Rivals.com ranks the Gophers 2012 football recruiting class last in the Big Ten. Is that a precursor of more losing seasons in Dinkytown? Well, that depends on whether your beer stein is half empty or half full.
Rivals lists 22 verbal commitments for the Gophers and only six of those players had offers from other BCS schools, according to local Rivals expert Zach Johnson. “They have a lot of solid commitments right now, but no one I think on paper that would excite a lot of people,” he told Sports Headliners.
The Gophers have nearly a full recruiting class already and more commitments than 10 other Big Ten schools, according to the Rivals website. That means there’s not much remaining potential for the Gophers to bolster their rankings by Rivals and others who evaluate college recruiting.
But Johnson, whose byline is seen on GopherIllustrated.com, pointed out that because many of the Gophers recruits committed early they didn’t position themselves to collect multiple offers from BCS schools. Mankato West quarterback Phil Nelson is an example of a player who could certainly have had more than the one offer from Minnesota. “I would want to count a kid like that,” Johnson said.
What Gophers fans can count on with Kill and his staff is a recruiting approach that won’t shoot for the moon trying to lure high profile four and five-star prospects. Kill and his assistants will trust their evaluation skills to identify talent they can develop into Big Ten winners.
“That’s what he’s going to have to do to build this program because right now ─ with the current status of the program ─ you’re not going to be able to lure in a lot of four-star recruits that have offers from the top teams in BCS conferences,” Johnson said.