This is my thought as well. Taking guys that he had going to Western Michigan and putting them in the NFL shows that he can identify and develop talent. Fit is huge when that is the case and fit helps cut down on transfers. His recruiting will be judge on the next 2-3 seasons and if the on field product takes a dip or not.
The last point has always been the key to me. Prior to Fleck there was a pretty clear talent gap between us and many of the teams we faced. Now that gap is only evident when we go up against the upper crust teams like Ohio State. The talent we are bringing in is on par with our peers, from there the rest of the things you mentioned kick in and it is all about retention and development of that talent.
The emphasis has switched from just recruiting FR and a JUCO or two to the portal. Both are the name of the game.
It will be awesome if he can land a bigger 4-star recruiting class.
JMS is the gold standard of what the Gopher Football program can do.
Good thing we’ve had 11/9/9 wins over 3 full seasons. Ending every season with a bowl victory.
Luke Fickell is a terrible human being. I give him a D-.
It's also a chicken and egg argument, we aren't going to magically start recruiting better without winning. The only way a school like MN competes at the highest levels is by progressing and that's usually a slow process.
His players trust him to look after their best interests. He is not afraid to have those difficult conversations or cut players that commit egregious violations.
10 and a very nice bowl, 8 and a minor bowl, 8 and a minor bowl.
Correct, and and a 5-6 win season wipes out most of the recruiting momentum gained.
And I'm mildly disappointed in the recruiting. I was hoping by now we'd be landing top 20, top 15 level classes.
Expecting top 15-20 level classes on any kind of regular basis at a school like Minnesota is a pretty lofty expectation given our local recruiting base.
I don't get this line of thinking at all. Wisconsin and Iowa have had a lot of success with classes that rarely crack the top 25 in the rankings. You don't have to land a super highly rated class in order to compete, you have to find the right players who are talented enough to compete at the Big Ten Level.
This is kind of what I was getting at. Unless you expect Fleck to bring in top 20 classes consistently by now, there isn't really a concern with the ranking. For all the success Iowa and wisconsin have had, they never consistently get top 20 classes!
Your expectations show your ignorance toward recruiting. That is basically where PSU recruits. Only OSU and Michigan recruit at a higher level in the B1G. Minnesota is located in one of the most talent deficient geographic areas of any P5 team, at least as far as ratings. Yes there is some room for improvement still with recruiting which I think can come with continued success. But we have never really seen consistently better recruiting than what Fleck has done. Brew had the one class that was a level up, but that was it, and he was touted by all experts for his recruiting prowess.
I'm kinda in the same boat to a degree. Would have thought the recruiting would be better at this point, especially after 2019. It isn't bad and rankings don't tell us everything but people would be lying if they say it isn't important to recruit talent.
Flip 1 game over the last three years and they were in Indy 3 times. Yes we can do better on and off the field.