Fritz Rock gaining interest from a number of schools, including Wisconsin

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Following Wayzata winning the state championship, and Fritz being named the MVP of the game – he’s been hearing from a number of schools, these are some schools that are talking to Rock:

Wisconsin – O-Line coordinator, Bob Bostad visited Wayzata today to see Fritz. Wisconsin contacted him recently, and look to be showing interest in Rock being a Badger (booooooo!)

Wyoming – It looks like one of their assistants will be coming to Wayzata next Thursday, and possibly their new head coach

Michigan – They are waiting to review some film on him

Those are just the major schools he's heard from in the past two weeks - there are obviously smaller ones as well.
 

That is very interesting. Thanks for the update GL.

Michigan just got a commitment today from WR Cam Gordon. I wonder if that will impact their interest in Rock. They seem to have a lot of WR's in the last class and this class.
 

grunkiejr said:
That is very interesting. Thanks for the update GL.

Michigan just got a commitment today from WR Cam Gordon. I wonder if that will impact their interest in Rock. They seem to have a lot of WR's in the last class and this class.
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Man, you stay on top of this stuff, Grunkie, haha!

Keep in mind, Fritz plays WR and DB.
 

Thanks GL. I would be happy for Fritz if he goes to a good school. I'd take him if he'd walk on but I think we're good with what we have in the hopper.
 

GopherMac said:
Thanks GL. I would be happy for Fritz if he goes to a good school. I'd take him if he'd walk on but I think we're good with what we have in the hopper.
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I think that Fritz is better than atleast one if not more of the in-state recruits we have already offered to and it would be great to get him. He is the top player on the top program in this state and was just MVP of the state championship and definitely deserves a scholarship offer. Let's just hope that Brewsters game of pulling his scholarship offer because he wouldn't commit a year and half early doesn't come back to bite us because the level of interest in him with some of the big programs appears to be gaining momentum.
 


Winning vs. Recruiting

GopherGod said:
I think that Fritz is better than atleast one if not more of the in-state recruits we have already offered to and it would be great to get him. He is the top player on the top program in this state and was just MVP of the state championship and definitely deserves a scholarship offer. Let's just hope that Brewsters game of pulling his scholarship offer because he wouldn't commit a year and half early doesn't come back to bite us because the level of interest in him with some of the big programs appears to be gaining momentum.
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GopherGod brings up a good point - that's not just relevant to Fritz Rock, but to recruits in general. I feel the there has been such a switch in what we value as important. Back in the day, winning a state championship, and being one of the top(if not the top) players on that team, would be celebrated. Now I feel like it's a kid's goal to be a 4-star, or get X amount of offers. Call me a idealistic, but I think that's a little backwards.

Personally, I love winners. On the basketball side, I was a huge supporter of taking Blake Hoffarber over Jon Leuer, and one of the main reasons is because Blake is a winner. I think he's already shown that in the short time he's been a Gopher. Fritz is a winner too - I love that attitude, love the heart that goes along with it, and I think that is overlooked a lot these days.

I have been extremely impressed with Brewster's ability to keep our top in-state talent. When I learned that Wisconsin was visiting and recruiting Fritz, on a personal note, it just made my blood boil. I would say that Fritz is one of the top 5 or 6 kids in the state, and to lose him to that Wisconsin coach would be pretty infuriating.
 

GopherLady said:
Man, you stay on top of this stuff, Grunkie, haha!

Keep in mind, Fritz plays WR and DB.
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I have too much time on my hands. I'm "consulting" for a company but it only takes me about 10-15 hours per week. It was a good problem to have in the summer but I'm not as excited about it in the winter.
 

Rock vs. Fritz

GopherGod said:
I think that Fritz is better than atleast one if not more of the in-state recruits we have already offered to and it would be great to get him. He is the top player on the top program in this state and was just MVP of the state championship and definitely deserves a scholarship offer. Let's just hope that Brewsters game of pulling his scholarship offer because he wouldn't commit a year and half early doesn't come back to bite us because the level of interest in him with some of the big programs appears to be gaining momentum.
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This may not be a popular statement but I thought that Cecil Doe was the best receiver on the Wayzata football team. I know I'm not alone because I saw one publication made Doe All State and Rock didn't make All State.

Fritz may be better than some in state guys we have offered but he is at a different position. He is similar in size and style to Victor Keise except Keise is faster. The other guys that we are recruting at WR (Bryant Allen & BrYce McNeal) have different body types and for receiver you need a collection of receivers that can do different things. Keise looks like a Brandon Green clone to me so you can guess where he'll be backing up initially. Rock is in that same mold or he could play in the slot and go across the middle and run the shorter routes (like Decker often does).
 

From everything I've heard Fritz hasn't been very impressive on the field, at least not for a supposed D1 guy. He got some hype at camps and combines but hasn't looked like a D1 guy this year from what I've heard. I think Brew and crew felt he was a fringe B10 player and wanted to give the kid a shot but felt they could get better players elsewhere. Lets not forget that this same staff took John Nance and Ryan Grant last year, 2 'winners' who we had 0 competition for since no other D1 program wanted them, at least not to my knowledge. I personally am fine with those types of guys every once in a while but lets not make a habit of it
 



oleboy41 said:
From everything I've heard Fritz hasn't been very impressive on the field, at least not for a supposed D1 guy. He got some hype at camps and combines but hasn't looked like a D1 guy this year from what I've heard. I think Brew and crew felt he was a fringe B10 player and wanted to give the kid a shot but felt they could get better players elsewhere. Lets not forget that this same staff took John Nance and Ryan Grant last year, 2 'winners' who we had 0 competition for since no other D1 program wanted them, at least not to my knowledge. I personally am fine with those types of guys every once in a while but lets not make a habit of it
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At the time I got the feeling that both Grant & Nance had a lot to do with building relations with EP & CDH coaches and trying to get other players at their school too. I'm not saying that they can't play but they weren't the most talented players in our recruiting class. Floyd was Nance's teammate at CDH and Mobley was Grant's teammate at EP and we wanted both of them really badly too. Off the top of my head there are three other examples where we offered more than one player from a team and in some of those situations the lower rated recruit(s) have made an impact.
 

What was the deal with Rock again, my memory is hazy (finals are cooking my brains). Did he want to commit and we pulled his offer? Is he thinking about walking-on?
 

oleboy41 said:
Lets not forget that this same staff took John Nance and Ryan Grant last year, 2 'winners' who we had 0 competition for since no other D1 program wanted them, at least not to my knowledge.
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Point taken, Oleboy - but this is not the case with Fritz. He has offers from 5 D1 schools, IU, Cincy, Washington State, Northern IL and W. Michigan.

I just looked up Nance and Grant, and you were correct, they both did not have any other D1 interest that I could find.
 

GopherLady said:
Point taken, Oleboy - but this is not the case with Fritz. He has offers from 5 D1 schools, IU, Cincy, Washington State, Northern IL and W. Michigan.

I just looked up Nance and Grant, and you were correct, they both did not have any other D1 interest that I could find.
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Outside of Cincy (which is finding easy success from playing in the Big Least) those are not programs we should be competing with for recruits.
 



GopherLady said:
Point taken, Oleboy - but this is not the case with Fritz. He has offers from 5 D1 schools, IU, Cincy, Washington State, Northern IL and W. Michigan.

I just looked up Nance and Grant, and you were correct, they both did not have any other D1 interest that I could find.
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As NateDawg said, his offers aren't exactly high level. Cincy is a good team but they're not really heavy hitters on the recruiting trail right now. Rock may turn out to be a solid player but I think the staff is shooting higher right now. They gave him the first shot but decided they didn't want him badly enough to keep recruiting him all fall and moved on. And the fact that he basically went out to promote himself all summer and could only come away with something like 3 or 4 firm offers tells me he's a lot of team's plan B type of guy
 

Evaluating talent is such a tough thing. I've seen Rock play countless times (both in person and on film) and have never been super impressed. As a staff, we never game-planned specifically for him or thought he'd be "the guy" to beat us. So to me, he's not some draw-dropping talent that absolutely commands an offer from Minnesota. That said, I'll NEVER knock the kid, as he sounds like a good person (from GL's interviews and impressions) and he's got five D1 offers--which is more than any of us can say, I'm sure :) The bottom line is this: there are smarter people than me out there who think he'll be a good D1 football player...so as an evaluator of talent, I'll trust their judgment and say he's much better than I've given him credit for. That said, Coach Brewster apparently isn't of that opinion, however...and as a Gopher fan, I'll trust his judgment.
 

MGGopher said:
Evaluating talent is such a tough thing. I've seen Rock play countless times (both in person and on film) and have never been super impressed. As a staff, we never game-planned specifically for him or thought he'd be "the guy" to beat us. So to me, he's not some draw-dropping talent that absolutely commands an offer from Minnesota. That said, I'll NEVER knock the kid, as he sounds like a good person (from GL's interviews and impressions) and he's got five D1 offers--which is more than any of us can say, I'm sure :) The bottom line is this: there are smarter people than me out there who think he'll be a good D1 football player...so as an evaluator of talent, I'll trust their judgment and say he's much better than I've given him credit for. That said, Coach Brewster apparently isn't of that opinion, however...and as a Gopher fan, I'll trust his judgment.
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As a Rosemount fan I was at the Irish vs. Wayzata state semifinal at the dome a few weeks ago.

Rock did nothing.

In fact, he wasn't even on the field as a WR for more than half the snaps usually coming in as a 3rd or 4th guy. If the Wayzata coaching staff doesn't believe he's good enough to be out there every single play there's no way he should be someone we go after.
 

GopherLady said:
Point taken, Oleboy - but this is not the case with Fritz. He has offers from 5 D1 schools, IU, Cincy, Washington State, Northern IL and W. Michigan.

I just looked up Nance and Grant, and you were correct, they both did not have any other D1 interest that I could find.
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Lets all be real here. IU does not count a D1 school. They are good aweful. Hell they lost there biggest most emotional game of the year 62-10. And it could have been worse.
 

FishingMN said:
As a Rosemount fan I was at the Irish vs. Wayzata state semifinal at the dome a few weeks ago.

Rock did nothing.

In fact, he wasn't even on the field as a WR for more than half the snaps usually coming in as a 3rd or 4th guy. If the Wayzata coaching staff doesn't believe he's good enough to be out there every single play there's no way he should be someone we go after.
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Like I said, Cecil Doe was the best receiver Wayzata had.
 

We have a lot of very good players in the state that just aren't quite at that 3-4* level. While it'd be way cool to see a roster of Minn kids, at some point Brew has to reserve the limited and valuable schollies for more proven athletes. I think Brews philosophy, and he's never said this as far as I know, is that he's going to recruit Minn hard, but not for these lower D1 kids, or for diamonds in the rough, but as walk-ons. He knows he'll lose some kids to other D1 schools. But really there are so many of them and you have no idea who the next sherels will be. It's the right approach. So while these kids dream of the big offer from the U, it probably will never happen. But they at least will know, if they want to give it a go, and they have what it takes, we want them and they'll get a fair shot.
 

If we can get Bryant Allen and McNeal then we don't need Rock. If you can get a better player then Rock you do it. You don't get some special bonus for being in state.
 

Cam Gordon will probably not be a WR in college nor will he make it grades-wise from what I have heard.
 

Rock

This is a very interesting discussion guys and gals!

The age old debate of should we offer him because he's an instate kid that has boarder line major D-1 skills vs Brew's mentality of finding the best players that want to play for the UofM, regardless of location. Often times with situations like this you have to be concerned about relationships. Relationships with coaches, players, programs, etc. You never want an instate program with history and talent like Wayzata to think negatively of your program, but you never want to sell yourself short either- like settling for less...

Brewster understands the ins and outs of big time recruiting. He offered Fritz, gave him a time line and Fritz watched as the sand ran through the hourglass. Brew then did what he said he was going to do. Go out and find a player that's just as good, or even better than the player we didn't get. Enter Victor Keise.

I'm perfectly fine with whatever happens with Rock ... as long as he doesn't go to Wisconsin.
 

Goph4phan said:
This is a very interesting discussion guys and gals!

The age old debate of should we offer him because he's an instate kid that has boarder line major D-1 skills vs Brew's mentality of finding the best players that want to play for the UofM, regardless of location. Often times with situations like this you have to be concerned about relationships. Relationships with coaches, players, programs, etc. You never want an instate program with history and talent like Wayzata to think negatively of your program, but you never want to sell yourself short either- like settling for less...

Brewster understands the ins and outs of big time recruiting. He offered Fritz, gave him a time line and Fritz watched as the sand ran through the hourglass. Brew then did what he said he was going to do. Go out and find a player that's just as good, or even better than the player we didn't get. Enter Victor Keise.

I'm perfectly fine with whatever happens with Rock ... as long as he doesn't go to Wisconsin.
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I like Keise's film a lot more than Rock's. I'm happy with our decision and from what I can tell we didn't acquire a head case.
 

I still think Patrick Rock might have "advised" Fritz right out of the schollie. I for one read the article about Patrick Rock and his younger brothers and thought "It's great to see a young man take responsibility for his younger brothers in this day and age but....He'd better be careful as he sounds like he might be on the verge of being TOO involved."

Fritz sure picked a good stage to have his career game in! Nice to see he's getting some new interest but I'll say this....Wyoming is not exactly Miami, lol?

I hope he ends up a Badger so we can find closure. He can jam it up Brewster's arse 4 times and we can all say "Wow, Brew
dropped the ball on that one" or he does zip and we can all say "Wow, Brew nailed that one!"

Any way you slice it he's going to end up with a college education and get to play the sport he loves.

Best of luck to him and congrats on the big game.
 

I don't want any MN kid to go to Wisky. Ever. Rock will be at a D1 school somewhere and hopefully it works out for him
 

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