NIL and RS Strategy

[fmlizard]

Yeah that's another thing .... I don't know if it makes sense anymore to take 25 guys 18 years old every year anymore.

A good chunk of them, no matter how highly rated, just won't be able to contribute that year immediately in a meaningful way.


We saw what happened when they threw that LB out there. Purdue went right after them and torched us, and we had to bench him at half.


I wonder if we need to drop that number down to 15, and the other 10 need to be guys who have played at FCS, G5 level. Bring up guys who at least have a chance to contribute on the field that year.

The way things are going ...

At some point before the end of the decade, a school will cease to recruit high school players. They might take a couple local guys if they are 4* or above and badly want to stay home. That's it.

It's going to be a school that doesn't have a lot of in-state talent or a big recruiting brand and needs to try something radical to keep pace. They would need deep pockets to do it at a championship level but could be successful just poaching smaller programs and taking a lot of "transfer-downs"

Maybe it's an urban school that can offer more opportunities to the 21+ athlete thinking about his future opportunities in the working world after college football.

Why not Minnesota?

 

[MplsGopher]

That would be a massive step that I don't think Fleck is capable wrapping his head around.

But a baby step I think is doable.

Not sure if we've already committed to taking 25 high schoolers for class of 2024 ?

 

[GopherTheJugular]

So now you want to switch the argument to: you only burn the red shirt year if they are better than the current starting player? If you are not saying this, then I do not get the point you are trying to make.

I wasn't trying to switch the argument - perhaps I didn't understand what you meant? I just don't see why tOSU would have played Ewers that season. QB is the most important position on the field and they had CJ Stroud outperforming Ewers in practice.

Are you suggesting they should have played Ewers for a few plays in more than 4 games so as to burn his red shirt, thereby reducing his playing time in the future when he might be on another team? If so, that's pretty stupid for a few reasons. One, he might not transfer, so you'd like to keep the RS in that case. Two, once players see you a burning redshirts for that sole purpose, they'll stop participating in that practice.

I could see your point if we were talking about RBs, for example. It was fine for us to burn Bucky's RS because you want to rotate RBs. Not so much with QBs. So no, I would never, ever replace my talented (Stroud) starting QB with someone who's not ready just to burn the RS.

 

[GopherTheJugular]

I assume that if Ewers was the second best QB on the roster.....that they could pull his redshirt and play him if Stroud went down. Otherwise.....why burn a year of eligibility? To get him in for a couple of snaps per game?

I don't even think Ewers was #2 that year, I think he was like #4. Remember, he was planning on playing his senior year of high school in 2021 and then abruptly reclassified in order to enroll in college to collect NIL.

I don't think any QB can go from their junior season of high school and then enroll in college at the last second, and come in and play. Although, after looking it up, he did take two snaps that year lol. End of game stuff.

 

[stocker08]

I don't even think Ewers was #2 that year, I think he was like #4. Remember, he was planning on playing his senior year of high school in 2021 and then abruptly reclassified in order to enroll in college to collect NIL.

I don't think any QB can go from their junior season of high school and then enroll in college at the last second, and come in and play. Although, after looking it up, he did take two snaps that year lol. End of game stuff.

I was agreeing with you. Just saying that even if he HAD been the second best QB on the roster....there would still be little reason to burn his redshirt unless it were necessary.

 

[GopherTheJugular]

I was agreeing with you. Just saying that even if he HAD been the second best QB on the roster....there would still be little reason to burn his redshirt unless it were necessary.

Succinctly put!

 

[csom_1991]

Are you suggesting they should have played Ewers for a few plays in more than 4 games so as to burn his red shirt, thereby reducing his playing time in the future when he might be on another team? If so, that's pretty stupid for a few reasons. One, he might not transfer, so you'd like to keep the RS in that case. Two, once players see you a burning redshirts for that sole purpose, they'll stop participating in that practice.

tOSU blows out a vast majority of its opponents - so, getting real in-game playing time does not come from replacing CJ Shroud for the meaningful minutes. What it does do is give your backup actual experience so in the event that your starter goes down, you don't have a bunch of guys that have not thrown a pass during a game. Further, you can pretty much bet that Ewers will not stick around college for 5 years - and in his Freshmen year - you can 100% bet that he believed that he wouldn't. So, you actually are losing anything by burning his redshirt. I think most players would view this as a positive. Give them a chance to prove themselves in game vs. wasting a year of their lives. Bringing this back to the Gophers, I would not have been opposed to having more QBs get reps early. We cannot and should not expect every 'next up' QB on the roster will hold the spot for 4-5 years just because Morgan and Leidner did.

 

[SeaBee_Gopher]

I agree with the takes that you need to stay mostly a developmental program. We are a mid-tier team that will probably just stay about even in the portal unless something improbable happens that moves us up a level. Bring in young guys, try not to play them and turn 3.5-star guys into 4-star guys or 4-star guys into 4.5-star guys by letting them grow smarter and stronger in the program. Hope most of them stay once they've developed some strong relationships in the area (teammates, girlfriends, family) over their first 2-3 years. It's not sexy and it's already what they are trying to do. We've all noticed the high number of MN recruits recently. It seems the most likely way to be successful especially if PJ stays with the program multiple more years. I hate to say this, but maybe we can be Iowa except with a less putrid offense. If it doesn't work, try something else, but with NIL and the portal still being so new, it's still hard to predict the outcome of any strategy at this point.

 

[Dakota2]

I don't think I agree with that take on how it was done in the past. Look at Ohio State last year - Quinn Ewers took a red shirt year. You are telling me that he could not make the 3 deep at Ohio State but then was good enough to start and star at Texas the next season? For a lot of positions, there is a perceived advantage to an additional year of maturity - and these often see red shirts. We also saw this in-season forever. As injuries mount, coaches decide to burn red shirts or not and they did not do this for lateral moves plus a little more, which is why burning red shirts were seen as big deals.

Ewers did not go to Ohio State to make the three deep. Coach was not going to start him so he red shirted him to save a year. That was not good enough for Ewers so he left.