What letter grade would you give the 2011 Gopher recruiting class?

What letter grade would you give the 2011 Gopher recruiting class?

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What letter grade would you give the 2011 Gopher recruiting class?
 

I had to give the class a D. I wish we could grade on a curve and take into account all the issues and changes...but they don't matter come game time. Its all about the wins and losses.

This class will be in the bottom quarter of the big ten, last in our division and outside the top 50 in the country...can't be better than a D.

I hope we find some diamonds here this pile of coal and we do better next year...
 

I gave it a C simply because I don't know a damned thing. IOW, I think that maybe I don't know.
 

I gave it a C. Frankly we don't know what these guys will become and we don't know whether this coaching regime can do here (although there is positive history on their side at previous stops). This is much like a Mason type class which is fine with me. Mase was able to develop talent for his system and be respectable. The last coach was able to dabble in higher end talent and do nothing with it. This class was a transition class which is always hard, and it was meant to fill numerous holes in the roster because of high attrition. So while I don't expect the following classes to look much different, I must admit that it is an unknown. Can Kill turn these kids into winners? Anything is possible and he'll get his chance.
 

I said "C" because Olson is going to be a stud but the rest of these kids are roleplayers.

I think Olson is the only one that I think has any potential to be All-Big Ten.

The rest will be backups and average starters. Not a bad class for depth purposes and he might find a diamond or two, but lacks big talent.
 


GopherFB said:
I said "C" because Olson is going to be a stud but the rest of these kids are roleplayers.

I think Olson is the only one that I think has any potential to be All-Big Ten.

The rest will be backups and average starters. Not a bad class for depth purposes and he might find a diamond or two, but lacks big talent.
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I get a kick out of comments like this. Seriously you think this class will produce 1 starter? I gave it a C basically on the 1 1/2 months he was able to assemble this class.
 

Couldn't agree less with the previous posters! I think Kill has found some excellent talent in this year's class. I gave it a solid "B".
 

GopherinPhilly said:
I had to give the class a D. I wish we could grade on a curve and take into account all the issues and changes...but they don't matter come game time. Its all about the wins and losses.

This class will be in the bottom quarter of the big ten, last in our division and outside the top 50 in the country...can't be better than a D.

I hope we find some diamonds here this pile of coal and we do better next year...
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Ranked 49th on rivals.
 

I think you HAVE to take account of circumstances when grading this class. You can't hold it to the same standard as a full class with a full year of recruitment. I give it a C, probably lean toward C-. It just lacks much pop, but that's not surprising to me really. That said, there's a lot of raw potential in this class, guys who with the right training actually could show out and become some very good players. It's just disappointing to have us whiff at the end on guys like Carter, Estime, and Clark. Just put a little bit of a bad taste near the end of the recruiting season.
 



Since the average college grade these days is a "B" (for "C" and "D" level work), I gave the class a grade of B. We're not going to win a Big Ten championship with this level of skill and talent. But it does provide valuable depth, dove-tails pretty well with last year's class, and sets the table for an excellent class in 2012.
 

btowngopher said:
Ranked 49th on rivals.
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Ranked 9th in B1G and 46 out of 66 BCS schools. What are those other 20 schools saying right now? Probably a lot of the same here. "New Coach and need to win some games to get better recruits."
 

I was shuffling back and forth between B and C, and I ended up deciding on B. I think my main reason is because I just don't see nearly as much attrition out of this class. The Brew recruits have to be guys that loved the U because they stuck with the U through some pretty ugly moments and the new guys are guys that Kill has recruited. I point that out because Kill seems to have said that he puts a premium on wanting to be here and academics, if that isn't just lip service, we should start seeing better and better player retention.

So if this class, which seems "ok" talent wise can grow and avoid the kind of attrition of the last classes then it will be a pretty decent class.
 

I see Wisconsin is hovering around 40th as usual. So I think anytime we can land classes around the 40 mark we'll have a good shot if the coaching staff is strong. From 2002 through 2007 we had just one top 50 class. So this class is already an upgrade over a typical Mason class, on paper anyways.
 




MaxyJR1 said:
Ranked 9th in B1G and 46 out of 66 BCS schools. What are those other 20 schools saying right now? Probably a lot of the same here. "New Coach and need to win some games to get better recruits."
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I think sometimes people get a little caught up into the whole ranking within the Big 10 thing. Is their really a gigantic difference between Iowa's 2.96 avg star ranking and MN's 2.82 avg star ranking?

For instance, when looking at the avg star ranking (when they are that close), the U dropped from 2.85 to 2.82 by signing Cockran. Do you really think our class got worse by signing Cockran?

I think for the most part, it's just about being relatively where you want to be as far as rankings are concerned. I don't think there is a huge difference between a lot of these Big 10 classes.
 

Bisker82 said:
Couldn't agree less with the previous posters! I think Kill has found some excellent talent in this year's class. I gave it a solid "B".
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I am completely on board with you. Taking into account the short amount of time that Kill had to recruit, I think this a very solid recruiting class. To say that none of the players outside of Olson have any big time talent is ludicrious. How can anyone say that without them having played a down in college fb. Based on Kill's track record, I think he is going to develop this class into a great squad that will surprise a lot of holers. I would love to pull this thread out in three years when these guys have shown marked improvement.
 

My vote was a C. There are some interesting recruits in this group, although I'm extremely disappointed at the results during the last week. Most of the ingriguing recruits said no to MN and losing Estime at the last minute hurts. I balance that with the fact that this is Kill's first year and he had a late start recruiting.
 

I am constantly amazed at the willingness of our fans to accept and even reward mediocrity. As I have said, Kill had some serious disadvantages and I expect and look forward to him doing much better with recruiting next year and beyond.

This class is typical of MN recruiting and is bottom of Big Ten and BCS. To grade this class a B is a joke...C is a gift, IMO. I am certain Kill isn't giving himself and his staff a B. He is saying what i am saying...no excuses, got to do better...time to go to work with what we have but need better to compete within our division and conference.

A "B"??? LOL.
 

C for me.

Its not a bad class throwiing in the coaching change and all. That being said its one of those classes that is going to need time to develope and for a coach to "coach up". If that happens there are some solid athletes in this group. Maybe its not as good as we had hoped 12 months ago but it is an ok class now it much develope. If we can get a Setterstrom and an Eslinger out of it we will all be happy. Get a few Hayo Carpenters out of it we will be pretty upset.
 



I gave it a C. This class doesn't appear to have any top end talent (though I may be proven wrong 2-3 years from now) outside of Olson, but it is a deep foundational sort of class with 17 3 stars.
 

GopherinPhilly said:
I am constantly amazed at the willingness of our fans to accept and even reward mediocrity. As I have said, Kill had some serious disadvantages and I expect and look forward to him doing much better with recruiting next year and beyond.

This class is typical of MN recruiting and is bottom of Big Ten and BCS. To grade this class a B is a joke...C is a gift, IMO. I am certain Kill isn't giving himself and his staff a B. He is saying what i am saying...no excuses, got to do better...time to go to work with what we have but need better to compete within our division and conference.

A "B"??? LOL.
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Any grade assigned at this point is based on speculation, prediction and reputation, etc. (OK, I realize that is what recruiting is). Because these predictions are wildy inaccurate I'll grade this class as an "I." None of these guys have had a chance to play one down of D1 football. Like many coaches have said, they won't know what they have until the fall at he earliest, and it may take a couple of years to know for sure. We have who we have. Go Gophers!
 

dpodoll68 said:
Yeah, typical of Brewster recruiting, which was much, much better than Mason.



By whom??? You?
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Where exactly would you rate our class than? Compared with the rest of the big ten, especially in our division, we are way way behind in terms of talent taken in this year.
 

GopherinPhilly said:
I am constantly amazed at the willingness of our fans to accept and even reward mediocrity. To grade this class a B is a joke...C is a gift, IMO. I am certain Kill isn't giving himself and his staff a B. He is saying what i am saying...no excuses, got to do better...time to go to work with what we have but need better to compete within our division and conference.

A "B"??? LOL.
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So who is accepting mediocrity? I don't consider the talent this class has to be mediocre.

And you've talked to Coach Kill and that is what he said? I doubt it, but what a great concept for future recruiting; "Hey all you new guys, you suck & I would grade you all at a D, but thanks for signing". Brillant!
 

I gave it a B. Solid foundation class. We'll need to beef up the skilled positions going forward, but it appears Kill wants to work the offensive side of the trench very hard coming out of the gate.
 

I(ncomplete).

I'm sure people were really fired up about finishing classes with guys like Maroney and Barber.

As my dad says, "we'll see". Check back in 2-3 years.
 


Grading on a curve, kinda

I gave this class a C. Basically because Kill hit the average for the Mason years, more or less. Frankly, given how inexact all these BS rankings are, I question whether there's any significant difference between a class ranked 40th vs. 60th. Yeah, the top 10 classes rock, and you don't want to be in the bottom 20, but in between, machts nichts. If there was a way to assign a p value to this stuff in minitab, you'd be looking south at 0.05.

Also, Kill gets the benefit of the doubt because he inherited a mess and got here late to clean it up. Horton and the rest of the staff did a great job holding onto most of the commits after Brewster got S-canned, or it would have been worse.

So, that ranks a C. I'll say this, though. If Kill brings in this level of class next year, I'd be inclined to give it a D. And in 2013, F.
 

Come on Guys

We are 49th on Rivals. Our average rating is a few notches higher than that..higher 40's.
Iowa is at #29 with three more guys signed than us. Their average rating is 2.96 versus ours which was 2.85 before we ADDED a player and dropped to 2.82.

Look at the top 20 teams....we are not beating them anytime soon. TCU is number 26 with the success they had this season.

How can anyone say this is not an excellent year? When have we added preferred walkins to this extent? We have the 6 guys who sat out last year due to injury or transfer. We red shirted almost the whole class last year. I realize that has nothing to do with this recruiting class but I certainly get excited adding all this together. Then beating Iowa and not losing very much from that victory....gosh you gotta be excited for next year!

Would I like Estime to be in this group? Yup. Are there others? Sure but come on...this is a great job given the circumstances. This the baseline now, however. Coach Kill needs to do better next year. And I'm sure there will be some additions to straggle in this year as well.
I really like the job these guys did!
 

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