Shooter: Considering the free agency transfer portal, Gophers rooters should be concerned about retaining QB Athan Kaliakmanis

BleedGopher

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Per Shooter:

>> Considering the free agency transfer portal, Gophers rooters should be concerned about retaining QB Athan Kaliakmanis, who impressed during his freshman season.


Go Gophers!!

I'm not going to pay money to read that so there's probably a bigger context to this sentence. Still, Big Ten starters seldom leave for another program. Now if they're riding the pine some, sure, increased chance of testing free agency. I swear, sometimes Minnesota media treat Gopher football as if it's FCS or G5.
 




I'm not going to pay money to read that so there's probably a bigger context to this sentence. Still, Big Ten starters seldom leave for another program. Now if they're riding the pine some, sure, increased chance of testing free agency. I swear, sometimes Minnesota media treat Gopher football as if it's FCS or G5.
I believe that's the entirety of comment. Likely a tidbit at the bottom of his column.
 

Ugh. Too many people have too much access to publish crap content nowadays. I'll determine what I should be concerned about, Charles. You worry about writing a piece of exposition that's worth a damn.
 

Actually, it IS a concern these days. Two programs offered NC QB Drake Maye 5 million to come and play for them this year, which he turned down. Not every person would do that - I know I would have had a hard time turning down 5 million dollars when I was in college (or even right now!!) Dozens and dozens of QB's transferred this year and some of them were starters, too. Graham Mertz will probably be starting at Florida next year. If AK is lighting it up he could have one of the big dogs that need a QB try to poach him away with money, cars, etc. And it would be entirely legal.

I am not saying this will happen -- but Walters is right saying it COULD happen. And man oh man Gopher fans would be irate with the other school. Pandora's box has been opened and I do not know how we can fix this at this point.
 




I am not saying this will happen -- but Walters is right saying it COULD happen. And man oh man Gopher fans would be irate with the other school. Pandora's box has been opened and I do not know how we can fix this at this point.
I don't disagree with you, but AK could also suffer a career ending knee injury walking down some stairs. This is all stuff out of our control and gnashing our teeth and biting out nails about what ifs is a good (albeit annoying to me) conversation piece but that's about it. I'd be more inclined to fret about losing PJ if we have another 8-9 win season. Players come and go but if we have another rock solid year, PJ's clearly the engineer of our success and the best thing that's happened to this program in the modern era. Losing him would be a huge kick in the nuts.

I dislike that people like Charley Walters get paid to essentially throw out hot takes that are attention grabbers and lack any real substance. I'd venture a lot of people on this very site could write more objective, nuanced stuff than what most of the TC sports media puts out there, and it's done every day on here for free.
 

I don't disagree with you, but AK could also suffer a career ending knee injury walking down some stairs. This is all stuff out of our control and gnashing our teeth and biting out nails about what ifs is a good (albeit annoying to me) conversation piece but that's about it. I'd be more inclined to fret about losing PJ if we have another 8-9 win season. Players come and go but if we have another rock solid year, PJ's clearly the engineer of our success and the best thing that's happened to this program in the modern era. Losing him would be a huge kick in the nuts.

I dislike that people like Charley Walters get paid to essentially throw out hot takes that are attention grabbers and lack any real substance. I'd venture a lot of people on this very site could write more objective, nuanced stuff than what most of the TC sports media puts out there, and it's done every day on here for free.
I completely agree with everything you have said!!
 

AK's in a good spot for him. He wasn't so can't-miss last year that he's going to just walk into a top 20 program and take the starting job by default. Those schools have promising 4* guys on the roster too. Nobody is offering him $5M a year in NIL.

But he looked very promising and is highly likely to be a Big Ten starter next year on a good Gopher team with several experienced receivers.

If he has a huge 2023, that's the time to worry a little.
 

AK's in a good spot for him. He wasn't so can't-miss last year that he's going to just walk into a top 20 program and take the starting job by default. Those schools have promising 4* guys on the roster too. Nobody is offering him $5M a year in NIL.

But he looked very promising and is highly likely to be a Big Ten starter next year on a good Gopher team with several experienced receivers.

If he has a huge 2023, that's the time to worry a little.

If he has a huge, successful season, it actually reduces the chance he'd leave.

If he is lighting it up, it dramatically increases the chances that this team will do really well. Why would he leave a situation like that? It's a B1G school, it's a great school academically, the program is strong. Why leave?
 






If he has a great year and looks like a top 5 QB for the 2025 draft we had a great year and unless CrAB was the big reason why (meaning his only WR is leaving) there really is no reason to leave. QB's leave because they don't want to have the year Jordon Love had after his WR's left. The big payday is secondary. The only other reason, is the MN is getting Athan the press he needs to make the draft pundits talk about him enough and he gets worried NFL GM's will miss out on his abilities.

Personally I don't see either happening. Which means the only reason he leaves is for he money or he has a terrible year.

once again a click and comment piece - nothing more.
 

Geez this got people riled up. Anyone can be poached at anytime now. That's simply a fact. Minnesota isn't going to be the exception to that rule. No need to feel slighted or angered by that suggestion. Look at how many starting QB's transferred last year. Also, people talking about AK getting injured as a joke need to also realize that's another reason for him to grab the money when offered. Wasn't there some rumors he'd follow Kirk to Rutgers?

The piece from Shooter could have said AK will never transfer and people here would argue he could eventually. Saying fans should be concerned may be the wrong way to say it, but saying fans should be aware it's a possibility would be just as true.
 

Shooter IRL:

bb383dee4f90a3adfa52d5a3c86cb92f_w200.gif
 

Actually, it IS a concern these days. Two programs offered NC QB Drake Maye 5 million to come and play for them this year, which he turned down. Not every person would do that - I know I would have had a hard time turning down 5 million dollars when I was in college (or even right now!!) Dozens and dozens of QB's transferred this year and some of them were starters, too. Graham Mertz will probably be starting at Florida next year. If AK is lighting it up he could have one of the big dogs that need a QB try to poach him away with money, cars, etc. And it would be entirely legal.

I am not saying this will happen -- but Walters is right saying it COULD happen. And man oh man Gopher fans would be irate with the other school. Pandora's box has been opened and I do not know how we can fix this at this point.
I actually think that Maye came out publicly and stated that these rumors were false......
 


I do strongly suspect when Longo left NC to be the OC under Fickell that Maye was given some incentives to come to WI.
But he has very strong ties to NC and turned everyone down.
 

This is pathetic. This is not journalism, this is simply thinking of something that could possibly get the village riled up. Stupid and pathetic.
Not only are you correct, but this is dribble that anyone on GH could have written. This guy is supposed to be a journalist, he has greater access to his subjects than we should have. I know this is his schtick, but be better than this. He was successful in getting GHers to talk about but really, this is absolute dribble.
 


Geez this got people riled up. Anyone can be poached at anytime now. That's simply a fact. Minnesota isn't going to be the exception to that rule. No need to feel slighted or angered by that suggestion. Look at how many starting QB's transferred last year. Also, people talking about AK getting injured as a joke need to also realize that's another reason for him to grab the money when offered. Wasn't there some rumors he'd follow Kirk to Rutgers?

The piece from Shooter could have said AK will never transfer and people here would argue he could eventually. Saying fans should be concerned may be the wrong way to say it, but saying fans should be aware it's a possibility would be just as true.
We all know it’s a possibility. It’s a non story just a headline meant to provoke.
 


If he has a huge, successful season, it actually reduces the chance he'd leave.

If he is lighting it up, it dramatically increases the chances that this team will do really well. Why would he leave a situation like that? It's a B1G school, it's a great school academically, the program is strong. Why leave?
The Biletnikoff winner transferred from Pitt to USC. So I’m not sure a good season reduces the odds. I don’t think the big boys with money come calling if the player isn’t playing well.
 

This is pathetic. This is not journalism, this is simply thinking of something that could possibly get the village riled up. Stupid and pathetic.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think the purpose was to rile folks up. I just think this is about someone who is too lazy to get out do any real leg work and reporting. He was sitting as his desk and just thought something up to take up page space.
 

So I actually went and looked at this article. First of all, it was done by Charley Walters. It was buried at the middle of the article as the 9th bullet listed under "dont print that" section which seems to be a compilation of bad news surrounding Minnesota sports. Crappy job by OP on the headline of this post. Walters even posted about how much better PJ is doing compared to the basketball hires.

You clicked, he wins. That's all he wanted.
 

The Biletnikoff winner transferred from Pitt to USC. So I’m not sure a good season reduces the odds. I don’t think the big boys with money come calling if the player isn’t playing well.

Okay.

I'm not worried about Kaliakmanis leaving. Feel free to do so if you like, however.

I think I'll wait for his inevitable rise to superstardom before I lose sleep over big money guys stealing him away. Right now he's a kid who has looked promising.
 




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