In the current issues both Sporting News and Sports Illustrated praise the 2008 Gopher football recruiting success. In unprecedented coverage of the school’s recruiting, the two national publications joined with other news sources in admiring the work of coach Tim Brewster and his staff for a recruiting class acknowledged as among the top 20 in the country despite coming off a 1-11 season and decades of mediocrity and abysmal on-field performance.
Sporting News included the Gophers among its “top 10 signing day stories.” Under a “Minnesota matters” heading, the publication described Brewster as a “voracious recruiter who is selling his vision.”
SN ranked the Gophers’ recruiting class 16th in the country, placing Minnesota only behind No. 9 Ohio State and No. 10 Michigan among Big Ten schools. The Gophers were ranked one spot behind No. 15 Texas, another super power among college football programs and a school that signed Brewster’s son Nolan, from Denver Mullen. Imagine where the Gophers would have ranked if star recruits Nolan Brewster, Michael Floyd of Cretin-Derham Hall and Willie Mobley of Eden Prairie all signed with Minnesota. That was a possibility last year.
For the Gopher football program to draw attention in Sports Illustrated is almost as rare as a Jesse Ventura sighting. Years ago quarterback Bobby Cox made the cover as “America’s best quarterback” and more recently extraordinary running backs Laurence Maroney and Marion Barber III were featured. But coverage of Gopher recruiting in SI? No memory of that!
Under a “Gophers Strike Gold” heading, SI referred to Minnesota as one of the recruiting season’s surprise success stories and said Brewster produced a “consensus” top 20 class. In a related article about the college football trend to big, physical quarterbacks like Florida’s Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow who can devastate opponents passing and running, SI included Minnesota recruit MarQueis Gray. The magazine said the 6-4, 220-pound Indianapolis player “had Minnesota coaches envisioning touchdowns through the air and by land.”
The Gophers’ recruiting class success was both anticipated and surprising. Brewster had a reputation for years while an assistant coach for being among the nation’s best recruiters. Then, too, he hired his staff based on their collective abilities to recruit as well as coach. But consider, too, no school other than Minnesota that produced a top 20 class was coming off a 1-11 season. Compare, too, Minnesota’s big time bowl history in the last 50 years with other schools in the Sporting News top 25 recruiting list and see how shabby the Gopher scrapbook looks (you remember the 1962 Rose Bowl, right?).
The Gophers’ recruiting success is no surprise to recruiting analyst Tom Lemming who is among the most quoted of authorities year after year and has admired Brewster for a long time. On the Gopher Web site, www.gophersports.com, Lemming said,“Tim is one of the top 10 recruiters I’ve ever seen.”
Recruiting rankings and articles are fun. They are downright uplifting after a winless Big Ten Conference season, but the more important results will come during the next couple of falls. How much success will the Gophers have on the field? Right now it appears the class of 2008 provides Brewster and staff a bright future.