything else (program wise) favors Nebraska. For example, I don’t think if we came off a 3 win season and looking for a coach a Matt Rhule type would even consider us.
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I'd have to agree with those but lots of players who go to Minnesota live here for many years
after they graduate. Does that happen in Nebraska?
Post career opportunities are overwhelming in our favor. Business in general and Fortune 500 companies.
Pro sports teams to follow and connect with.
The outdoors opportunities here vs Nebraska. The variety of experiences. Corn maze in Nebraska probably only fun once.
The cultural and shopping opportunities again are overwhelming in our favor.
I'm not the recruiting guy but everything but fan base and dedicated athletic department we blow them away. And I think athletic department factor and fan base was a bigger deal before all the teams get $100 million dollars.
In short we have a ton of advantages they do not.
 

eye-roll-ugh.gif
 


60's Guy said:
I'd have to agree with those but lots of players who go to Minnesota live here for many years
after they graduate. Does that happen in Nebraska?
Post career opportunities are overwhelming in our favor. Business in general and Fortune 500 companies.
Pro sports teams to follow and connect with.
The outdoors opportunities here vs Nebraska. The variety of experiences. Corn maze in Nebraska probably only fun once.
The cultural and shopping opportunities again are overwhelming in our favor.
I'm not the recruiting guy but everything but fan base and dedicated athletic department we blow them away. And I think athletic department factor and fan base was a bigger deal before all the teams get $100 million dollars.
In short we have a ton of advantages they do not.
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many 18 year olds going to school to play football (aka the top 150-250 kids) don't care about Fortune 500 companies, especially the ones Sanders is signing. They're dreaming of pro ball, not that upper level management spot at 3M. Would imagine most athletes at this point already have a favorite team and it isn't like our guys are hanging out with JJ on the weekends. In Nebraska, you're the only show in town. There's no other big name sport (here we have hockey players who are popular for example) as well as the multitude of pro athletes in a city that isn't really "college football crazy. Would imagine it's quite regular, similar to how it is in the SEC, that these guys are recognized all over when they go out and are frequently given things on the house where here I guess the folks over at Blarneys will let you drink underage. It's a completely different atmosphere/game there versus here, and I don't see how you can't see that.
 

60's Guy said:
Then you hear in about a weeks time that Deion has put together the #29 ranked overall class. And I don't think anybody would argue that by February or sooner it will be a Top 20 overall class.
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I doubt that PJ would even offer many of those players that Neon Deion is bringing in. Whether that's because he doesn't think he could land them... or, more likely, he knows that they would not be the type of players who would "Row The Boat." I'm completely good with bringing in a whole lot of rowers.

Players who have no interest in school, other than as a means to play football, can go elsewhere... We've had other coaches who've tried to go down that road... and the results haven't been all that successful. I'm pretty certain that PJ won't be bringing in any young men who will embarrass the school or the team. That's important to me. I'm sure that there are others in here who couldn't care less about that sort of thing and just want to see PJ land 5*'s.
 

60's Guy said:
2023 Overall Football Team Rankings
Imagine you are PJ Fleck...you are excited about your years of long work in building relationships to recruit the 2023 Gophers to the #41 Ranked class overall. You feel good about it. Proud of your accomplishments.

Then you hear in about a weeks time that Deion has put together the #29 ranked overall class. And I don't think anybody would argue that by February or sooner it will be a Top 20 overall class.

Gotta chafe you a little bit if you're a guy worried when people are saying you're gonna get fired after losing to Iowa 7 times in a row and you feel you gotta try and shame Wisconsin for talking to one of your recruits. Man, how do live with yourself when Deion raced past your years of work in a few days?
PS They are 29 and 41 at 11:30 pm Dec 21...sure the numbers will bounce.
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Tim Brewster put together top 30 classes too. Large difference between the Big 12 and being in the SWAC. We’ll see how many of those 4/5* stay once a little adversity hits.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
Almost every single advantage.

More prominent program;
Bigger and more dedicated fan base;
More dedicated athletic department;
More recent prominence.

Our only advantages are that we’ve been better the last few years. Everything else (program wise) favors Nebraska. For example, I don’t think if we came off a 3 win season and looking for a coach a Matt Rhule type would even consider us.
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You forgot to say millions of NIL money. I know Ryan Burns has mentioned they have the biggest NIL in the West.
 

I agree with many of the points on here. I do think of the U had its campus day in Duluth or Rochester that it would be a bigger deal. When you are in the heart of the cities and competing with everything else I think they get drowned out by that. I do believe that Primes fame is what allows him to recruit so well but he also can relate to these kids really well. When I watched a Football Life I was very surprised with his beliefs (never drank, drugs, or smoked, family man, etc.) and that might be attractive to the parent side of things as well. I have no doubt he will bring in top rated talent but that may not necessarily turn into wins. Time will tell. Being a developmental program isn’t bad if you develop the talent. So far I think PJ has done that pretty well. I guess we will see how it all shakes out.
 

I think PJ is great for Gopher football and there is no indication this is a short term stop to something bigger. I think PJ can do quite well in the NLI world. After next year we are pretty much left with measurables of total win/loss, Iowa, Wisconsin, bowl game. The craw in the back of our mind of winning “the west” is gone. Unfortunately my dream of seeing the gophers at the Rose Bowl becomes harder. As for Sanders, there is a lot of sh!t that comes with that relationship as we”ll see in coming years.
 

60's Guy said:
What recruiting advantage does Nebraska have over Minnesota to constantly have better recruiting classes?
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MONEY and lots of it. Plus an administration that understands the importance of athletics and most importantly their football program. I would venture a guess less “woke” in their approach to recruiting and more progressive in their academic admission requirements.
 

60's Guy said:
I'd have to agree with those but lots of players who go to Minnesota live here for many years
after they graduate. Does that happen in Nebraska?
Post career opportunities are overwhelming in our favor. Business in general and Fortune 500 companies.
Pro sports teams to follow and connect with.
The outdoors opportunities here vs Nebraska. The variety of experiences. Corn maze in Nebraska probably only fun once.
The cultural and shopping opportunities again are overwhelming in our favor.
I'm not the recruiting guy but everything but fan base and dedicated athletic department we blow them away. And I think athletic department factor and fan base was a bigger deal before all the teams get $100 million dollars.
In short we have a ton of advantages they do not.
Click to expand...
If we have so many advantages that they do not then why do they out recruit us on paper no matter who the coaches have been?
 

Remember when Brewster had the #17 class?

Think about being one of the 25 P5 programs that recruit worse than MN/Fleck.

There is a great experiment going on right now. Let's see in 5 years how these programs sit and how NIL was a positive of negative in the world of building a true team. I think NIL programs might encourage players to sign for all the wrong reasons and make those programs tougher to build and coach. Look at Texas A&M this year as a quick reference.
 


60's Guy said:
I'd have to agree with those but lots of players who go to Minnesota live here for many years
after they graduate. Does that happen in Nebraska?
Post career opportunities are overwhelming in our favor. Business in general and Fortune 500 companies.
Pro sports teams to follow and connect with.
The outdoors opportunities here vs Nebraska. The variety of experiences. Corn maze in Nebraska probably only fun once.
The cultural and shopping opportunities again are overwhelming in our favor.
I'm not the recruiting guy but everything but fan base and dedicated athletic department we blow them away. And I think athletic department factor and fan base was a bigger deal before all the teams get $100 million dollars.
In short we have a ton of advantages they do not.
Click to expand...
Yes players who go to Nebraska stay quite often in a Lincoln or Omaha after graduating.

PJ has a very rocksolid class here I’m very pleased with what he did don’t really care about rankings.
 

Colorado is a whole different beast than Jackson state. I’m not sold that Primetime is a P5 HC. I not old enough to remember when Brewster put together a top 25 class and the guy was why in over his head.
 


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