PP: Gophers football program has a top-15 class, but will it last?

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Minnesota now has 19 pledges for next year’s class, which is tied with Michigan for most in the Big Ten. Overall, the Gophers have the fourth-best recruiting class based on total points within the conference and the 13th-best class in the nation, according to 247sports.com.

The Gophers have been in that situation in previous years, too, only to fall in the rankings when other programs catch up in the volume of players in their classes when the recruiting cycle effectively ends in December.

www.twincities.com

Gophers football program has a top-15 class, but will it last?

Minnesota has had strong rankings in previous summers only to watch other Big Ten programs pass them by December.
www.twincities.com www.twincities.com

Go Gophers!!
 



btowngopher said:
No it won’t…you’d think people would realize how these rankings work by now. Same thing every year.
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I feel like this is a canned article he puts out annually...knowing it is basically click bait.
 

I have no problem with getting the players we actually want early. Ranking football recruits is beyond difficult. We have also seen in various sports how it plays out when you take fliers on guys late (spoiler alert it’s not good).
 


Drake University Gopher said:
I have no problem with getting the players we actually want early. Ranking football recruits is beyond difficult. We have also seen in various sports how it plays out when you take fliers on guys late (spoiler alert it’s not good).
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I understand but some of the better rated players with multiple offers wait. Do you think if Fleck ranked in order who he could legitimately get, these would be the top 19? We've also seen early commits flip late, which as you said, means Fleck will need to take a flyer on someone.
 

Pj knows that he won’t get the 5* guys. He rarely gets more than 1 four star guy per year. Recruiting rankings are based on the. 4-5* guys. We get 3*, occasionally one gets upgraded late to 4*
 

PMWinSTP said:
I understand but some of the better rated players with multiple offers wait. Do you think if Fleck ranked in order who he could legitimately get, these would be the top 19? We've also seen early commits flip late, which as you said, means Fleck will need to take a flyer on someone.
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Some that commit early also don’t end up with as many offers as they would’ve had they waited.
 

timj5304 said:
Pj knows that he won’t get the 5* guys. He rarely gets more than 1 four star guy per year. Recruiting rankings are based on the. 4-5* guys. We get 3*, occasionally one gets upgraded late to 4*
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$$$$$$$$ want the top 4* and 5* players - better have a sugar daddy to pony up the NIL.

In all fairness, I think Fleck does a decent job recruiting with the relatively limited NIL the Gophers currently have at their disposal. Not knocking what Dinkytown Athletes is doing - but one rich dude like the guy in Miami can outbid anything MN can offer at this time.
 



Drake University Gopher said:
I have no problem with getting the players we actually want early. Ranking football recruits is beyond difficult. We have also seen in various sports how it plays out when you take fliers on guys late (spoiler alert it’s not good).
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Yeah. I would rather have a class rated 40 that is all locked up early than a class rated 40 that is thrown together late.

Though I’d rather have a top 15 class.

The difference between 21 and 50 is 3-4 guys working out. I personally think the guys you identify with and talk to longer probably are more likely to work out. Though I have no data to back this up.
 

PMWinSTP said:
I understand but some of the better rated players with multiple offers wait. Do you think if Fleck ranked in order who he could legitimately get, these would be the top 19? We've also seen early commits flip late, which as you said, means Fleck will need to take a flyer on someone.
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That’s true whether you have a late decommit or an open spot that was never committed to.
 


timj5304 said:
Pj knows that he won’t get the 5* guys. He rarely gets more than 1 four star guy per year. Recruiting rankings are based on the. 4-5* guys. We get 3*, occasionally one gets upgraded late to 4*
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He's getting players that fit his program that can consistently get him nine-game win seasons. They need lady luck's help to gain championship traction.
 




hungan1 said:
He's getting players that fit his program that can consistently get him nine-game win seasons. They need lady luck's help to gain championship traction.
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This. Who cares about how the rankings shake out, if we're consistently ripping 5-6 big ten wins a year with the occasional outlier of 4 or 7/8, that's all that matters (I put in the 4 because I still think we're bound to have a dose of injuries/bad luck/bad bounces at some point and I think it's healthy to have a realistic view of what could happen with a couple of bad breaks) . We've been so spoiled lately when you look at all the years of mediocrity, we're riding a great wave right now.
 

mngg11 said:
This. Who cares about how the rankings shake out, if we're consistently ripping 5-6 big ten wins a year with the occasional outlier of 4 or 7/8, that's all that matters (I put in the 4 because I still think we're bound to have a dose of injuries/bad luck/bad bounces at some point and I think it's healthy to have a realistic view of what could happen with a couple of bad breaks) . We've been so spoiled lately when you look at all the years of mediocrity, we're riding a great wave right now.
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More players are giving the Gophers a look who wouldn't have in the past.
 


247 briefly had the Gophs at 2 4-stars yesterday but it was changed back to 1. Any ideas which recruit got bumped up and down?

 

mngg11 said:
I don't disagree. I also think the whole recruiting stars business model is a sham
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Holdup...are you trying to imply that it isn't possible to rank thousands of players across the entire country against each other with any true form of accuracy? That's crazy talk :)
 

I know the Gophers aren't going to stick in the Top 10 as other classes fill up, but I think it still says a lot that the Gophers have the most commitments in FBS in mid-June.

Most of the other schools with a lot of commitments in June are prestige, first-choice programs that players grow up dreaming of.

There's clearly something working with what Fleck and his staff are building and selling.

It seems like there's been a snowball effect from a class that is getting to know and like each other, similar to that "Empire" class which formed the base of the 2019 team.
 

Not into recruiting enough to actually research it, but the quality of programs that PJ has out-recruited for players seems to have gotten better year after year. That is the most heartening thing about this year because it seems to have happened even more this year.
 

When the dust settles after NSD, the Gophers will most likely be back to their customary rankings over PJ Fleck's six full recruiting seasons from a National Ranking high of 38 to a low of 49. The average talent ranking over the same period is 86.41. They have stabilized the program.

This was good enough for the Gophers to win at least nine games in three out of the last four seasons.

Can the Gophers improve their rankings going into the new Big Ten alignment? They have an opportunity with the right kind of breaks in recruiting. Sooner or later, they will catch a break.

It is still possible that the Gophers add two or three additional skilled players that become game-changers. The NSD day is still months away.

Year/Nat'l Rank/Commits/4-Stars/3-Stars/Avg Ranking/Total Points
2024*, 10*, 23*, 1*, 21*, 86.85*, 205.57* - *As of 6/19/23
2023, 44, 21, 2, 19, 86.66, 201.22
2022, 49, 18, 2, 16, 86.15, 189.38
2021, 38, 18, 4, 14, 87.54, 203.38
2020, 38, 24, 2, 22, 85.80, 199.34
2019, 45, 21 1, 20, 86.14, 198.47
2018, 38, 25, 3, 22, 86.22, 206.66

The highest number of 4 stars they had in the PJ Fleck Era was from the 2021 recruitment year. The real story of that recruiting class is who is no longer in a Gopher uniform. A third of the class of 18 committed recruits are already gone. Two 4-Star players are gone.

Steven Ortiz, 4-Star, .0.9000, Gone
Bucky Irving, 4-Star, 0.8972, Gone
Athan Kaliakmanis, 4-Star, 0.8964
Deven Eastern, 4-Star, 0.8955
Cameron James, 3-Star, 0.8807, Gone
Sam Mapakaitolo, 3-Star, 0.8804, Gone
Le'Meke Brockington, 3-Star, 0.8759
Jacob Schuster, 3-Star, 0.8756
Devon Williams, 3-Stars, 0.8748
Austin Booker, 3-Star, 0.8741
Brady Boyd, 3-Star, 0.8737, Gone
Jameson Geers, 3-Star, 0.8726
Logan Purcell, 3-Star, 0.8707
Justin Walley, 3-Star, 0.8685
Darius Green, 3-Star, 0.8611
Dino Kaliakmanis, 3-Star, 0.8593
Luther McCoy, 3-Star, 0.8522
Dylan McGill, 3-Star, 0.8478, Gone
 
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What does everyone think about how the Gophers will finish in the recruiting ranking after NSD?
 

Panthadad2 said:
247 briefly had the Gophs at 2 4-stars yesterday but it was changed back to 1. Any ideas which recruit got bumped up and down?

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Kissayi had only his 24/7 rating (low 4 star) when he committrd. He's since picked up a rating (lower) from ON3 and is now a.composite 3 star. 247 goes by the composite score for recruits as their "actual" rating.
Thus Kissayi is now a "3 star" on 247 even though 247 rates him as a 4.
 
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What ratings organizations are they basing the composite recruiting rankings on?
 


Are they using AI? It will be interesting to see AI infiltration into sports in the coming years.

The rankings may overrate or underrate players.

The success of programs like the Gophers relies heavily on live evaluations and other investigative tools. Star ratings have built-in regional biases. https://www.sbnation.com/college-fo...ecruiting-stars-rankings-high-school-football

Teams like Nebraska have consistently had high recruiting rankings. They recruited the stars. That is how they recruited. Yet, it did not produce the desirable results on the playing field after Bo Pellini.

On the other hand, the Gophers have had their share of 4-star "duds" and 3-star recruiting home runs. Consider the Gopher 2021 recruiting class. Justin Walley is a home run under-the-radar recruit. Steven Ortiz did not quite reach his potential as a Gopher.
 
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