High School Talent in Minnesota

John Galt

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GH is full of reasons why the Gophers can't compete at the level we'd like to see - consistently a top 25 team and competing for the West championship every few years. Among the excuses - poor coaches, urban campus environment, lukewarm fan support, recruiting, practice facilities that aren't up to par (in the past), poor stadium (in the past - Metrodome), lack of $ for coaches, pro sports town, etc, etc etc.

The real reason - lack of high school football talent. We produce way too few D-1 players for the size of our state. Example 1 - Minnesota is similar in size to Indiana and Maryland. For the 2019 class, the state of Indiana has 26 preps that are rated 3-star or higher. The state of Maryland has 36. Minnesota? 5 high school players that are 3-star or higher. https://247sports.com/Season/2019-F...Rankings?InstitutionGroup=HighSchool&State=MN


I'm convinced our program will be able to take a giant leap forward if Minnesota can ever get to a point where we are producing 10-15 D-1 football players per year. So why is our high school talent so far behind that of other similar-sized states?
 

GH is full of reasons why the Gophers can't compete at the level we'd like to see - consistently a top 25 team and competing for the West championship every few years. Among the excuses - poor coaches, urban campus environment, lukewarm fan support, recruiting, practice facilities that aren't up to par (in the past), poor stadium (in the past - Metrodome), lack of $ for coaches, pro sports town, etc, etc etc.

The real reason - lack of high school football talent. We produce way too few D-1 players for the size of our state. Example 1 - Minnesota is similar in size to Indiana and Maryland. For the 2019 class, the state of Indiana has 26 preps that are rated 3-star or higher. The state of Maryland has 36. Minnesota? 5 high school players that are 3-star or higher. https://247sports.com/Season/2019-F...Rankings?InstitutionGroup=HighSchool&State=MN


I'm convinced our program will be able to take a giant leap forward if Minnesota can ever get to a point where we are producing 10-15 D-1 football players per year. So why is our high school talent so far behind that of other similar-sized states?

The real reason is that we haven't had the right coach. There are plenty of schools with equal or worse in-state talent who have been and continue to be much better than the Gophers.

Also, Minnesota produces far more than 10-15 Division I football players in any given year.
 

The real reason is that we haven't had the right coach. There are plenty of schools with equal or worse in-state talent who have been and continue to be much better than the Gophers.

Coaching obviously plays a significant role, but high school talent would overshadow that significantly. No one can tell me that every coach we've had for the past 50 years has been bad...
 

GH is full of reasons why the Gophers can't compete at the level we'd like to see - consistently a top 25 team and competing for the West championship every few years. Among the excuses - poor coaches, urban campus environment, lukewarm fan support, recruiting, practice facilities that aren't up to par (in the past), poor stadium (in the past - Metrodome), lack of $ for coaches, pro sports town, etc, etc etc.

The real reason - lack of high school football talent. We produce way too few D-1 players for the size of our state. Example 1 - Minnesota is similar in size to Indiana and Maryland. For the 2019 class, the state of Indiana has 26 preps that are rated 3-star or higher. The state of Maryland has 36. Minnesota? 5 high school players that are 3-star or higher. https://247sports.com/Season/2019-F...Rankings?InstitutionGroup=HighSchool&State=MN


I'm convinced our program will be able to take a giant leap forward if Minnesota can ever get to a point where we are producing 10-15 D-1 football players per year. So why is our high school talent so far behind that of other similar-sized states?

Is it possible that more kids participate in football by population proportion in MD and IN than in MN?

FYI - Population comparison & Percent of Blue Chip Players 2013-2017:
MN Rank 21 5,420,380 - 0.4%
MD Rank 20 5,928,814 - 2.2%
IN Rank 16 6,570,902 - 1.4%

NCAA Map Ranks States By How Many Football Players Become D1 Recruits:
Seventy percent of the country’s four- and five-star recruits over the last five years have been clustered in 10 states. Texas, Florida, and California produce more of those star recruits than any other states by a wide margin, with Georgia next.

Per capita in the total population, D.C. has the most four- and five-star recruits. But that’s misleading, since D.C.’s just one small city. Louisiana, with 1.58 blue-chip recruits per 100,000 residents over the last five years, stacks up best in that metric.

https://www.sbnation.com/college-football-recruiting/2017/4/18/15340728/recruits-per-state-ncaa-map

There are no 5-star 2017 college football recruits in this 2.2-million-square-mile area - DEAD ZONE:
https://www.sbnation.com/college-football-recruiting/2017/1/20/14328730/2017-best-college-football-recruits-rankings-map

These 10 maps and charts show where college football players come from:
https://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2016/8/23/12607342/recruits-states-rankings

The 7-step case to proving National Signing Day rankings matter a whole lot:
https://www.sbnation.com/college-football-recruiting/2016/2/2/10889856/national-signing-day-rankings-ncaa-football
 

HOCKEY!
Now do the comparison in these same states with top High School hockey players. Each of these states probably have an equal amount of "athletes" but what sport do they chose?
 


After Quinn Carroll picks ND, we will again hear that our problem is that the best kids in MN don’t stay home to play for the Gophers. I went back a checked, and the last time we lost a top prospect that we really wanted was Jashon Cornell in 2015.

My point is this - since the Brewster era, we have been keeping a high percentage of MN kids in-state. The issue is there aren’t nearly enough of them.
 

After Quinn Carroll picks ND, we will again hear that our problem is that the best kids in MN don’t stay home to play for the Gophers. I went back a checked, and the last time we lost a top prospect that we really wanted was Jashon Cornell in 2015.

My point is this - since the Brewster era, we have been keeping a high percentage of MN kids in-state. The issue is there aren’t nearly enough of them.

True, but that hasn’t stopped Oregon, Nebraska, etc. from having competitive programs. Past performance, and recruiting allows teams to bring in players from outside the state. Those are directly related to coaching. It is like they say in all sports, recruiting, recruiting, recruiting is what builds a program. PJ gives us a new angle on recruiting.


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I suspect one of the biggest issues is that football isn't a year round sport in Minnesota as it is in other parts of the country. Once football season is done kids often move onto other sports. The few sports that minnesota produces a lot of d1 athletes (hockey, wrestling, and basketball) have become a year round commitments to keep yourself producing at a high level. And some of these kids who excel in these sports would probably be d1 football athletes if they devoted the same time to football that they do to other sports. Just a thought!
 

True, but that hasn’t stopped Oregon, Nebraska, etc. from having competitive programs. Past performance, and recruiting allows teams to bring in players from outside the state. Those are directly related to coaching. It is like they say in all sports, recruiting, recruiting, recruiting is what builds a program. PJ gives us a new angle on recruiting.


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Nebraska is a bit different than MN. They eat, breathe, and live for cornhusker football. There are no other professional sports in the area and it’s all about football. But yes their tradition, recruiting, coaching, and overall success continues to bring in top recruits from around the nation.
 



IF Duluth, Mankato, and Winona went FCS....Minnesota would produce a lot more division one football players, but they’d be many of the same players who are currently division 2.
 

(A) I disagree with your premise. Your examples are Maryland and Indiana - - - the two programs in the Big 10 worse than ours. So, the correlation between the state's HS football and the local U's success doesn't seem to be very strong. You also kick out states with better programs (for no real reason) like WI, Iowa, and Nebraska. So, I think your premise is beyond shaky.

However, to answer your question, it's complicated. I think it's largely that we do not produce very many D1 football players outside of the metro. We really only have about 3-4 solid HS conferences.

For example - - in WI:
2018 Top 5 - - only 1 player is from Milwaukee metro area
2019 Top 5 - 2 of the players are from the Milwaukee metro area
2017 Top 5 - only 1 player is from the Milwaukee metro area

In MN:
2019 Top 5 - 4 players from TC metro
2018 Top 10 - 8 players from the TC metro area
2017 Top 5 - 4 players are from the TC metro area

I realize that there are differences in the states (MN's population is more consolidated), but rural MN is simply not producing many players. This could have to do with hockey, culture, etc. I am not sure.

As far as comparing to states like Maryland and Indiana - that's bizarre. Those are states that are completely different from MN in a lot of ways - - culture, demographics, economy, etc. All of that stuff plays into producing college football players. I think it would make much more sense to compare MN to states that are somewhat similar (education, demographics, culture, etc.).
 

GH is full of reasons why the Gophers can't compete at the level we'd like to see - consistently a top 25 team and competing for the West championship every few years. Among the excuses - poor coaches, urban campus environment, lukewarm fan support, recruiting, practice facilities that aren't up to par (in the past), poor stadium (in the past - Metrodome), lack of $ for coaches, pro sports town, etc, etc etc.

The real reason - lack of high school football talent. We produce way too few D-1 players for the size of our state. Example 1 - Minnesota is similar in size to Indiana and Maryland. For the 2019 class, the state of Indiana has 26 preps that are rated 3-star or higher. The state of Maryland has 36. Minnesota? 5 high school players that are 3-star or higher. https://247sports.com/Season/2019-F...Rankings?InstitutionGroup=HighSchool&State=MN


I'm convinced our program will be able to take a giant leap forward if Minnesota can ever get to a point where we are producing 10-15 D-1 football players per year. So why is our high school talent so far behind that of other similar-sized states?

Welcome to hockey country. The land of stick and puck.
 




Nebraska is a bit different than MN. They eat, breathe, and live for cornhusker football. There are no other professional sports in the area and it’s all about football. But yes their tradition, recruiting, coaching, and overall success continues to bring in top recruits from around the nation.

Look at the maps that show where players come from. Minnesota produces more players than Nebraska. The original premise was lack of home state talent.


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HOCKEY!
Now do the comparison in these same states with top High School hockey players. Each of these states probably have an equal amount of "athletes" but what sport do they chose?

I feel like most top hockey players wouldn't be great football players if they played. There might be a few more James Johannesson type guys in this state, he had a hockey offer from UND, or maybe Kramer, Williamson or Aune types but hockey guys probably wouldn't help at producing O and D lineman, TE's, CB's or extremely athletic skill position players.
 

It's the chicken and the egg.

More quality recruits would help no doubt.

At the same time I'm really not sure had we had twice the quality or volume of good players.... that they would come here considering the outcomes as it is.

I don't think you can pick the chicken or the egg.
 


True, but that hasn’t stopped Oregon, Nebraska, etc. from having competitive programs. Past performance, and recruiting allows teams to bring in players from outside the state. Those are directly related to coaching. It is like they say in all sports, recruiting, recruiting, recruiting is what builds a program. PJ gives us a new angle on recruiting.


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Oregon has significantly more talent than Minnesota. If you look at the state rankings, they produce 10+ power 5 players per year.

Nebraska really hasn’t been that good over the past 15 years...
 

Oregon has significantly more talent than Minnesota. If you look at the state rankings, they produce 10+ power 5 players per year.

Nebraska really hasn’t been that good over the past 15 years...

10 players does not make Oregon a top program. I was going by the map links earlier in the thread. Only about a dozen states produce enough players to supply a program with enough “in-state” talent as the OP suggested was our problem in Minnesota. So, everyone else needs to rely on out of state talent, even Oregon.


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2 reasons

1)Minnesota's African American population is heavily grouped in inner city Minneapolis and St. Paul. The football programs there are almost non-existent.

2)If we had more D-1 programs there would be more D-1 football players. Some of our guys who are borderline end up as very good FCS players instead of D-1 guys that might start out borderline, but develop.
 

There is not one simple answer to the question.

As far as rural MN, I live in SW MN, where in recent years we've seen some linemen go D1. Tyler Marz to WI, Jonah Pirsig to MN. But those guys were exceptions. You just don't see a lot of 6'8", 300lb kids playing for smaller schools.

In general, the kids from outstate MN just don't have the size or speed that the big schools are looking for.

As far as other sports, there may be a few kids who choose hockey over FB - but I suspect there are more kids who choose basketball over football. A lot of the kids we see going D1 in hoops from MN could have been D1 RB's, WR's, TE's, DB's or LB's. Tyler Johnson of the Gophers could have been a D1 hoops recruit. The Suggs kid at Minnehaha Academy has D1 offers in hoops and FB.

For a variety of reasons, Kids see hoops as a faster (and maybe safer) route to a D1 scholarship. And, hoops has the AAU culture which gives kids exposure in the off-season. FB does not have a similar way to showcase MN players. (as noted, no Spring FB in MN.)
 

Do states like Michigan, Ohio, Maryland, New Jersey, Indiana, and Pennsylvania have well developed organized football feeder programs?

Minnesota has a long ways to go to catch up. MN kids don't play football all year round as in hockey and basketball. MN is not a strong football state. It takes money and commitment.

It is no wonder that the Eastern Seaboard States, the Southeast and South are football talent rich. They have football programs that run longer during the year than in MN, and they have sheer numbers which produce more D1 talent.

Yeah, I think if colleges like UMD, Mankato, and St Cloud State are D1 football colleges, there will likely be more interest in football in the state. Hockey is supreme even though it is very expensive. It is a long established sport in the state.
 

It is 100% hockey. In any other state of equal demographics the same type of athletes are playing football and maybe some basketball. There is no other state where these athletes are shunted away from football (and other sports). The typical hockey parent in Minnesota is right up there with the typical football parent---maybe worse. Their kid is going to play hockey and do nothing else, because that big NHL contract is going to be just around the corner.

There are 32 active NHL players from New York, 19 from Illinois, 4 from Ohio, 5 from Pennsylvania, 13 from California, 13 from Wisconsin.

Minnesota has over 50 current NHL players that I could find. The database stops reporting at 50 because only Massachusetts has that many players in the US. No other state except NY comes close. Not many football players from Massachusetts either. Minnesota has hundreds more in the AHL, ECHL, and Europe. Probably more than any other state or region of its size in the world.

It's hockey. To discount hockey is completely ludicrous. It's the number one reason--by far.

There is nowhere for Minnesota HS football "to go". It's not going to get better, it's going to get worse. Minnesota's days as a DI football producer are gone, never to return. It's a fact.
 

(A) I disagree with your premise. Your examples are Maryland and Indiana - - - the two programs in the Big 10 worse than ours. So, the correlation between the state's HS football and the local U's success doesn't seem to be very strong. You also kick out states with better programs (for no real reason) like WI, Iowa, and Nebraska. So, I think your premise is beyond shaky.

However, to answer your question, it's complicated. I think it's largely that we do not produce very many D1 football players outside of the metro. We really only have about 3-4 solid HS conferences.

For example - - in WI:
2018 Top 5 - - only 1 player is from Milwaukee metro area
2019 Top 5 - 2 of the players are from the Milwaukee metro area
2017 Top 5 - only 1 player is from the Milwaukee metro area

In MN:
2019 Top 5 - 4 players from TC metro
2018 Top 10 - 8 players from the TC metro area
2017 Top 5 - 4 players are from the TC metro area

I realize that there are differences in the states (MN's population is more consolidated), but rural MN is simply not producing many players. This could have to do with hockey, culture, etc. I am not sure.

As far as comparing to states like Maryland and Indiana - that's bizarre. Those are states that are completely different from MN in a lot of ways - - culture, demographics, economy, etc. All of that stuff plays into producing college football players. I think it would make much more sense to compare MN to states that are somewhat similar (education, demographics, culture, etc.).
I agree.
Our suburbs produce a really high percentage of our D1 players. We really need second sized cities like Rochester, Duluth, St Cloud, and Mankato to produce. We also need the city conferences to produce.

Then hopefully pick up a few more in random small towns.

Duluth and Rochester football isn’t as good as it was 10-15 years ago. I think opening century high school really diluted Big 9 football across the board. Everyone involved in that conference seemed better 10 years ago. 10 years ago Faribault type schools would have beaten Kasson Manterville type schools by 30. I just use those two because I know people who are involved at both schools.
Now it might be the other way around. Rochester JM and Mayo used to beat schools like Rosemount Farmington and Eastview on occasion. Now we have created a new class so they can avoid playing them completely.
 

I think more applicable comparisons to Minnesota HS football are states like Wisconsin, Iowa, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington. We should be producing as many players as Wisconsin and Colorado. No idea if we do.
 


GH is full of reasons why the Gophers can't compete at the level we'd like to see - consistently a top 25 team and competing for the West championship every few years. Among the excuses - poor coaches, urban campus environment, lukewarm fan support, recruiting, practice facilities that aren't up to par (in the past), poor stadium (in the past - Metrodome), lack of $ for coaches, pro sports town, etc, etc etc.

The real reason - lack of high school football talent. We produce way too few D-1 players for the size of our state. Example 1 - Minnesota is similar in size to Indiana and Maryland. For the 2019 class, the state of Indiana has 26 preps that are rated 3-star or higher. The state of Maryland has 36. Minnesota? 5 high school players that are 3-star or higher. https://247sports.com/Season/2019-F...Rankings?InstitutionGroup=HighSchool&State=MN


I'm convinced our program will be able to take a giant leap forward if Minnesota can ever get to a point where we are producing 10-15 D-1 football players per year. So why is our high school talent so far behind that of other similar-sized states?

Pretty flawed premise. As pointed out, does not explain teams like Wisc and would suggest schools like Illinois, AZ, ASU, MO, Rutgers, North Carolina, etc should be perennial top programs.
 

Minnesota produces a lot of good football players, but many develop later and feed all of the lower level programs like NDSU, St John’s, Mankato, St Thomas, etc... most of the lower level national powerhouse schools in this area are full of Minnesota players. I would guess that if some of those kids had grown up in Texas or Florida and gotten the full year football exposure then they would have been P5 kids.


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There is not one simple answer to the question.

As far as rural MN, I live in SW MN, where in recent years we've seen some linemen go D1. Tyler Marz to WI, Jonah Pirsig to MN. But those guys were exceptions. You just don't see a lot of 6'8", 300lb kids playing for smaller schools.

In general, the kids from outstate MN just don't have the size or speed that the big schools are looking for.

As far as other sports, there may be a few kids who choose hockey over FB - but I suspect there are more kids who choose basketball over football. A lot of the kids we see going D1 in hoops from MN could have been D1 RB's, WR's, TE's, DB's or LB's. Tyler Johnson of the Gophers could have been a D1 hoops recruit. The Suggs kid at Minnehaha Academy has D1 offers in hoops and FB.

For a variety of reasons, Kids see hoops as a faster (and maybe safer) route to a D1 scholarship. And, hoops has the AAU culture which gives kids exposure in the off-season. FB does not have a similar way to showcase MN players. (as noted, no Spring FB in MN.)

I agree. There are way more basketball players in this state where you go "If football was his primary sport, he'd could very well be a D1 football player" than there are hockey players where you say that. Jalen Suggs, Reid Travis are the obvious ones and guys like Rashad Vaughn and Tyus played youth and freshman football but gave it up. Jarvis Omersa is another guy that could maybe be a D1 TE and so on and so forth and you also have guys like Joe Coleman, Mbakwe, Rodney, Royce White where you definitely see the size and athleticism that would translate to the football field. They would need to bulk up a bit but a lot of guys need to do that. Tyler Johnson and Brevynn Spann Ford as well as out of state guys like Tony Poljan and Hunter Register all had D1 offers in both sports.

How many of the states top hockey players over the years do you say the same thing about? I'm sure there are a few that fit the athletic profile but not as many as in basketball. I know Anders Lee of Edina won metro player of the year in football and now player for the Islanders but he is really the only great football/hockey athlete that comes to mind. Zach Budish I know was a great LB for that same Edina team, maybe more gifted than Mike Rallis but I still feel like more of the states top basketball players would be great football players than hockey players. Admittedly, I don't follow hockey nearly as closely as I do basketball.
 

It's the chicken and the egg.

More quality recruits would help no doubt.

At the same time I'm really not sure had we had twice the quality or volume of good players.... that they would come here considering the outcomes as it is.

I don't think you can pick the chicken or the egg.


If this state all of a sudden started to produce much more talent than we've ever had before then we probably would struggle to get a lot of those guys however if we would have always had a high level of talent in this state since the beginning of the program as well as after our Rose Bowl run in the 60's then I bet we would have been able to stay good for longer and been able to get a lot of those guys.
 




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