What's the story on Jujuan Harper #44 from Columbia Heights? Maroon team today

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gopherdudepart2

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Anyone know what his story is comming out of high school. He was listed on the roster as being from North Dakota school of Science. That is the two year school
where a lot of guys not eligible out of high school go. He flashed some ability today showed a little want to. Definate cut back ability and had some nice vision, made a few nice cuts today at the spring game. Played on the Maroon team, hopefully not just a spring game phenom, this kid looks like he can play a little with a little more wheels than the other backs.
Look's like he needs to hit the weight room though, kind of light. The freshman receivers better come ready to play and we need Marcus Jones back, some guy's that can get some
seperation. QB's made a lot of back shoulder throws today that could have been caught if the receivers had a little more foot speed. The only receivers that look like they can get
seperation are Moulton, Green and Crawford Tufts. Really the QB's made a lot of throws today that could have been caught, but we lack some WR's with wheels as the depth chart goes deeper.
Nelson has some ability but he is no where near Big 10 ready and not nearly strong enough to compete at this level yet. He has poise
and some elusiveness to him, can feel pressure but not near enough of an arm yet to be able to be the guy at the Big 10 level. He is like a typical freshman, needs repetitions
and weight room time to be a Big 10 athlete. #99 Rashede Hageman can beat anyone, anytime he want's to with a little better technique, he needs to be more elusive, a little more of a student of the game, they say play with consistent pad level. If he can do that he has the physical tools to over power and just flat out beat his man and be all conference. Now he needs to learn to play football with a little better mental knowledge, guy is a freak athlete when he wants to be. He could be a guy people can rally around on defense. I really like Jame Manual and Lamonte Edwards at linebacker, these guy's were born into that breed of being a linebacker, but they are baby deers still, they need Miller to mold them into the special talents that they can become.

I really hope #3 Shabazz can keep his grades together, and stay in school long enough to at least be NFL draft eligible. That kids has some seriouse football talent written all over him, Sunday level
talent if he can keep his nose clean and go to class and keep school in order. I'm not saying he will not keep it together, just saying, please, please keep your stuff together and stay on the football field.
He has next level ability to play defensive back, that kid can really cover some ground and can be an elite level talent. They may want to try him on kick offs, if he has any kind of hands he is explosive type that has another gear.
Does Alipate punt or kick, he has a strong arm, does he have a strong leg? Alipate has he ever tried it, usually a rocket arm can equal rocket leg. We need a kicker that can boom some kick offs or a punter that can boom the ball in the air a long time. You guy's that talk about the offensive line all of the time, the Gophers are finally building some depth and some competition in the offensive line. We will see the fruits of coach Klein and the staff recruiting in the offensive line the comming year. No more dough boy's, weak upper body guys and big gutts, and guy's that cannot move there dang feet. Gophers finally have some O-lineman that can move and have a touch of mean streak to them. I like Campion a lot, guy is bull strong when he wants to be he could be dominate. That and in the comming years there going to be playing physically ready mature guy's instead of tossing the young guys to the wolves. Foster Busch even with the penalty I can see why Kill is so high on him, he will be a leader when he is Junior and Senior. I know why Kill preaches concrete and not sand, may have not looked much to the naked eye like by the score today 3-0 but, the Gophers already are a much more physical and agressive football team, these guy's can bang a little, they will not just lay down, there going to give people little more of a fight for it in the years to come.
 

That is a lot better than the summaries that I remember from last years spring scrimmage.
 

Some good info, thanks for the recap. It sounds like some positives for sure. Im in California, was not able to make the practice of course ha

I must say though, im truly looking forward to the growth of this program. For the posts that I have seen stating "we need to get wins this year and next", I disagree much with this line of thought. This year and next are about improvement on the individual level, about learning how to compete, and learning Coach Kills system. Next year most likely, we will be starting a fresh face at the quarterback, so the following year is when I expect to see more actual team growth (lets be honest, solid quarterback alone is by all accounts, is maybe the most important factor for a team truly good team, and the O-Line should be quite solid). Of course we all want to see some wins now, but I hope you can all see that wins are not what this program needs right now, its getting the right bodies in here, developing those bodies, and having Coach Kills system down for the players. Takes time, 4th year is when I stop just just enjoying the process, and start being a bit more critical.
 

I noticed Shabazz was back to return the opening "kick off", so maybe the staff is on the same wavelength as you on using him as a returner.
 

Shabazz on the opening kick off

Good I must have missed that one on the opening kick off, was paying more attention to my food and soda then the first kick off to start. I really liked all of the defensive backs today, not just Shabazz and Baltazhar, even guy's like Carter and Stoudimire played coverage with a lot of sticking there man. Stoudimire got fooled on the offsides, but he will clean it up, this was probably kind of an emotional day for him with the Tinsley Tribute. Believe that Shabazz flashed, and that is not just coach or media speak jumble, dude is very fast and I posted that well before Miller mentioned it in the paper. He was one we were lucky to get in recruiting. The O-line is already light years ahead of the last couple years, physically they should not get as worn down or get whipped as much, it is going to be there time to put it on the other side.

We finally have some more guys with some size that can run in the defensive backfield, not just one guy back there bailing people out, but a lot of physical fast guy's that can cover people that should be pretty apparent already. Guy's are staying in the correct gaps and not trying to make other people's plays to that speaks well to the coaching.

To those that are demoralized by the score, realize this, the play calling was vanilla at best, with the exception of the few called QB draws. The QB's threw a lot of catchable balls that with the wind and rain, maybe guy's were less focused then they would be. That and Walk on types were open a lot and saw a lot of throws that did not make catches. Moulton could have caught a few more also but I expect him to when it matters.
They did a lot work with, what you would consider back ups the 4th and 5th team players on the field with the squad split up played a lot of snaps. There were a lot of young guy's getting chances and opportunities that you will not see of as much in the fall likely as a camp reward from the coaching staff. Experimenting with different guy's in the set's was very apparent today.
#5 M Gray he throw's one hell of a nice football when his mind is with it and the dude is focused. If he studies his craft, really focuses in on film study and working his secondary repitions this summer and fall he can be a QB with a shot down the line. He needs to flat out just throw more. He has to gain a little more trust in his line, I believe they will keep him more clean beyond his first read, but if he can do that, hang in there, progress to his secondary reads, he can be as good a passer as he is a runner. His throwing has improved a heck of a lot and he only played 15-20 snaps today in a glorified practice.
The defense played with a little more emotion and energy than most of the O. It seems like the talent was more evenly distributed between the defensive units and offense then in years past, but that overall the defense might have had a slight edge in the overall talent on both teams. You could really tell the majority of the Gold unit offense lacked experience or reps and the QB's had neither the timing or arm strength to be ready.
The offensive units especially the wide receivers were pretty evenly split up between the teams so a lot of guy's that would not normally play were running routes and
getting balls thrown to them that would not. There were a lot of guy's playing together in units today that normally would not. WR is still one area where there is not a lot of team depth so to speak at this point. I'm not saying Big 10 champs or predicting wins, but
one thing I can already tell, we are already a much more physically mature football team. These guy's are in much better shape physically and mentally after 1 full season, and 1 spring camp, in this program then they were the last 3 years. Stabillity and real learning is starting to happen. The light is starting to turn on for these guy's, it is going to be fun to watch when they gain some confidence and start to realize how much better they really can be. The top two QB's are light years ahead of the Freshman as they should be, but those two young guy's have talent, this is how you start to build a real program, depth and guy's that are older and ready to play. It's going to be a fun ride once the fuse is lit, as we shake off the neglect, and inexperience and coaching turnover of the previous 4 years, things will start to progress to the point where there is finally going to be a year date behind that damn comma. We will be thanking Joel Maturi for hiring Kill and staff, when it is all said and done, this is one hire he might have finally got right. This coach and staff, is the stable group we have needed since the chaos of the Mason termination.
 



Gopherdude I was there and think your assessment is spot on. The most impressive thing for me was the DBs playing tight coverage without blown assignments. Think of ll the games the Gophers were ahead and opposing WRs seem to run uncovered resulting in heartbreaking losses. Hopefully those days are gone. Harper was the "who is this guy" moment for me. Has some definite wiggle and could be a good change of pace guy. Is he on scholarship?
 


Stoudamire is no longer a twig. He's thick and has obviously worked hard for the last year. He will be a physical presence this year!!
 



Thanks for the fine summaries; Gray, Shortel, Green and Harper all were impressive on O.
 

OddStack said:
Stoudamire is no longer a twig. He's thick and has obviously worked hard for the last year. He will be a physical presence this year!!
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He will be playing on Sundays.
 

Did anyone else hear that Stoudamire is changing the pronunciation of his name this year? Or maybe more accurately, asking that people pronounce his name correctly. At least that is what I heard early on during the B10 channel coverage of the spring game.

I guess is it pronounced STEW-da-mire.
 

Unregistered User said:
Did anyone else hear that Stoudamire is changing the pronunciation of his name this year? Or maybe more accurately, asking that people pronounce his name correctly. At least that is what I heard early on during the B10 channel coverage of the spring game.

I guess is it pronounced STEW-da-mire.
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You are correct. The announcers talked about it during the spring game. First part should be Stoooood. They got it off his own voice recording. Sounds like its always been wrong but he never corrected anybody.
 



It's actually stewed-er-mire, since his name is spelled Stoudermire, not Stoudamire. This is only his 5th year here, so I shouldn't have expected people to be able to spell his name properly by now.:D
 

Harper is 200 pounds if he has eaten 20 Five dollar footlongs

Gophfan22 said:
Here is some of Jojuan's highlights from high school...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-Exops2W5o&feature=related

He graduated on 2011...It looks like he was the one bright spot on a pretty bad team. I believe they were 2-8 his senior year
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look's like he was quailified out of school. His video has exaggerated size stats as all kids comming out of school have these day's.
Not a scat back, but not quite big enough to be a power back in Big10. He could use a red-shirt year in Kleins program and then they might really have something, kid has ability. Coming from Columbia Heights no wonder he wasn't noticed or on anyone's board. That High School is a transitional one, lot's of kids moving in and out all of the time, hard to build a program in that type of housing situation. Harper look's like he has the ability to shake a tackle or make guy's miss which could help the Gophers down the line.
 

He looked solid WITH the exception of one fumble for sure, and I think he fumbled another time. He is very small and I'd be surprised if we hear much from him this year.
 

dpodoll68 said:
It's actually stewed-er-mire, since his name is spelled Stoudermire, not Stoudamire. This is only his 5th year here, so I shouldn't have expected people to be able to spell his name properly by now.:D
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The official pronunciation in the 2012 media guide is stoo-dah-mire, the r is not pronounced.
 

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