Official 2020 Gophers Football Recruiting Signing Day Thread


Maryland just flipped the #2 WR in the country, he’s from Maryland but was committed to LSU. Big land for Maryland
Damn, well done on their part. Shows just how scary they could be if they could properly recruit the DMV.
 

Damn, well done on their part. Shows just how scary they could be if they could properly recruit the DMV.
24/7 compares him to Stefon Diggs. He’s really good. Had 31 offers, basically from all the best schools.
 

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Damn, well done on their part. Shows just how scary they could be if they could properly recruit the DMV.
Maryland has done well with some starts but I got the impression overall they don't do as well.

At the very least they can't take these stars and get what they need out of them.

It's weird.
 

Maryland has done well with some starts but I got the impression overall they don't do as well.

At the very least they can't take these stars and get what they need out of them.

It's weird.
Seems to be an issue with consistently winning the recruiting battles instead of just one or two big fish, and then developing the players once they arrive.

I don't have a lot of faith in Lock turning the program around, but maybe the next coach can make it happen.
 




Out of the top ten recruits in MN (after that they would all be at or near the lowest ranked recruits in the class), we landed three. Of the others:

Johnson - did our best, but he is clearly is looking for something else
Suggs - not playing football
Bouman - apparently his father hates the Gophers, and we're not taking a QB this class
Witt - had him, until the dream school came knocking

Leaves McDonald, Black, and Lockett as the "misses". Would it be nice to have them? Sure, but not to the extent that it makes me any less excited for this class.
 




Out of the top ten recruits in MN (after that they would all be at or near the lowest ranked recruits in the class), we landed three. Of the others:

Johnson - did our best, but he is clearly is looking for something else
Suggs - not playing football
Bouman - apparently his father hates the Gophers, and we're not taking a QB this class
Witt - had him, until the dream school came knocking

Leaves McDonald, Black, and Lockett as the "misses". Would it be nice to have them? Sure, but not to the extent that it makes me any less excited for this class.
Black was the big miss for me, but getting Jah and Logan-Redding helped make up for that.
 

It's interesting. 2-star guys no longer exist in the BIG. No school had a signee less than 3 stars. Star inflation?
 

Out of the top ten recruits in MN (after that they would all be at or near the lowest ranked recruits in the class), we landed three. Of the others:

Johnson - did our best, but he is clearly is looking for something else
Suggs - not playing football
Bouman - apparently his father hates the Gophers, and we're not taking a QB this class
Witt - had him, until the dream school came knocking

Leaves McDonald, Black, and Lockett as the "misses". Would it be nice to have them? Sure, but not to the extent that it makes me any less excited for this class.

Actually, two dream schools (first Iowa, then Wisconsin) came knocking.
 




It's interesting. 2-star guys no longer exist in the BIG. No school had a signee less than 3 stars. Star inflation?

Yeah it’s interesting and I also suspect an uptick in grade inflation the last 5-7 years. It wasn’t long ago a significant proportion of Big Ten teams had at least several recruits rated as 2 stars. The 247 rankings are also significantly different than Rivals for MN this year.

My guess is there isn’t a set number of 5,4,3 stars in the 247 system so the ratings are more “fluid”. And, we have to consider the 247 business model which revolves around selling recruiting news subscriptions to fan bases they’re trying to excite. IMO the 247 ratings historically seem to change more and be a little more erratic. I don’t trust them as much as my own eyeballs, TBH. How many recruits were downgraded vs bumped since they gave commitments?

Ultimately the real test of recruiting is wins and losses and the field.
 

No state gets every kid and quite frankly there aren't enough difference makers from the state of MN to get hung up about it. Couldn't care less where the kids come from, as a matter of fact, MN becomes more prevalent with the country if our kids are coming from all over.
 

We may produce a few talents every year. We are not a football hot bed. I’d take a class full of 4 stars from around the country than a class of 2 and low 3 stars from MN. It only hurts when a talented kid from our state goes to a hated rival or helmet school. If we took every MN kid who wanted to be a Gopher we’d probably have the talent level of Rutgers. I want commitments from players who bleed maroon and gold and want to represent our great state and university. F everyone else and every talented Minnesota kid who looks for greener pastures.
 


No state gets every kid and quite frankly there aren't enough difference makers from the state of MN to get hung up about it. Couldn't care less where the kids come from, as a matter of fact, MN becomes more prevalent with the country if our kids are coming from all over.

Plus MN kids get railed on pretty hard here. Remember all the flack Leidner got? Not everyone gets the nice treatment or set up that TJ got. I don't blame kids for leaving
 

We may produce a few talents every year. We are not a football hot bed. I’d take a class full of 4 stars from around the country than a class of 2 and low 3 stars from MN. It only hurts when a talented kid from our state goes to a hated rival or helmet school. If we took every MN kid who wanted to be a Gopher we’d probably have the talent level of Rutgers. I want commitments from players who bleed maroon and gold and want to represent our great state and university. F everyone else and every talented Minnesota kid who looks for greener pastures.
In my opinion, except for the sport of hockey, Minnesotans over rate all their high school sports stars.
 

I want the best Minnesota kids to help the Gophers win. More than that, I'd like to see the best Minnesota kids stop helping the Badgers win. But loyalty is not a deal in Minnesota like it is in Wisconsin. Maybe we have to keep earning it. That said, I don't see how a Minnesota kid is a "miss" if you identify and offer him early, invite him to lots of games, and generally treat him like a king .... and he snubs you. If they have no feeling for their own state, and they get giddy about helping a hated rival, they would be diseases in the Gopher locker room anyway. Does make me think there are some local HS coaches who lobby against the Gophers, though. Kind of sad.
 

it might be interesting to compare results in 4-5 years of Kaden Johnson against our Wisconsin signee Lucas Finnessy. They appear to be similar sizes. Kaden is considered very athletic and yet Finnessy is quick enough to play DB despite LB size. Finnessy was low profile on the recruiting trail - committed last April. Any expert talent evaluators do a side by side on these two?
Do you consider Iowa and Wisconsin to have "expert talent evaluators"? According to 247, they both had interest in Finnessy (and both offered KJ), but we were his only P5 offer.
 

In my opinion, except for the sport of hockey, Minnesotans over rate all their high school sports stars.
I don't know if I agree with that. Look at basketball, awful lot go on to success elsewhere. Plus all these kids that go to the Dakota football schools (seems like half their rosters) and not only outplay all the other kids in southern schools and recruiting hotbeds like Texas but also many go onto NFL careers. So I'd argue that perhaps they are not overrated.
 

If we were in Texas or something and couldn't get any big names ever I would be worried, but MN really doesn't have the volume of talent where I'm going to worry about MN specifically.

Honestly I think we bring in a good amount of them all things considered.
 
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With a haircut and a shave, Crawford could give a pretty good impression of being PJ.

Capture.JPG
 

It looks like Dylan McGill might still end up being a part of this class? The new OC Coach Sanford and the TE Coach Patterson were down to visit him yesterday.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Had a great time talking to my coaches and having the family here today. This is special!! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/RTB?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc^tfw">#RTB</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/GoGophers?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc^tfw">#GoGophers</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/mommcgill?ref_src=twsrc^tfw">@mommcgill</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/Daydev15?ref_src=twsrc^tfw">@Daydev15</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/DP2Nice?ref_src=twsrc^tfw">@DP2Nice</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/CoachFleen?ref_src=twsrc^tfw">@CoachFleen</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/Coach_Fleck?ref_src=twsrc^tfw">@Coach_Fleck</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/CoachSanfordRTB?ref_src=twsrc^tfw">@CoachSanfordRTB</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/CoachCPatt?ref_src=twsrc^tfw">@CoachCPatt</a> <a href="https://t.co/NS1pcZZT6a">pic.twitter.com/NS1pcZZT6a</a></p>&mdash; Dylan McGill (@DylanMcgillFB) <a href="">January 21, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
 



he just needs to figure out his grades correct?
 




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