Dr. Miller on other sight mentioned Moneyball analogy, can that apply here?

We know on an intuitive level that we will never be able to recruit the types of athletes that Wisconsin, Michigan, tOSU, Iowa and Nebraska can
the 4 and 5 star types, Mason said it, Brewster thought he could do it and Kill has said it is hard to recruit that type of athlete here. Can we recruit enough
guy's that can compete with them? Northwestern seems to be able to get players at a very difficult institution to get players in. I don't think you can build a statistics based system but you can identify talent that can win here. We have trouble keeping academic at risk students in school that can make progress to remain eligible, this also makes it difficult.

I heard Jerry Kill point to the fact that he recruited Marcus Jones today and that he needs more football players of his type that he can bring them in and then have the time to mature them to he point where they are ready to compete in the Big10. I understand change is difficult and culture change is even more difficult. His comments make me understand that he has a plan, but will he have enough success to be able to see that plan to fruition? Everyone knows that his health issues are going to hurt him in recruiting and might hurt the ability for Minnesota to attract players.

Is it possible that a coaching staff can design a recruiting system that has the potential to recruit traits of "football players" with things like "want to" "heart" effort
and a combination of talent and just enough ego or having a chip on there shoulder that could help elevate a downtrodden program like Minnesota? This seems to be the method that Wisconsin used, build the Walk-on program, take your lumps, start winning games, build sustained success. Can we mine
these competitors backyards to find players that have been overlooked or undervalued in talent locally or even find the most out of our own? This seems like our best opportunity to achieve some competitive balance, find talent in our neighbors backyards and locally that are undervalued or overlooked.

I know Michigan and Ohio have a lot of high school talent and Illinois has a lot of talent available to them. Do places like Iowa and Wisconsin, even Nebraska really have that much more talent in there high school ranks then Minnesota, I don't feel that and not from what I have watched. We constantly hear about atmosphere and not being a college town, how do you build that when you cannot get Wins on the football field. IF a coach ever does turn this turd he will have statues and be forever remembered. If we could turn back the clock we all would. This place had a college atmosphere when this place had winning but all of our success is in black and white pictures. We have great facilities, a nice place to play and we have at least that, god do we need to get lucky on a few more players, don't know how you do it but we need a few overachievers.

I disagree with your first sentence so all the rest doesnt make any difference.

I have been told I should believe that we cannot recruit those types of athletes, more so then it is intuitive or I believe that it is intrinsic. How do we sell hope?

i disagree that minnesota cannot recruit the same types of athletic players that we see from time to time at becky or iowa. we absolutely can, and will, as long as we start to build a solid foundation over time. it will take time and patience to a system and a recruiting philosophy. with that time and patience consistent wins, and even big time upsets wins, will evetually come and big time athletes will follow.

minnesota can beat becky badger and iowa at their own game over time. it is going to take time, patience, some pain and some frustration. but we have to stick with it and with a coaching system for the long haul. something the U of M has not done for a while. even mason was only here for 9 years and had more than a couple offensive and defensive coordinators.

but it has happened before at minnesota and it can happen once again with a true commitment to the program and a system. there is a reason minnesota has 6 national championships in football and becky badger and iowa both have zero.

Contrary to a defeatist attitude, I think many Gopher fans continue to follow the team because we feel deep down inside that this program is a sleeping Giant. I know I still believe it.

i stopped reading after you said we can't recruit with iowa and wisconsin.

yeah, your first sentence is patently incorrect. iowa and wisconsin don't have elite recruiting classes and have built their foundations upon years of coaching players up. you're way off base - we can recruit to the level.

The key to winning football games is being good at something and building on it.

Northwestern was good at dink and dunk.
Purdue was good at airing it out.
Wisconsin was good at running the ball.
Iowa was good at stopping the run and having a balanced attack.
Michigan state played great defense and shortened games.


When you aren't a power you have to find your niche.
Mason found his, unfortunately his niche was running the ball and playing no defense, Wisconsin was better at masons niche than mason was.
Brewsters was gonna be the spread, but he didn't beleive in it...so he switched. Then he switched to Horton in more of a spread/pro hybrid. He never found a niche.


Kill has gotta find his niche. Unfortunately none of the players on this team match his niche. He likes a QB with a little bit of mobility and a good dropback ability. He has a statue with mediocre dropback ability and a supermobile QB with little dropback ability. He likes a power back and a speed back, he has neither. Ect.

I understand he doesn't have his people in place, I would like to see him take advantage of the talent he does have a little better.

What you suggest is anti-Moneyball. The Moneyball idea was about using an already established body of work to rate players that was being ignored by traditional scouts (I.e., looking at college stats when doing draft prep). It was also about changing the actual metrics that they valued most highly when ranking players (OPS and other saber stats over traditional Avg, RBI, etc) to reflect different perceptions of what makes a valuable player.

However, these remained tangible stats which could be measured. It just so happened that you could build a team of composed of nothing but these guys because they were cheap. When evaluating high school players, you just don't have the same ability to do this unless he's playing against top notch talent.

I know what you're trying to get at in your post conceptually, but to me suggesting that we stick to "heart" and "want-to" guys with something to prove is like drafting a high school ballplayer because he's an amazing athlete and has "the good face". These undefinable "football traits" don't always equate to a successful player at the next level.

Wisconsin and Iowa can DEFINITELY get better recruits than Minnesota right now.

Rosemountian said:

The key to winning football games is being good at something and building on it.

Northwestern was good at dink and dunk.
Purdue was good at airing it out.
Wisconsin was good at running the ball.
Iowa was good at stopping the run and having a balanced attack.
Michigan state played great defense and shortened games.


When you aren't a power you have to find your niche.
Mason found his, unfortunately his niche was running the ball and playing no defense, Wisconsin was better at masons niche than mason was.
Brewsters was gonna be the spread, but he didn't beleive in it...so he switched. Then he switched to Horton in more of a spread/pro hybrid. He never found a niche.


Kill has gotta find his niche. Unfortunately none of the players on this team match his niche. He likes a QB with a little bit of mobility and a good dropback ability. He has a statue with mediocre dropback ability and a supermobile QB with little dropback ability. He likes a power back and a speed back, he has neither. Ect.

I understand he doesn't have his people in place, I would like to see him take advantage of the talent he does have a little better.

Click to expand...

Good post.

It all comes down to players executing the game plan work.