High School Talent in Minnesota

I mentioned it another post but Craig Bohl would have taken the U job when it was offered to Kill. How does this Craig Bohl guy get Carson Wentz and Josh Allen to be 1st round draft picks within 3 years of each other?

Let's see him do it a couple more times and we can maybe say he did it....
 

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.

You need support from the President, Regents, and administration. Once you have that and you get the facilities, then you need the coach to execute. Without the aforementioned support you’ll never keep a high quality coach or, you’ll never get enough higher quality players that are needed.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Did PJ even look at offering Aidan Bauman a scholarship?

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk
 

There is no way Minnesota has about the same amount of FBS football talent as Iowa with a population advantage of over 2 million. Iowa has two colleges scouring it for talent. Minnesota has one. These recruiting sites are scouring neither. How many of these 3 stars are awarded after a kid has been offered? I have no doubt that there is talent falling through the cracks in this state. Not saying that the staff has to focus more in state, I'm fine with bringing in talent from where ever you can find it, but I do think the lack of instate talent excuse has gone on too long.
 

There is no way Minnesota has about the same amount of FBS football talent as Iowa with a population advantage of over 2 million. Iowa has two colleges scouring it for talent. Minnesota has one. These recruiting sites are scouring neither. How many of these 3 stars are awarded after a kid has been offered? I have no doubt that there is talent falling through the cracks in this state. Not saying that the staff has to focus more in state, I'm fine with bringing in talent from where ever you can find it, but I do think the lack of instate talent excuse has gone on too long.

Iowa has done a good job of cultivating relationships early with potential prospects in Iowa, eastern Nebraska, the Quad cities and a good chunk of Illinois. They also do the same thing to MN players.

The Gophers got a commitment from Noah Shannon last year only to decommit and flip to Iowa. Ferentz and staff had build a long standing relationship with Shannon. So, it was easy for Iowa to flip him back to their camp.

The Gophers must develop stronger relationships with MN HS coaches and HS player prospects early, especially in outstate MN. I believe Kill started the whole process with coaching clinics and bringing HS coaches to observe and learn from the Gophers coaching staff.
 


Minnesota is in a battle for mostly the same pool of players in Illinois with Iowa, Iowa State, Wisconsin, NW, Nebraska, and Illinois. We lost the battle for the likes of Noah Shannon and Jirehl Brock. I think this battle will intensify even more.

Wisconsin has targeted MN heavily. We've lost a few players over the years. Some notable names are Beau Allen 2010, and Tyler Marz 2011. Jack Cichy 2012, Ryan Connelly 2013 are other roster fills. Most likely we will lost Bryce Benhart 2019 to the Badgers or to other power schools.

Nebraska got Tobi Okuyemi from MN in 2010. They have gotten top players JD Spielman in 2016, and David Alston in 2018. I don't know if Scott Frost is going to target MN more heavily.

Iowa State (Jamahl Johnson 2016, and I believe Iowa (Connor Kean 2013, Amani Hooker 2016),and NW (Chiaokaio-Bowman 2016) lurk in the background.

It is not for the lack of trying, but PJ Fleck cannot convince some top players to play for MN. Some players like Quinn Carroll, and Bryce Benhart are going to leave no matter what as the state of Gopher Football is not at a point where it is attractive.
 

Did PJ even look at offering Aidan Bauman a scholarship?

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

He was on their radar, but Ken Seals appears to be the top QB target in the class of 2020.
 

There is no way Minnesota has about the same amount of FBS football talent as Iowa with a population advantage of over 2 million. Iowa has two colleges scouring it for talent. Minnesota has one. These recruiting sites are scouring neither. How many of these 3 stars are awarded after a kid has been offered? I have no doubt that there is talent falling through the cracks in this state. Not saying that the staff has to focus more in state, I'm fine with bringing in talent from where ever you can find it, but I do think the lack of instate talent excuse has gone on too long.

There are always kids falling through the cracks in every state. Minnesota couldn't put together an elite flag football team if they had to rely on only in state kids. I can assure you that there is more talent falling through the cracks in Texas, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi. Louisiana and so on than there is in Minnesota.
 

I suspect that to some extent the Minnesota high school football pool has been traditionally undervalued by the rating agencies. I based this on the fact that Minnesota and Dakota Division II and III schools, which draw heavily on that pool, such as Minnesota-Duluth, Minnesota State-Mankato, North Dakota, and St Johns, have competed successfully in recent years at the national level. There is also North Dakota State, which has dominated the FBS Championships winning 6 of the last 7.
There are inherent limitations on the rating agencies ability to rate accurately hundreds of widely dispersed players, and I’m sure that they understandably tend to focus on areas of the country that have been traditional producers of top rated talent, such as the South. With only one division 1 program in the state, which is a program that has had only limited success in the past half-century, there has been little reason for them to focus on the Minnesota pool.
This not to say that there are not other factors that do in fact limit the quality of the Minnesota pool in comparison with other parts of the country, such as a lesser emphasis on youth programs in this state and the popularity of hockey in some parts of it. But I don’t think any limitations that might currently exist in the pool present an insuperable barrier to the elevation of Minnesota football to where it is a consistent competitor at the national level. For the first half-century of the program – a time in which we won 7 national titles – that exactly what it was.
The problem in my view, is that over the past 50 years or so, we have not seen, until recently, the kind of commitment to the program that is needed to reach that level. That is no accident. Even as we were winning our last national title in the early sixties, which is when I graduated from the university, faculty pressure resulted in a de-emphasis of the revenue sports – especially football. More recently, though, we have seen a recommitment to these sports as evident by investments in facilities and a willingness to pay competitive salaries for coaches. If this level of commitment is sustained, I am confident that we will eventually get to where we all want to be.
 



He was on their radar, but Ken Seals appears to be the top QB target in the class of 2020.
Dang. From the news story I saw on the Bouman kid, he has a strong arm and he is a sophomore. Then again it was a news story, puff piece, so why would they mention deficiencies.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk
 

I suspect that to some extent the Minnesota high school football pool has been traditionally undervalued by the rating agencies. I based this on the fact that Minnesota and Dakota Division II and III schools, which draw heavily on that pool, such as Minnesota-Duluth, Minnesota State-Mankato, North Dakota, and St Johns, have competed successfully in recent years at the national level. There is also North Dakota State, which has dominated the FBS Championships winning 6 of the last 7.
There are inherent limitations on the rating agencies ability to rate accurately hundreds of widely dispersed players, and I’m sure that they understandably tend to focus on areas of the country that have been traditional producers of top rated talent, such as the South. With only one division 1 program in the state, which is a program that has had only limited success in the past half-century, there has been little reason for them to focus on the Minnesota pool.
This not to say that there are not other factors that do in fact limit the quality of the Minnesota pool in comparison with other parts of the country, such as a lesser emphasis on youth programs in this state and the popularity of hockey in some parts of it. But I don’t think any limitations that might currently exist in the pool present an insuperable barrier to the elevation of Minnesota football to where it is a consistent competitor at the national level. For the first half-century of the program – a time in which we won 7 national titles – that exactly what it was.
The problem in my view, is that over the past 50 years or so, we have not seen, until recently, the kind of commitment to the program that is needed to reach that level. That is no accident. Even as we were winning our last national title in the early sixties, which is when I graduated from the university, faculty pressure resulted in a de-emphasis of the revenue sports – especially football. More recently, though, we have seen a recommitment to these sports as evident by investments in facilities and a willingness to pay competitive salaries for coaches. If this level of commitment is sustained, I am confident that we will eventually get to where we all want to be.

+1000

The high school scene in MN is underrated.
 

I suspect that to some extent the Minnesota high school football pool has been traditionally undervalued by the rating agencies. I based this on the fact that Minnesota and Dakota Division II and III schools, which draw heavily on that pool, such as Minnesota-Duluth, Minnesota State-Mankato, North Dakota, and St Johns, have competed successfully in recent years at the national level. There is also North Dakota State, which has dominated the FBS Championships winning 6 of the last 7.
There are inherent limitations on the rating agencies ability to rate accurately hundreds of widely dispersed players, and I’m sure that they understandably tend to focus on areas of the country that have been traditional producers of top rated talent, such as the South. With only one division 1 program in the state, which is a program that has had only limited success in the past half-century, there has been little reason for them to focus on the Minnesota pool.
This not to say that there are not other factors that do in fact limit the quality of the Minnesota pool in comparison with other parts of the country, such as a lesser emphasis on youth programs in this state and the popularity of hockey in some parts of it. But I don’t think any limitations that might currently exist in the pool present an insuperable barrier to the elevation of Minnesota football to where it is a consistent competitor at the national level. For the first half-century of the program – a time in which we won 7 national titles – that exactly what it was.
The problem in my view, is that over the past 50 years or so, we have not seen, until recently, the kind of commitment to the program that is needed to reach that level. That is no accident. Even as we were winning our last national title in the early sixties, which is when I graduated from the university, faculty pressure resulted in a de-emphasis of the revenue sports – especially football. More recently, though, we have seen a recommitment to these sports as evident by investments in facilities and a willingness to pay competitive salaries for coaches. If this level of commitment is sustained, I am confident that we will eventually get to where we all want to be.

Very astute observations.

The other reasons other regions tend to be overrated is due to the differences in the amount of talent concentrations in the southern regions as compared to Minnesota. Talent evaluators are like flies on a dead horse when it comes to Florida, Texas, and so forth. They go where the money is. The other factor may be that in the warmer climates where there is all year round exposure to football, some kids may have reached their potential early and then plateau while the kids in Minnesota develop later in college. They go to places like NDSU because they were underrated and developed in a college program and they reach their potential at the peak of their college careers.

I think with the commitment by the U to Gopher football and athletics, sooner or later the Gophers are going to create their own luck like Wisconsin did.

They just need a lucky break of great recruits (don't necessarily have to be four stars) to break the cycle of being bottom feeders.
 

+1000

The high school scene in MN is underrated.

Just because kids are successful at the D-2 or D-3 level doesn't mean they would be successful in the B1G.

It seem that we typically have 4-6 Power 5 recruits in the state in a given year. This year we have 4: Carroll, Benhart, Williamson and Kramer. Our hit rate will probably be 50%. Contrary to popular belief, I think that that the past 4 staffs since Mason (Brewster, Kill, Claeys and Fleck) have all done a good job of recruiting in the state. If Minnesota could produce 10-15 P5 recruits each year, I have little doubt that we would consistently be a top 25 program.
 



If PJ starts to show some real results on the field (big if), the Gophers will start burying Iowa in recruiting. I think they more than any other program will suffer if the Gophers truly get their act together. PJ is a great salesman, and frankly he has a lot more to sell in Mpls/St Paul than our Hawkeye friends 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?

Because football isn't a big deal at all with the youth in this state and likely never will be. This is a hockey / wrestling / basketball state. Football isn't going to unseat those sports.
 

I suspect that to some extent the Minnesota high school football pool has been traditionally undervalued by the rating agencies. I based this on the fact that Minnesota and Dakota Division II and III schools, which draw heavily on that pool, such as Minnesota-Duluth, Minnesota State-Mankato, North Dakota, and St Johns, have competed successfully in recent years at the national level. There is also North Dakota State, which has dominated the FBS Championships winning 6 of the last 7.
There are inherent limitations on the rating agencies ability to rate accurately hundreds of widely dispersed players, and I’m sure that they understandably tend to focus on areas of the country that have been traditional producers of top rated talent, such as the South. With only one division 1 program in the state, which is a program that has had only limited success in the past half-century, there has been little reason for them to focus on the Minnesota pool.
This not to say that there are not other factors that do in fact limit the quality of the Minnesota pool in comparison with other parts of the country, such as a lesser emphasis on youth programs in this state and the popularity of hockey in some parts of it. But I don’t think any limitations that might currently exist in the pool present an insuperable barrier to the elevation of Minnesota football to where it is a consistent competitor at the national level. For the first half-century of the program – a time in which we won 7 national titles – that exactly what it was.
The problem in my view, is that over the past 50 years or so, we have not seen, until recently, the kind of commitment to the program that is needed to reach that level. That is no accident. Even as we were winning our last national title in the early sixties, which is when I graduated from the university, faculty pressure resulted in a de-emphasis of the revenue sports – especially football. More recently, though, we have seen a recommitment to these sports as evident by investments in facilities and a willingness to pay competitive salaries for coaches. If this level of commitment is sustained, I am confident that we will eventually get to where we all want to be.

Its "underrated" because we don't like it. The elite athletes are stolen away from football by hockey at a young age. Add the best 20 hockey players to the pool and it's pretty substantial.

You can try to compare MN with other states of the same size and it doesn't matter. HS hockey has god-like status like nowhere else. Minnesota will never gain be able to produce elite talent in football. Never again--unless hockey goes away.

You can keep going in circles on "underrating" and "DII" and "North Dakota", but the answer is VERY clear. Mom and dad look at hockey as their meal ticket, and football would get in the way of that.
 

I don't know if hockey pulls more kids away in MN than basketball does in Indiana.

In my opinion, our "problem" is that we don't have enough medium-sized cities. Playing against strong competition helps make better athletes.

Our top athletes (percentage wise) come from a more concentrated area. This isn't a rip on rural MN football, it's just that we'd have much better football if we had a few cities the size of Rochester/St. Cloud/etc.
 

Its "underrated" because we don't like it. The elite athletes are stolen away from football by hockey at a young age. Add the best 20 hockey players to the pool and it's pretty substantial.

You can try to compare MN with other states of the same size and it doesn't matter. HS hockey has god-like status like nowhere else. Minnesota will never gain be able to produce elite talent in football. Never again--unless hockey goes away.

You can keep going in circles on "underrating" and "DII" and "North Dakota", but the answer is VERY clear. Mom and dad look at hockey as their meal ticket, and football would get in the way of that.

This is what I believe and it is especially clear to me based on observations and conversations with high school athletes and parents just this past spring at prom events and grad parties.

I also believe Gopher Football can and will compete on the National level and I don't care what state they come from. Bobby Bell, Carl Eller and Sandy Stephens were not from MN.

No team can do that however with too many athlete's from the upper midwest just as no hockey team can compete with too many players from the south. Until the Gophers are up in the top tier of college football, (with players from the traditional football states) hockey will be installed as the main sport for a lot of MN D1 caliber athletes.

MN does not have spring HS football to develop properly the potential athletes. The big football states have favorable weather, spring football and tradition.

If Fleck can deliver on his promise of Championships that might change slightly but to put it in perspective, MN was described to me as the 11th province (hockey reference) by a customer of mine from Edmonton.
 

Minnesota is in a battle for mostly the same pool of players in Illinois with Iowa, Iowa State, Wisconsin, NW, Nebraska, and Illinois. We lost the battle for the likes of Noah Shannon and Jirehl Brock. I think this battle will intensify even more.

Wisconsin has targeted MN heavily. We've lost a few players over the years. Some notable names are Beau Allen 2010, and Tyler Marz 2011. Jack Cichy 2012, Ryan Connelly 2013 are other roster fills. Most likely we will lost Bryce Benhart 2019 to the Badgers or to other power schools.

Nebraska got Tobi Okuyemi from MN in 2010. They have gotten top players JD Spielman in 2016, and David Alston in 2018. I don't know if Scott Frost is going to target MN more heavily.

Iowa State (Jamahl Johnson 2016, and I believe Iowa (Connor Kean 2013, Amani Hooker 2016),and NW (Chiaokaio-Bowman 2016) lurk in the background.

It is not for the lack of trying, but PJ Fleck cannot convince some top players to play for MN. Some players like Quinn Carroll, and Bryce Benhart are going to leave no matter what as the state of Gopher Football is not at a point where it is attractive.

The gophers didn't even offer many of those names you mentioned.
 

There are always kids falling through the cracks in every state. Minnesota couldn't put together an elite flag football team if they had to rely on only in state kids. I can assure you that there is more talent falling through the cracks in Texas, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi. Louisiana and so on than there is in Minnesota.

That wasn't my point. My point was that the only reason Iowa is producing about the same number of FBS players as minnesota is because less are falling through the cracks due to having two schools scouring the state instead of one.
 

Just because kids are successful at the D-2 or D-3 level doesn't mean they would be successful in the B1G.

It seem that we typically have 4-6 Power 5 recruits in the state in a given year. This year we have 4: Carroll, Benhart, Williamson and Kramer. Our hit rate will probably be 50%. Contrary to popular belief, I think that that the past 4 staffs since Mason (Brewster, Kill, Claeys and Fleck) have all done a good job of recruiting in the state. If Minnesota could produce 10-15 P5 recruits each year, I have little doubt that we would consistently be a top 25 program.

There are more than 4-6 a year. It's a matter of finding it. Like I've been saying Iowa consistently wins while taking 4-6 Iowa kids. I find it hard to believe that Iowa produces more FBS talent with more than 2 million less people.
 

That wasn't my point. My point was that the only reason Iowa is producing about the same number of FBS players as minnesota is because less are falling through the cracks due to having two schools scouring the state instead of one.

I don't buy the premise. There's no reason why Iowa or Iowa St. should be able to "scour the state" of Iowa any better than Minnesota, or Northwestern, or even Alabama or USC. Things like geographic distance aren't the prohibitive constraints they once were before the advent of cheap and easy air travel.
 

I don't know if hockey pulls more kids away in MN than basketball does in Indiana.

In my opinion, our "problem" is that we don't have enough medium-sized cities. Playing against strong competition helps make better athletes.

Our top athletes (percentage wise) come from a more concentrated area. This isn't a rip on rural MN football, it's just that we'd have much better football if we had a few cities the size of Rochester/St. Cloud/etc.
Our two biggest cities also don't produce any talent. Counting Josh Aune, Thomas Tapeh, Rashede Hageman, David Gillrith, Jeff Jones and Tommy Leavitt are the only kids from the MPLS or St. Paul Public School systems to commit to a P5 school since 1998. That's six kids in 20 years, four of them from one program. I can't even think of a football player from Duluth.

Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk
 

Our two biggest cities also don't produce any talent. Counting Josh Aune, Thomas Tapeh, Rashede Hageman, David Gillrith, Jeff Jones and Tommy Leavitt are the only kids from the MPLS or St. Paul Public School systems to commit to a P5 school since 1998. That's six kids in 20 years, four of them from one program. I can't even think of a football player from Duluth.

Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk

Don't forget Tyler Johnson so that makes seven. Hockey is king in cities like Duluth and Morehead. No question about it.
 

There are more than 4-6 a year. It's a matter of finding it. Like I've been saying Iowa consistently wins while taking 4-6 Iowa kids. I find it hard to believe that Iowa produces more FBS talent with more than 2 million less people.

If 4-6 are offered by P5 schools, there are 4-6. Recruiters will find talent wherever it is. Kids also have the opportunity to go to summer camps and demonstrate their ability. Some kids will develop beyond what was expected of them as high school players, but that doesn't necessarily mean recruiters missed on them if no one thought they would develop into a P5 player.

As for Iowa, why is it difficult to believe that they produce more P5 players per capita? Football is a higher priority in many states. I'm guessing no one would question that Minnesota produces more high school hockey talent and no one in Iowa would say they are even with us in hockey and that they just need to find the talented hockey players in their state.
 

Couple thoughts:

I honestly don't see Hockey taking that many elite players away from FB. It's certainly not taking away any linemen (don't see too many 300-pound hockey players). Hockey may take away a few RB, LB, WR, or DB types. At best, I would guess there may be 3 or 4 guys a year who would be D1 FB recruits if they were not playing hockey. they're good at hockey because they're good at hockey. there's no guarantee they would be equally good at football.


But, IMHO, the simple fact of the matter is that MN has a handful of national-caliber FB players, but the next level of players are just not major D1 prospects. MN turns out a lot of kids who do well at FCS, DII and DIII - because that is the level they are best suited to play at. Yeah, a few kids who wind up going to FCS or even DII could probably play in D1 in the right situation - but that's when you run into that age-old question: would you rather be a backup or special-teams guy at D1, or be a starter and play a major role at FCS or DII. I just think the majority of MN kids would rather start at Mankato or Duluth instead of being second- or third-string at MN and playing on the kickoff team.
 

Couple thoughts:

I honestly don't see Hockey taking that many elite players away from FB. It's certainly not taking away any linemen (don't see too many 300-pound hockey players). Hockey may take away a few RB, LB, WR, or DB types. At best, I would guess there may be 3 or 4 guys a year who would be D1 FB recruits if they were not playing hockey. they're good at hockey because they're good at hockey. there's no guarantee they would be equally good at football.


But, IMHO, the simple fact of the matter is that MN has a handful of national-caliber FB players, but the next level of players are just not major D1 prospects. MN turns out a lot of kids who do well at FCS, DII and DIII - because that is the level they are best suited to play at. Yeah, a few kids who wind up going to FCS or even DII could probably play in D1 in the right situation - but that's when you run into that age-old question: would you rather be a backup or special-teams guy at D1, or be a starter and play a major role at FCS or DII. I just think the majority of MN kids would rather start at Mankato or Duluth instead of being second- or third-string at MN and playing on the kickoff team.

I'd probably agree with this, which would still mean that in an average year we would have 50-100% more P5 football recruits in the state.
 

Our two biggest cities also don't produce any talent. Counting Josh Aune, Thomas Tapeh, Rashede Hageman, David Gillrith, Jeff Jones and Tommy Leavitt are the only kids from the MPLS or St. Paul Public School systems to commit to a P5 school since 1998. That's six kids in 20 years, four of them from one program. I can't even think of a football player from Duluth.

Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk

I was including the metro area. My point was that there is typically better football played in denser population centers. I don't think it is at all logical to just consider just the MPLS/St.Paul schools, much less only the public schools.

The Twin Cities metro area is home to a disproportionate number of our top 10 recruits when you compare it to like Milwaukee and the State of Wisconsin.
 

Our two biggest cities also don't produce any talent. Counting Josh Aune, Thomas Tapeh, Rashede Hageman, David Gillrith, Jeff Jones and Tommy Leavitt are the only kids from the MPLS or St. Paul Public School systems to commit to a P5 school since 1998. That's six kids in 20 years, four of them from one program. I can't even think of a football player from Duluth.

Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk

I agree with you - the Minneapolis and St. Paul schools are the ones letting down the Gophers. Out of our biggest cities - add Rochester, Mankato, Duluth, St. Cloud etc we get very few players.

I don't know how many of the EP, Wayzata, CDH, etc players are from the Minneapolis/St. Paul school districts, but it seems like the majority of in-state players are from the South Suburban, Lake Conference, and Suburban East.

CJ Ham from the Vikings is a player from Duluth that went to Augustana, but your point is correct.
 

I agree with you - the Minneapolis and St. Paul schools are the ones letting down the Gophers. Out of our biggest cities - add Rochester, Mankato, Duluth, St. Cloud etc we get very few players.

I don't know how many of the EP, Wayzata, CDH, etc players are from the Minneapolis/St. Paul school districts, but it seems like the majority of in-state players are from the South Suburban, Lake Conference, and Suburban East.

CJ Ham from the Vikings is a player from Duluth that went to Augustana, but your point is correct.
I'm just going to bring this up as a point of discussion because it is a perception of these cities. Could it be that the Minneapolis and St. Paul school districts are turning into adolescent daycare rather than actual educational facilities? Athletics in these districts are de-emphasized and not covered by "local TV and radio".

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk
 




Top Bottom