Tobi Okuyemi

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JackiO

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With all of the recent press lately about our lack of a pass rush, coupled with our other Local prospect Beau Allen getting more press, how important is it that we land this kid. He has major offers a la Allen, and his videos show immense quickness off the line when the whistle blows. To me, he has more talent than that of Hageman, Garin and Kendal Gregory Mcghee from last years class. A strong, very fast motor that could wreak havoc along the line.

However, after visiting Iowa last week for his official he was reportedly ready to commit right there on the spot. Does Brewster have what it takes to lock our borders down this year? Allen and Okuyemi are only 5.6 and 5.5 players on rivals, but judging by there offer lists and high light reels they are VASTLY underrated by the site. I really want Okuyemi. Where do we stand with him?
 


not coming to minnesota, apparently does not like the coaches or the school. He has never really shown much interest in the Gophs. We have better chance with Allen although its small. From what I have read.
 

to ASS ashin

he will end up in the big 12. Does not want to stay in Minnesota, but he is smart enough not to end up a pigeye.
 

So we are ruling him out than? That is dissapointing
 


Unless he told our coaches "No way, no how am I going to Minnesota. Stop contacting me," I'll be the Gs are still recruiting him. The question is how much our coaches want him, which determines how much effort they put into him.
 

Okuyemi is not from Minnesota. I think he has only lived here for 1 year or something. I believe he is from Kansas City or somewhere in that vicinity.
 

Handsome Pete said:
Okuyemi is not from Minnesota. I think he has only lived here for 1 year or something. I believe he is from Kansas City or somewhere in that vicinity.
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You are definitely correct, however I thought he had gotten here while in 8th grade. To each his own this is disappointing because as it stands now we are only going to land 2 of the players in this class that are highly rated of the 5 based on their interest levels and schools we are competing against. I know I know, we are still in the running for Allen and Henderson but many of us on here have a bad "feeling" about them wanting to stay local.

We all know how important it is to keep the in-state guys here when you have little talent to work with in the first place.....In state recruits really take the rivalries with other schools to heart and deeply care about the program. Oh well, I'm still happy with Gjere and Edwards if that is all we end up with.

Do we have any type of read on what the 2011 class is going to look like?
 

Getting the top players from minnesota is important but really its much more important to get players outside of the state to create a winning team, for example look up current MN commit Doral Willis' high school team (Pahokee Fl.) they have 9 div 1 players and 4-5 with major (Florida, Miami, LSU, USC etc..) offers. Essentially this one team in Fl has as many talented players (offers wise/ratings wise) as the entire state of Minnesota. Yes it would suck to lose out on Allen or other top minnesota talent but there is much more talent out there. Henderson is the top player and we should be pulling all stops to get him, but Allen and Okrayummy (sp?) can be replaced with better or egual talent from outside of the state.
 



ridiculous expecatation

there isn't a coach in the country who gets every kid they want from their own state, doesn't happen. If Don Lucia can't get every Minnesota kid he wants with all the built in advantages and history of the hockey program it is ludicrous to expect Tim Brewster to somehow do it. All we can ask it that we recruit Minnesota harder and better than anyone else, there will always be some kids who think the grass is greener or just are determined to get away from home. A kid from Milwaukee or Des Moines can go to Madison or Iowa City and still feel like they are getting away to an extent, not so much with Wayzata to Dinkytown.
 

Oscar Munson said:
there isn't a coach in the country who gets every kid they want from their own state, doesn't happen. If Don Lucia can't get every Minnesota kid he wants with all the built in advantages and history of the hockey program it is ludicrous to expect Tim Brewster to somehow do it. All we can ask it that we recruit Minnesota harder and better than anyone else, there will always be some kids who think the grass is greener or just are determined to get away from home. A kid from Milwaukee or Des Moines can go to Madison or Iowa City and still feel like they are getting away to an extent, not so much with Wayzata to Dinkytown.
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It is not Ludicrous or Ridiculous to expect to attain more than two of the best prospects from our state. :rolleyes:
 

JackiO

It is not ludicrous to expect to get some top players from your state, but it should not be expected or frowned upon if it does not happen. Just looking through some of the state rankings and commitments it looks like major powers such as Ohio State only have 2 commitments from the top 10 players in Ohio, Florida does not have a top 5 committ from florida currently, USC has 1 committ currently in CA from the top 5 etc... Now these could change since its still 3 months away from signing day but its much too early to start complaing about recruiting in Mn, especially since they are filling up the class with more or equal talent.
 

I don't understand why people are coming into this thread saying that I'm complaining. It wasn't I, but Brewster, who has said it was his number one goal to lock down the borders. I just wanted to present a meaningful conversation on the subject since recruiting doesn't seem to get a lot of looks around this board lately. That is all.
 



complaining was the wrong term for me to use, I too enjoy recruiting discussion. When Mason was here we would have to depend upon getting players from MN because he was not out recruiting egual talent but Brewster is and now the loss of a Mn players is not as dreadful!
 

I will take Hageman any day and I disagree about Toby's motor
 

SDGopherFan said:
complaining was the wrong term for me to use, I too enjoy recruiting discussion. When Mason was here we would have to depend upon getting players from MN because he was not out recruiting egual talent but Brewster is and now the loss of a Mn players is not as dreadful!
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Very true. Maybe I came into this years recruiting class with unreasonable expectations due to our new stadium, thinking recruits would be absolutely wowed by it coupled with Brewster's ability to recruit. I'm sure it has helped out a lot, but if a player doesn't wanna stay in state I guess there is nothing you can do about it.
 

As much as we would like for the top players in Minnesota to stay home, you have to remember that they are their own people. Many kids want to get away for college to see what else is out there, to get outside of the Minnesota bubble. That is totally fine. Now, unfortunately, if a kid feels that way, no matter how good Brewster is at recruiting, that kid is going to go somewhere else. We just have to be ready in a year or two when they realize they made the wrong decision :)
 

SDGopherFan said:
Getting the top players from minnesota is important but really its much more important to get players outside of the state to create a winning team, for example look up current MN commit Doral Willis' high school team (Pahokee Fl.) they have 9 div 1 players and 4-5 with major (Florida, Miami, LSU, USC etc..) offers. Essentially this one team in Fl has as many talented players (offers wise/ratings wise) as the entire state of Minnesota. Yes it would suck to lose out on Allen or other top minnesota talent but there is much more talent out there. Henderson is the top player and we should be pulling all stops to get him, but Allen and Okrayummy (sp?) can be replaced with better or egual talent from outside of the state.
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Almost anyone who knows anything about recruiting knows that it is easier to recruit in-state than out of state. Our best chances at recruiting true elite talent is going to come from our ability to convince the guys already here to stay, not going to Florida where we have to compete with every top team in the country.

Yes, a program like Minnesota has to recruit out of state by necessity, but keeping in state kids at home is way more important than you think.

I offer you exhibit a: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/andy_staples/01/20/recruiting/
 

Gopherprof

Recruiting within the borders is important, but MN puts out 5-6 good D1 players a year, maybe 10 get D1 offers and 3-4 actually are highly recruited 4 or 5 *. If we don't get 1 or 2 of these then we essentially have 2 maybe 3 players per year from our state who could be top player son our team. There is simply not enough players in the state of minnesota, you have to go compete with other teams in florida, tx, oh, ca, co, mi, ny ext... USC, Florida, MI, Ohio state all the other teams around the country travel to other states to get players, if we build out program around just players from MN we will coninuosly be beat by the likes of NDSU not to mentioned crushed by big ten teams.
 

SDGopherFan said:
Recruiting within the borders is important, but MN puts out 5-6 good D1 players a year, maybe 10 get D1 offers and 3-4 actually are highly recruited 4 or 5 *. If we don't get 1 or 2 of these then we essentially have 2 maybe 3 players per year from our state who could be top player son our team. There is simply not enough players in the state of minnesota, you have to go compete with other teams in florida, tx, oh, ca, co, mi, ny ext... USC, Florida, MI, Ohio state all the other teams around the country travel to other states to get players, if we build out program around just players from MN we will coninuosly be beat by the likes of NDSU not to mentioned crushed by big ten teams.
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Nobody in the world is saying we shouldn't recruit outside the state. You're creating a strawman.

The point is, all things being equal, your odds of convincing your local players to stay at home are better. The statistics bear that out. Look at a guy like Seantrel. Maybe we don't have much of a chance with him. But we would have 0% chance with him if he lived in Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, etc.

We need to take advantage of the home state advantage more than we have. Even if that just gives us an extra 2-3 top players a year, those are 2-3 top players we could really really use.
 

SDGopherFan said:
Recruiting within the borders is important, but MN puts out 5-6 good D1 players a year, maybe 10 get D1 offers and 3-4 actually are highly recruited 4 or 5 *. If we don't get 1 or 2 of these then we essentially have 2 maybe 3 players per year from our state who could be top player son our team. There is simply not enough players in the state of minnesota, you have to go compete with other teams in florida, tx, oh, ca, co, mi, ny ext... USC, Florida, MI, Ohio state all the other teams around the country travel to other states to get players, if we build out program around just players from MN we will coninuosly be beat by the likes of NDSU not to mentioned crushed by big ten teams.
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Of course you have to go out of the State to get a lot of players. The point that Gopherprof is making that so many people seem to miss on this board is it is much easier to recruit a 4 or 5 star kid in your back yard to stay home then it is to go into Florida and recruit one that has offers from Florida, FSU and Miami.

Are there a ton of good players in Florida and Texas? Sure. But getting the highest rated ones is extremely difficult. Getting one with a Texas offer is basically impossible.

Somehow, the culture has to be created where great players in the area want to play at Minnesota. For whatever reason, that has not happened. To deny it is important is not being realistic in the context of college football today. There are definitely 8 or 10 kids out there now that would be a huge help to the Gophers if they would have stayed home. Those 8-10 kids can be the difference between 6-6 and 10-2.

I don't know what the answer is, but it is crucial to the success of any program. I am not talking about the marginal kids in State with a few offers. Those kids are crucial for an entirely different reason. The highly recruited kids that can go anywhere are the kids you have to keep at home.
 

JackiO said:
To me, he has more talent than that of Hageman, Garin and Kendal Gregory Mcghee from last years class.
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Allow me first to say that you're one of my favorite posters here JackiO, but I completely and totally disagree.

Hageman and Garin have gotten enough hype from the Minny faithful, but KGM (yes I just made that up) is a beast in his own right, and probably my favorite DE of them all. He may end up at TE with Hageman moving to DE though, but that's just a guess. If you haven't already, watch some tape of KGM in high school. Man among Colorado boys.
 

GVBadger said:
Of course you have to go out of the State to get a lot of players. The point that Gopherprof is making that so many people seem to miss on this board is it is much easier to recruit a 4 or 5 star kid in your back yard to stay home then it is to go into Florida and recruit one that has offers from Florida, FSU and Miami.

Are there a ton of good players in Florida and Texas? Sure. But getting the highest rated ones is extremely difficult. Getting one with a Texas offer is basically impossible.

Somehow, the culture has to be created where great players in the area want to play at Minnesota. For whatever reason, that has not happened. To deny it is important is not being realistic in the context of college football today. There are definitely 8 or 10 kids out there now that would be a huge help to the Gophers if they would have stayed home. Those 8-10 kids can be the difference between 6-6 and 10-2.

I don't know what the answer is, but it is crucial to the success of any program. I am not talking about the marginal kids in State with a few offers. Those kids are crucial for an entirely different reason. The highly recruited kids that can go anywhere are the kids you have to keep at home.
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Speaking of which, how the hell did Iowa get Mike Hardy?
 

Maybe your missing my point as well, not all players want to stay in their state, so actually that could be a negative against us and open the door for a player who may want to come to this state. When I went to college I left the state, couldn't wait to get to a place where it was warmer I wouldn't have considered the U OF Mn if they wanted me for a sport and I lived here. Being the home state school had its positives and negatives. Its much more in depth than just saying " we need to lock down the borders" or "we didn't get this kid or that kid to its bad recruiting" Like I mentioned in a previous post top schools like USC, Ohio state, Michigan etc.. have trouble keeping their top players in state.
 

though I belieive in state recruiting is important this recruiting class doesn't have a lot of talent overall. gophers have offered to all the top 5 kids in the state and 2 have committed. get one more to committ and I would say the in-state recruiting is just fine. there was a time when all of these top 5 would have ended up somewhere else and the gophers would have ended up with the majority of the bottom 5 which in this case they haven't even offered based on what I hope is the ability to bring in better players from out-state.

it seems some think there is more talent overall in this state this year than there actually is.
 

Gopherprof said:
Almost anyone who knows anything about recruiting knows that it is easier to recruit in-state than out of state. Our best chances at recruiting true elite talent is going to come from our ability to convince the guys already here to stay, not going to Florida where we have to compete with every top team in the country.

Yes, a program like Minnesota has to recruit out of state by necessity, but keeping in state kids at home is way more important than you think.

I offer you exhibit a: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/andy_staples/01/20/recruiting/
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I was going to try and put my thoughts into words and say something along these lines, but thanks for taking me off the hook :D
 

Gopherprof said:
Speaking of which, how the hell did Iowa get Mike Hardy?
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Not sure. The Badgers did not seem to have much of a chance with him. He is the first one in Wisconsin to leave with a Badgers offer in quite some time. It will be interesting to see how he does at Iowa. I would have preferred he went to Wisconsin.

Badgers also lost a punter to Michigan. Certainly not the end of the world as Nortman is only a soph, but he is leaving nonetheless.
 

SDGopherFan said:
Getting the top players from minnesota is important but really its much more important to get players outside of the state to create a winning team, for example look up current MN commit Doral Willis' high school team (Pahokee Fl.) they have 9 div 1 players and 4-5 with major (Florida, Miami, LSU, USC etc..) offers. Essentially this one team in Fl has as many talented players (offers wise/ratings wise) as the entire state of Minnesota. Yes it would suck to lose out on Allen or other top minnesota talent but there is much more talent out there. Henderson is the top player and we should be pulling all stops to get him, but Allen and Okrayummy (sp?) can be replaced with better or egual talent from outside of the state.
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Get the best from your state and the top selections from the conjoining states and you win the Big Ten.
 

it seems some think there is more talent overall in this state this year than there actually is.
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Yes I agree, when there are only 5-6 players in your entire state that are worth a scholarship you must count on other states much more than say USC who has hundreds in their state worthy or U of FL who also had hundreds. The artcle posted by the previous poster used Florida as an example not really the same when it comes to MN, SD, ND, Wyoming, Montana or even Iowa.
 

wait what!

so locking down the borders means getting all the players from MN, Wisconsin, Iowa, SD, ND and canada. Even then you wouldn't win the big ten I guarantee it. There is very little speed in the upper midwest, of the above mentioned states this year there is not one CB int hose states with a D1 offer, there is 2 RB's with D1 offers 1 of which is being looked at priamrily as a WR and the other just recieved his 1st D1 scholly.
 

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