Ranking the Big Ten's Football Rosters for 2019 (#9. Minnesota)

BleedGopher

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Ohio State saw its streak of recruiting dominance come to an end among Big Ten teams this past recruiting cycle, but don't write off the Buckeyes just yet. Although Michigan finally took the Big Ten recruiting crown this past recruiting cycle and Penn State managed to stay ahead of the Buckeyes too, Ohio State still has a loaded roster that makes them the team to beat in the Big Ten. The gap could be closing, however, as Michigan is on the move and new head coach Ryan Day must prove capable of continuing what Urban Meyer started in Columbus.

Recruiting is the lifeblood of any college football program and Ohio State has been the best in the Big Ten for a while now. Player development has also been a strong key to Ohio State's success, and Michigan and Penn State have been working to do the same in their respective programs to raise the bar. The last few years show the bar has certainly been raised, and now other programs are attempting to emulate that success.

Below are the national recruiting ranking averages for Big Ten schools over the last five (2105-19) classes according to 247Sports' Composite Team Rankings and each team's record over the last five (2014-18) seasons. Obviously, this doesn't take into account attrition but, over time, this should be considered relatively even across the conference.

https://athlonsports.com/college-football/ranking-big-tens-football-rosters-2019

Go Gophers!!
 

Looks like others don't see the Gophers as a contender to the degree most of us on GH do. 9th best roster in a 14 team conference typically don't factor as contenders.

edit:

I wrote the first paragraph before reading the article so after reading it I see they just looked at recruiting rankings and averaged them out. Pretty straight forward and not much to disagree with there.
 
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Apparently some get into it doing the same old same old as to these articles ranking everyone. I'm sure we'll see a few more.
 

It does point out the challenge for the Gophers. If they had the #35 class 5 years in a row, that still only moves them up to #6 in the conference. to really move the needle, it's going to take some classes in the #30 range, which in turn means quite a few more 4* players or really high 3*.

Progress is nice - but you have to weigh that progress in relation to the rest of the conference.
 

It does point out the challenge for the Gophers. If they had the #35 class 5 years in a row, that still only moves them up to #6 in the conference. to really move the needle, it's going to take some classes in the #30 range, which in turn means quite a few more 4* players or really high 3*.

Progress is nice - but you have to weigh that progress in relation to the rest of the conference.

Yes and no. Wisconsin has averaged a class ranking of 36.6 and clearly they have been pretty good with the exception of last year.

Penn State has a 27-16 conference record to go along with their 13.4 average class ranking. MSU (28.2) and Iowa (45.4) have the exact same conference record over that stretch. And 3 teams, Michigan (15.4), Wisconsin (36.6) and Northwestern (52.6) have better conference records then Penn State in spite of far worse rankings.

Over the past 2 years the recruiting classes we have brought in are ranked very close to the majority of the teams in the West outside of Nebraska (and those high rankings have not translated to a championship yet for them). To truly become a threat to the top dogs in the conference recruiting will have to take a giant leap up but there is something to getting the right players that doesn't always translate into the rankings. Wisconsin, and Northwestern would be prime examples of programs that don't blow people away on the recruiting trail yet field good teams year after year.
 



Northwestern is ranked 11th, two spots below the Gophs.

They have gone 8-1, 7-2, 5-4 and 6-2 in the Big Ten the last four years.

They have hit the 10-win mark twice in that period, 9-wins once.
 




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