Why does Wisconsin have way better recruits than us?

Donate To GopherHole
E

eker0016

Importer Exporter
Joined
Nov 20, 2008
Messages
1,873
Reaction score
1,242
Points
113
Is it just me, or does the state of Wisconsin (population 5.65 million) have way better recruits than Minnesota (5.27 million)? I noticed on FBT that 5.7 3 star athlete from Kenosha, WI committed to Iowa (rather them than WI if he won't play for us).

I searched 2011 prospects from WI, for their rankings and committed schools. Here's what I got:

1 4 star
9 3 stars
11 2 stars

Of these players, they have had kids commit to these programs:
WI (6)
IA (1)
MN (1)
NIU (1)
MSU (2)
NW (1)
Indiana (1)
Duke (1)
Harvard (1)

Minnesota has:
7 3 stars
1 2 star

Of these players, we have had kids commit to these programs:
MN (3)
Stanford (1)
WV (1)
VT (1)

I know this is not a perfect scientific study because I haven't done anything more than this year's ranking. A cursory glance at previous years seems to confirm the general trend, although MN seems to have more of the top end 4-5 star athletes (the Michael Floyds and the Seantrels especially). Anyone have any idea why Wisconsin seems to have a significantly deeper pool of prep recruits to draw on?
 

Hockey?

Could it be that MN has more kids devoted to hockey at the college level thereby decreasing how many could be devoted to football?
 

I think it's simply because we don't get the love. Most of wisconsins population is pretty close to Chicago.

This is why I think Minnesota is a walk on gold mine. Way undervalued. I have a feeling the western half of Wiscy is too.
 

TABinMO said:
Could it be that MN has more kids devoted to hockey at the college level thereby decreasing how many could be devoted to football?
Click to expand...

I think that you are probably right that this is atleast a contributing factor. Football just doesn't seem to get the level of support and emphasis here as it does in other states. You can look at states with smaller populations than Minnesota (i.e. Iowa and Nebraska) and they each produce more division 1 football talent than Minnesota.
 

Well, when you take a big drunk Wisconsin guy, and he mates with a live deer, it makes sense that the offspring will be large and athletic.
 



While there are many secondary factors such as hockey, weather, local media support, etc. I promise the number 1 reason is winning. Kids today want to play for a winner, its that simple. Think about it would you rather play for Virginia or Texas, K-State or Alabama.

There is a reason the teams that continue to win big recruit better than those that don't win big. It's also a relationship that goes both ways and feeds back into itself. Win big, recruit better. Recruit better, win big. If the Gopher's or any team starts to win big and often, they will start recruiting better.
 


mnboiler said:
While there are many secondary factors such as hockey, weather, local media support, etc. I promise the number 1 reason is winning. Kids today want to play for a winner, its that simple. Think about it would you rather play for Virginia or Texas, K-State or Alabama.

There is a reason the teams that continue to win big recruit better than those that don't win big. It's also a relationship that goes both ways and feeds back into itself. Win big, recruit better. Recruit better, win big. If the Gopher's or any team starts to win big and often, they will start recruiting better.
Click to expand...


Another two way street: Read properly...Answer topically.
 



First mnboiler read the thread it's about the number of Division 1 high school athletes each state produces. I believe that the MSHSL and their rules has a lot to do with it. Another factor is the poor support for athletics in the Minneapolis and St Paul public school systems.
 

mnboiler said:
While there are many secondary factors such as hockey, weather, local media support, etc. I promise the number 1 reason is winning. Kids today want to play for a winner, its that simple. Think about it would you rather play for Virginia or Texas, K-State or Alabama.

There is a reason the teams that continue to win big recruit better than those that don't win big. It's also a relationship that goes both ways and feeds back into itself. Win big, recruit better. Recruit better, win big. If the Gopher's or any team starts to win big and often, they will start recruiting better.
Click to expand...

Did you read the thread at all?
 

As "football states" go, Minnesota is near the very bottom in the Big Ten. Only Indiana is lower. And, in my opinion, it is quite a bit lower.

The irony: I think it may be a drawback to being the only D-1 program in the state. No rivalry, etc.
 

mnboiler said:
While there are many secondary factors such as hockey, weather, local media support, etc. I promise the number 1 reason is winning. Kids today want to play for a winner, its that simple. Think about it would you rather play for Virginia or Texas, K-State or Alabama.

There is a reason the teams that continue to win big recruit better than those that don't win big. It's also a relationship that goes both ways and feeds back into itself. Win big, recruit better. Recruit better, win big. If the Gopher's or any team starts to win big and often, they will start recruiting better.
Click to expand...

I wasn't bringing up college level, I'm talking about high school level. They have a lot more guys going to better programs than MN does.

I think the other guys have some good ideas -- closer to Chicago, not the same hockey emphasis etc.
 



mnboiler said:
While there are many secondary factors such as hockey, weather, local media support, etc. I promise the number 1 reason is winning. Kids today want to play for a winner, its that simple. Think about it would you rather play for Virginia or Texas, K-State or Alabama.

There is a reason the teams that continue to win big recruit better than those that don't win big. It's also a relationship that goes both ways and feeds back into itself. Win big, recruit better. Recruit better, win big. If the Gopher's or any team starts to win big and often, they will start recruiting better.
Click to expand...

<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/hG2cxVCXw0w?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/hG2cxVCXw0w?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>
 

nsmike said:
First mnboiler read the thread it's about the number of Division 1 high school athletes each state produces. I believe that the MSHSL and their rules has a lot to do with it. Another factor is the poor support for athletics in the Minneapolis and St Paul public school systems.
Click to expand...

Nailed it!
 

I live not far from South High, and I've been there for over 10 years. I don't think I have ever heard people talking about Minneapolis High School football. Unless you drive by the school, you wouldn't even know there was a football game.

I grew up in a small town, and every town would publish a sports calendar, listing when and where the games were for each of their teams. These calendars would be in every store in town.
 

eker0016 said:
Is it just me, or does the state of Wisconsin (population 5.65 million) have way better recruits than Minnesota (5.27 million)? I noticed on FBT that 5.7 3 star athlete from Kenosha, WI committed to Iowa (rather them than WI if he won't play for us).

I searched 2011 prospects from WI, for their rankings and committed schools. Here's what I got:

1 4 star
9 3 stars
11 2 stars

Of these players, they have had kids commit to these programs:
WI (6)
IA (1)
MN (1)
NIU (1)
MSU (2)
NW (1)
Indiana (1)
Duke (1)
Harvard (1)

Minnesota has:
7 3 stars
1 2 star

Of these players, we have had kids commit to these programs:
MN (3)
Stanford (1)
WV (1)
VT (1)

I know this is not a perfect scientific study because I haven't done anything more than this year's ranking. A cursory glance at previous years seems to confirm the general trend, although MN seems to have more of the top end 4-5 star athletes (the Michael Floyds and the Seantrels especially). Anyone have any idea why Wisconsin seems to have a significantly deeper pool of prep recruits to draw on?
Click to expand...

This is easy. I have laid it out a thousand times:

To date Wisconsin has a better football program. As such any recruit Wisconsin offers will get "juice" (higher ranking) because they have received an offer from a top tier football program.
Subsequently any Wisconsin highschool football players will get more stars when Wisconsin offers.

After the gophers take the college football world by storm this season the same thing will apply to the gophers. The result will be higher rankings or more stars for Minnesota highschool football players the gophers offer and sign.

Duh Dah!!!!!:clap:
 

Most college coaches at various levels regard WI high school football more highly than MN, with the exception of 5A in MN (which is superior to WI Div. 1). As a high school coach, I agree. I think Wisconsin produces more football players from schools of medium enrollments than Minnesota. There is a big dropoff once you get outside Twin Cities metro area.

Milwaukee's public school football is also terrible, so I don't think that is the sole answer.
 

It starts at the HS levels. How many recruits have we gotten out of St. Cloud, Duluth, Mankato, Wilmington, Winona, Rochester? If the U could depend on Mayo, JM, Kato W, Kato E, Winona, St Cloud schools & Duluth schools for 1-3 recruits every year it would really help out. West of I-43 and north of Madison there aren't many DI football players in Wisconsin. They have quite a bigger schools that have developed real strong HS football programs and like it or not they have a high population of African Americans in Wiscy.
 

WI mothers of the WI footballers are of the plowhorse variety. Big Dad + Big Mom = Big Boy
 

Sportsfan24 said:
This is easy. I have laid it out a thousand times:

To date Wisconsin has a better football program. As such any recruit Wisconsin offers will get "juice" (higher ranking) because they have received an offer from a top tier football program.
Subsequently any Wisconsin highschool football players will get more stars when Wisconsin offers.

After the gophers take the college football world by storm this season the same thing will apply to the gophers. The result will be higher rankings or more stars for Minnesota highschool football players the gophers offer and sign.

Duh Dah!!!!!:clap:
Click to expand...

I don't think we are talking about stars/rankings here, it is strictly about the total number of division 1 recruits that the state produces. Minnesota high school football produces less than some of the neighboring states.
 

The Milwaukee Public Schools argument is true, but not quite as telling as one might think.

Milwaukee's public school system is much smaller than the MSP and St. Paul public school systems combined.

That said, top talent in Wisconsin goes to Arrowhead, a suburban school that I would compare to EP or Wayzata.
 

GopherGod said:
I don't think we are talking about stars/rankings here, it is strictly about the total number of division 1 recruits that the state produces. Minnesota high school football produces less than some of the neighboring states.
Click to expand...

Based on what?
 


How many DI recruits does Eden Prairie produce compared to Wisconsin's largest FB program?
 

You need to look at more than one class. This year happens to be the worst class in Minnesota in a very long time (Rivals only lists a top 5 for Minnesota this year where normally it is 10 and as many as 15). If you look at 2008-2010 Minnesota had better talent than Wisconsin. We weren't always as deep in numbers but our high end talent (Floyd, McNeal, Henderson, Gjere, etc) has consistently been better and our classes have consistently been much deeper than it is this year. Last year our top 3 players (Henderson, Gjere, Edwards) were all better than the best player in the state of Wisconsin (Trotter) but Wisconsin's class was deeper in terms of the number of DI players. In 2009 Minnesota had the best overall player (McNeal as a Rivals 100, as well as 2 other All American's) and we had 10 players go DI with 9 to BCS schools to while Wisconsin had 9 DI players with 8 to BCS schools. 2008 overwhelmingly favored Minnesota with 7 3* or higher including a 5* and 2 4* (later Gayden received a 4* rating out of Juco making it 3 4*'s) and all of our top 10 went to BCS schools while Wisconsin only had 5 3* or higher with 2 4*'s and by the time you got to #6 in their rankings you were hitting players going to MAC schools.
 

Studwell55 said:
As "football states" go, Minnesota is near the very bottom in the Big Ten. Only Indiana is lower. And, in my opinion, it is quite a bit lower.

The irony: I think it may be a drawback to being the only D-1 program in the state. No rivalry, etc.
Click to expand...

Last year more Big Ten recruits came from Indiana than any other Big Ten state except Ohio. Iowa was last, we were second last.

If you look at total Big Ten wins over the past three years (6), we are in tenth place one win above Indiana.

Our recruiting is most hurt by our inability to win more games. In college football winning teams win the most over the next five years, losing teams lose the most over the next five years.
 

Max Power said:
Another two way street: Read properly...Answer topically.
Click to expand...

My bad I misunderstood the topic. While I did miss the boat on the topic I still the fact the Gopher's haven't been hugely successful in current recruits does play a factor. I think if the Gopher's were more successful you would see a few more high D-1 prospects each year, not many but a few. I think if the Gophers where able to capture the imagination of a generation of you Minnesota's kids you would see a slight up tick in the number of recruits. I am sorry for miss understanding the topic.
 

grunkiejr said:
You need to look at more than one class. This year happens to be the worst class in Minnesota in a very long time (Rivals only lists a top 5 for Minnesota this year where normally it is 10 and as many as 15). If you look at 2008-2010 Minnesota had better talent than Wisconsin. We weren't always as deep in numbers but our high end talent (Floyd, McNeal, Henderson, Gjere, etc) has consistently been better and our classes have consistently been much deeper than it is this year. Last year our top 3 players (Henderson, Gjere, Edwards) were all better than the best player in the state of Wisconsin (Trotter) but Wisconsin's class was deeper in terms of the number of DI players. In 2009 Minnesota had the best overall player (McNeal as a Rivals 100, as well as 2 other All American's) and we had 10 players go DI with 9 to BCS schools to while Wisconsin had 9 DI players with 8 to BCS schools. 2008 overwhelmingly favored Minnesota with 7 3* or higher including a 5* and 2 4* (later Gayden received a 4* rating out of Juco making it 3 4*'s) and all of our top 10 went to BCS schools while Wisconsin only had 5 3* or higher with 2 4*'s and by the time you got to #6 in their rankings you were hitting players going to MAC schools.
Click to expand...

Thank you. Saved me a long post. The talent in Minnesota has been better than the talent in Wisconsin in the very recent past. Some years, there will be more recruits in Wisconsin, some years there will be more in Minnesota.
 

There is just not alot of powerhouse teams in outstate MN. MN does not have alot of 20,000-50,000 type towns where as Wisky does. These size towns have way more production of D I type players.
 

You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom