What grade would you give the Gophers Class of 2018 Recruiting Class?

What grade would you give the Gophers Class of 2018 Recruiting Class?

  • A

    Votes: 104 59.1%

  • B

    Votes: 65 36.9%

  • C

    Votes: 6 3.4%

  • D

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • F

    Votes: 1 0.6%
  • Total voters
    176
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No right or wrong answers here but I feel grading on a contextual curve is necessary. Coming off a below average season he held on to a lot of really impressive players. Similarly, I’d grade a West championship or Big Ten championship an A season even if we don’t make the playoff. Overachieving is always admirable whether it’s Kill/Claeys on the field or Fleck on the recruiting trail. This was an impressive haul.
 

It is a great class for Minnesota Football. Much excitement and over-ranking of it ITT is because of the strong finish and a morbid expectation we would lose people like Bateman on a NSD flip. It didn't happen. It may end up being the best of the West when all is said and done in February so it is a easy B for me. Fleck will do better next year and ensuing years as well. It is the beginning and we will have A classes in the future.

The Beast will slowly awaken. It is starting to move around a bit now.
 

I gave this recruiting class an A. I am comparing this to previous Gopher classes and compared to what we've done in the past, this class is an A.
 

In life the starting line is not the same for everybody. We are not a perennial Top 25 football recruiting program. We annually have very few D1 candidates in our home state to recruit. By some metrics it is our best class ever.
The way the official visits were all set up for 25 guys on the same weekend was brilliant!!! The execution was flawless! The bonding of the families priceless. The organization and precision to receive all NLI's seamlessly as early as possible to demonstrate commitment and unity was impressive. The organization and planning allows coaches to spend Christmas with their families. The months of January and February now can be focused with all our energy and manpower on recruiting 2019's. How could you conclude anything but an A for Minnesota football recruiting?
Next year needs to better. The starting line has now moved up.
 


Anyone who rates the class an "A" just wants PJ to fail.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 


I think the most important question of the day, is what grade would Jim Carter give the Gophers 2018 recruiting class?

He has been silent the last couple of weeks. Would like to hear his thoughts on one of highest ranked recruiting classes in school history.
 

If you take a second to ignore the fantasy part of it (recruit rankings), there are actual, tangible things that can be discussed.

Being able to get high school football players who grew up and played in Georgia and Florida, and had bona fide offers from not just their home state SEC school, but other SEC schools as well, and convincing them to sign with frozen Minnesota. Being able to do that is an actual, tangible thing. And for that, I highly congratulate Fleck. He clearly has a gift on how to convince an 18 year old young man's mind of something.


Anyone else want to discuss actual, tangible things, of that nature?
 



bottlebass said:
Not what I said at all. I actually expected him to do worse (as in I thought at least a few of these recruits wouldn't sign today), I'm definitely impressed and pleased. That doesn't make it an A. If you think this is an A class you are settling for mediocrity, plain and simple. I expect him to improve next year and even the year after. Once he has a class that likely can't be improved upon, that will be the A class.
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All depends on context. For me, it's in comparison to recent past Gopher classes at this point, and graded him on a curve relative to those classes.
 

A for sure. Impressed that we held on to a few who had other late suitors while grabbing a few impressive guys ourselves late in the process.

But now the bar has been raised. Next year a class like this might get Fleck a B. We have Carroll in our home state, we're in on Bachmeier ... we have to keep working our way up the food chain.
 

I debated B+/A- but wound up going with B+ (B in the poll). I understand the argument for an A, as we addressed our biggest needs, and signed a bunch of talent. The only reason I couldn't give an A was because we were still 6th in the conference. IMO, you have to at least be top 3-4 in conference to get an A. Can't pass out 6+ A rankings in a single conference. Still a great class, and a huge step in the right direction!
 

jonnyganas said:
"Comparisons will rob you of your joy" ~ PJ Fleck, quoting Theodore Roosevelt
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“You miss all the shots you don’t take.”
-Wayne Gretzky
-Michael Scott
-bigtenchamps1899
 



U of M grade policy


A 4.000 - Represents achievement that is outstanding relative to the level necessary to meet course requirements
A- 3.667
B+ 3.333
B 3.000 - Represents achievement that is significantly above the level necessary to meet course requirements
B- 2.667
C+ 2.333
C 2.000 - Represents achievement that meets the course requirements in every respect
C- 1.667
D+ 1.333
D 1.000 - Represents achievement that is worthy of credit even though it fails to meet fully the course requirements
S Represents achievement that is satisfactory, which is equivalent to a C- or better.
 

I gave PJ and his staff an A. I am extremely impressed with his signing everyone that he wanted. Go Gophers!
 


I went with an A, though would go A- if that was an option. I have a couple concerns with the class starting with PJ failing to land a highly regarded high school QB in this class. We badly need Hank/someone that's a clear 4 star type kid in 2019. The second is that I am a bit skeptical of the IMG kids on the Oline. I have no experience/expertise/knowledge of Oline play so my opinion here means little, but both Dulap and Faalele are listed at weights that are above any of the very successful NFL lineman. Somewhere around 340lbs seems to be about the highest end of successful NFL lineman and both these guys are well above that as high schoolers. In Faalele's case he'd also be tied for the tallest lineman in the NFL...so can he bend and move?

In general though, I am very happy with this class. One point that I don't think has been made yet is that P.J. brought in the best class (currently) in the West in a year where there wasn't great talent in Minnesota. For example, Iowa landed 3 instate commitments whose 247 ratings were above their class average rating and Wisconsin had 2 instate commitments whose 247 ratings were above their class average rating. Minnesota? All the instate kids were ranked below their average class rating (Spann-Ford just barely so). It's pretty impressive to see where the Gophers ended up considering the unfavorable instate recruiting this year compared to their neighbors.
 

bottlebass said:
Not what I said at all. I actually expected him to do worse (as in I thought at least a few of these recruits wouldn't sign today), I'm definitely impressed and pleased. That doesn't make it an A. If you think this is an A class you are settling for mediocrity, plain and simple. I expect him to improve next year and even the year after. Once he has a class that likely can't be improved upon, that will be the A class.
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If you're in school and you take three tests in a class. On the first test, you score a 96. On the second, you score a 98. On the third, a 100. You got an A on all three tests, yet still improved on each of the new tests.
 

In calculus a 70/100 gets an A on the curve. In Econ you need a 94/100. This year we were grading on calculus given our starting point. By year 3 we’ll be grading on Econ.
 

joshvanklomp said:
If you're in school and you take three tests in a class. On the first test, you score a 96. On the second, you score a 98. On the third, a 100. You got an A on all three tests, yet still improved on each of the new tests.
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That improvement is minimal in your test scenario. That would be equivalent the next two PJ recruiting classes to be ranked 29 then 28 in December the next two years. Don't think that is the type of improvement that anybody would expect or be happy with.
 

GFBfan said:
That improvement is minimal in your test scenario. That would be equivalent the next two PJ recruiting classes to be ranked 29 then 28 in December the next two years. Don't think that is the type of improvement that anybody would expect or be happy with.
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If we had three top 30 classes in a row that would be a significant upgrade in recruiting.

Sent from my LG-H820 using Tapatalk
 

bigtenchamps1899 said:
U of M grade policy


A 4.000 - Represents achievement that is outstanding relative to the level necessary to meet course requirements
A- 3.667
B+ 3.333
B 3.000 - Represents achievement that is significantly above the level necessary to meet course requirements
B- 2.667
C+ 2.333
C 2.000 - Represents achievement that meets the course requirements in every respect
C- 1.667
D+ 1.333
D 1.000 - Represents achievement that is worthy of credit even though it fails to meet fully the course requirements
S Represents achievement that is satisfactory, which is equivalent to a C- or better.
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Ha. That's funny.

Most students do work roughly on the level of "C", according to that rubric. But every students expects an "A".

The U, or any other school, really has little to gain by being strict with grades. As long as you weed out the kids who legit shouldn't be there ... in the end undergrad degrees are just a shell game of making kids jump through hoops to provide a barrier of entry to job applications. The vast majority of stuff they actually need to learn to do the job will be taught on the job.
 

Gave it a B would add a + if that was an option. An A indicates the best you can do. Fleck will have better classes than this in the future so I gave him room to get to an A, which is pretty arbitrary at this point.

In theory I don't think we have ever even had a B class, this one kinda feels like an A because it's so much better than we have ever had, but it's not quite there yet.

The staff did a nice job in fulfilling Fleck's promise of more talent to the roster.
 

Personally, I feel that grading a recruiting class at this point is a dicey proposition. Any grade is based on the perception of quality or potential.

here's what I know: in 3 or 4 years, when people look back at this class of recruits: some will perform as expected. some will perform under expectations, and some will perform over expectations. A few players will have injury issues. a few players likely will not be on the team in 3 or 4 years for various reasons. There will be multiple threads on this board declaring certain players a "bust."

Now, which players fall into each of those categories - I have no clue. It's like those chocolate samplers - you really don't know what you're getting until you bite into it. Sometimes you are pleasantly surprised, and sometimes you go "yuk." In the case of the recruits, you really don't know what you're getting until you see them on the field, in uniform, playing against another team.

the real test of a class is this: if you grade this class an "A" today - and you come back in 3 or 4 years, and you still grade the class an "A," that is a good recruiting class. if you grade the class a "B" today, and in 3 or 4 years, you give the same class an "A," that's a good class.
 


short ornery norwegian said:
Personally, I feel that grading a recruiting class at this point is a dicey proposition. Any grade is based on the perception of quality or potential.

here's what I know: in 3 or 4 years, when people look back at this class of recruits: some will perform as expected. some will perform under expectations, and some will perform over expectations. A few players will have injury issues. a few players likely will not be on the team in 3 or 4 years for various reasons. There will be multiple threads on this board declaring certain players a "bust."

Now, which players fall into each of those categories - I have no clue. It's like those chocolate samplers - you really don't know what you're getting until you bite into it. Sometimes you are pleasantly surprised, and sometimes you go "yuk." In the case of the recruits, you really don't know what you're getting until you see them on the field, in uniform, playing against another team.

the real test of a class is this: if you grade this class an "A" today - and you come back in 3 or 4 years, and you still grade the class an "A," that is a good recruiting class. if you grade the class a "B" today, and in 3 or 4 years, you give the same class an "A," that's a good class.
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Run SON, run!
 

Liiiife is LIIIIIKE uh box uh choc-o-lates ...
 

MnplsGopher said:
Exactly correct
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Ok. Some don't put any stock in recruiting rankings and would rather wait to see how it pans out. Others see it as a game within the game and love to follow it. Nobody is wrong here.

Sent from my LG-H820 using Tapatalk
 

MNVCGUY said:
Because it is simply not realistic in the current landscape to expect Minnesota to consistently beat out the helmet schools for top recruits. We don't have a comparable local talent base to those schools and we also don't have the reputation they do. Over time that may change but it is foolish to think we can recruit on the same level as OSU, PSU, Michign, Alabama....., holding any Gopher coach to that standard would be completely unfair to him.
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I agree with what you have said for the most part. What is interesting is that Ohio State had the #1 class with 21 croots but only 4 from Ohio. Bama has only 2 from Alabama and players from 13 different states! So even the big boys are not necessarily recruiting their own back yard (which exactly might illustrate your point)
 

#2Gopher said:
This...who knows how the class will pan out. This could be a number one ranked team in College Football in 4-5 years from now. I'm just happy with the class we got and commend the staff and players on this as the players also play a major role in recruiting players.
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Yep!

This class appears to be a good start for Fleck. But, to compete with the big boys, we need to do better each year.

Compared to past classes, this class looks like an A. Compared to the top programs, I give it a C+/B-
 

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