PJ said he will play as a true freshman, I do not recall him being recruited or much news about as far as being a big time get. Wonder if any other young guys who were expected to be deep reserves will be on the depth charts.

Two Goph's in the top 100. #28 and #73

One current Gophers commit is on the watch list of our national analysts

Details his summer official to Minnesota, Oklahoma State, and other schools showing interest

Great news!

Ahlibobwa’s Practice Musings 8-15:



So, today it was extremely hard to see the field, as they had us all herded behind a fence into once corner of the field like sheep. Also, the BTN guys disappeared as soon as practice ended, which was disappointing. In past years I have been able to talk to the BTN guys a bit. Because of the difficult viewing aspect of this practice, I decided to dispense with my normal position by position breakdown. Instead, I tracked every drill and nearly every rep throughout the practice and I have recreated those here with some of my feelings about players. Will be honest, this was the hardest practice to evaluate so I just had to row through it the best I could.



‘Team’ refers to 11 on 11

‘7 on 7’ is everybody but the linemen.



Most people know this, but figured it was worth mentioning in case it helps anybody.



**Team Session**



—Howden gets stop on short completion to BSF



—Tre Potts stopped cold on a run



—Tre Potts nice gain



**FG**



Kick no good for Trickett, unsure of yardage but not deep



Athan short completion Geary



Kesich FG try good medium yardage



Trickett FG try good. Another try from there also good



Kesich good



Deeper FG try now: Trickett good



Mid range: Trickett good



Kesich attempt blocked but unsure who got it



**Position Break Out Session**



Simon teaching WRs to keep hips Square during side to side to side drill where they fake outside, but go straight up field (they practice faking to both sides in turn before cutting upfield) Simon is really hands on and is giving feedback all the time in these drills. WRs and linemen sometimes use an overhead tarp to make sure they explode low out of their stances. If they come out too high they hit their heads



All 3 QBs accurate in early uncontested patterns to WRs in eluding on uncontested deep balls. Athan threw a couple short that were completed but the WRs had to drastically adjust their routes. Ciarocca preaching at WRs to ‘get vertical’ quickly on deep routes. Particularly pretty deep ball from Tanner to Wright where Dylan showed his impressive acceleration. Tanner insanely sharp early



**WR/DB drill without a ball:



—Haynes getting on Beanie Bishop for his hip adjustment on a rep he got beat. Haynes exacting in his coaching.



—Hoskins just torched Bishop on a rep and showed insane acceleration doing so. Dude’s burst is unbelievable. I know he’s young and raw but I say redshirt Hoskins this year. It’ll take awhile to refine his game, but his athleticism is otherworldly.



—Bishop nice jam on MBS so not all bad for the Western Kentucky transfer



—Walley doing a nice job on Wright in these drills



—Cade Conzemius got Walley on a rep right after I had the previous thought. Impressive burst from the progeny of the fargo flash



Wright absolutley knocked the stuffing out of Stapp, planted him on his ass and a few people whooped and hollered including yours truly





**Team section**



—First run stuffed cold



—Nice 15 yard completion to CAB down the middle



—Mo doesn’t wanna stop when the whistle blows. Mo is ready for real contact



—Athan complete to a wide open Brockington. Nice route by him



Nubin getting a lot of snaps at RB. Coaches trying to prevent injury so they are blowing the whistle so early on run plays can be hard to determine if the O or D won the rep.



—Tanner nice 12 yard slant to MBS.



—Tanner first bad throw behind Wright who was blanketed by T-Time. Possible tanner was throwing it away to avoid the coverage?



It’s august and I’m already sick of Crawford’s end over end punting style. Much prefer when he just hits spirals. I get that the end over end is for directional punting but damn it’s ugly. But I guess as long as it works who cares, right?



Shamburger got backup punting reps, and I’m gonna say that if Crawford goes down we are win big trouble. The Aussie needs to be kept in bubble wrap outside of practices and games. I do not want to see Shamburger playing outside garbage time.



**7 on 7**



—DBs get coverage stop first rep. Really good coverage across the board



—Second incomplete broken up by Howden. DBs salty early in practice today.



—Third pass incomplete again great coverage. You can tell it’s later in camp and the DBs know the offensive route trees well



—Nubin pick six on 4th rep. Defense goes bananas. 1st team Defense absolutely obliterates the First team offense in first series of 7 on 7. Serious break on the ball and burst from the senior on this play. Impressive stuff.



Don’t get too worried though. I would say overall the offense had a slight edge this practice in the team portions. But for whatever reason the defense dominated 7 on 7. As I stated before, I would argue 7 on 7 is tough on the offense once by this time in camp



Kramer first crack at second team reps in 7 on 7 whereas Athan got first shot at 1st team reps in team. However, Athan got more reps than Kramer overall which makes me suspect he has the edge in the backup race.



—Kramer nice completion mid range not sure who to



—Athan throw into great coverage Wright diving juggling fighting catch. No idea how Wright caught that was amazing.



—Athan misses CAB deep but Stapp had great coverage even if it was a good pass. Of course, against CAB that doesn’t always matter as he wins lots of contested balls



**Team** (harder to see as players are standing in our way)



—OLine nice hole for Mo, could have been big if they weren’t blowing stuff dead at first near contact



—Tanner completion to Potts



—Kramer fools D on fake handoff keeper



Kickoff team: Wenger coaching on loudspeaker. A short session, but Wenger fit a lot of coaching into it. Coverage teams have been good so this seems like an area that should be a strength (coverage teams, not special teams overall where the jury is out).



**Team**



—Tanner beautiful crossing route to wide open BSF



—Tanner completion to CAB with Smith draped all over him. Good coverage, better throw and catch



—D gets good rush and Tanner is forced into short sideline throw to BSF



—Tanner amazing throw to streaking MBS as he was climbing the pocket. Incredibly athletic

play. I legit didn’t think Tanner had the athleticism to throw a frozen rope while climbing the pocket like that. Tanner’s pocket presence has been markedly improved this camp, imo. It’s exciting to see.



—Athan throws into double coverage and it’s broken up



—Athan nice pass to Dino



—Athan completion to CAB



—Kramer swing pass to Potts stopped cold



—Athan bad miss deep



—Athan completion slant Conzemius (Conzemius quickly becoming my fav walk on frosh)



Great hole on outside zone for long Max Grand run! Max Grand had a lot of family there and came over to take pics with them after practice. Team grand excited about how Max played today.



Knuth overthrows Disano on easy pass



**Team**

—Thomas Rush strong move for a sack. Mr. Rush lived up to his name on this rep I will tell you that.



—Defense good coverage forces Morgan to scramble short gain



—Tanner avoids Jah Joyner rush in his face and makes impressive screen pass to Mo. I am amazed the way Tanner can fit balls through small windows when giant defenders are bearing down on him.



—Athan rolls to his right nice throw to wide open clay Geary on a deep out route



—D good push stops Bryce Williams in backfield Jefferies and Joyner leading charge



—D another good stuff on Jordan Nubin. Incidentally, the younger Nubin is clearly the top PWO RB and he appears to be #4 in the pecking order behind Mo, Tre, and Bryce.



—Oliver chases Athan down. Whistle blown early but would have been a sack I think. Oliver can scoot.



**FG**



—Trickett deep try right down the middle good



—Kesich same spot also good





O and D split up to run plays against a skeleton D who isn’t actually contesting them. More of a run through of different plays than a competitive exercise.



PJ Fleck then did an entire segment of practice on a half field around the corner of the building where nobody in the crowd could see. Sounded like some kind of team portion so extra annoying we couldn’t see it. I guess they had to make the BTN crew feel special with exclusive access (snark).



Next section as narrated by a screaming PJ Fleck:

‘The ball is the program. The ball, the ball, the ball!’



One drill: take two quick steps forward, juke around a couple bags, ran under a hurdle and then a coach rakes at the ball with a boxing glove on the end of a stick.



Old fashioned run as guys hit you with dummies drill. Guys spinning off the first two dummies, run through the next two dummies, then juke around a yellow trash can manned by a coach who ‘commits’ to one side or the other which signals the player to go the other way



After foam rollers and stretching, Tanner stayed late to throw balls to BSF. They weren’t running full speed but were working on endzone fade stuff



Music I noticed today:



‘Ballin’ mustard and roddy rich

‘Danger Zone’ Kenny Loggins

’Tsunami’ DVBBS &N Borgeous

‘Under Pressure’ Queen (FG attempts only per usual)



The DBs and WRs really competed today. Was impressed by what I saw out of both groups. Again, this was the hardest practice to glean information from, but I think this is a good football team. I was sorry it was so tough to see as I wasn’t able to see much from LOS players.

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Per Shooter:

“I made that statement when Tracy got fired,” Kill told the Pioneer Press last week from Las Cruces, N.M.

“Yeah, I had hard feelings over that. I think anybody would. It’d be like your best friend getting fired. How you going to feel about that? I’m a very loyal person — he got fired when he was 9-4. Nobody in college football understands that move when a guy’s 9-4 and gets fired.”

“My life’s never been the same since I left, not at all,” he said. “But it was out of strong loyalty for someone who worked for me for 23 years.”

“(Claeys) never recovered from that, never has, never will,” Kill said. “Mentally, when something like that happens to you, sometimes you can move on. He’s done that. He’s raising cattle and doing all kinds of stuff. He’s traveled and looked at other programs, stayed (in football) that way. But sometimes stuff happens that you don’t understand.

“The treatment of Tracy was terrible, and the way it was handled was terrible. That’s what I’m totally ticked off about.”

Kill, now 60, said he’s grown older and wiser.Of Fleck’s performance at Minnesota (35-23 entering his sixth season), Kill said, “I’ll give him credit. The guy took the job and continued to work at the job to where it got better and better and better. He’s done a great job of recruiting — he’s a good recruiter. I have no problem with what he’s done — he’s done a good job and has continued to take it where it needs to go. I’m not going to knock him down for what he’s done.

“As for my personal feelings, I’m not taking him to dinner. I’ll tell you that.”

“McKinley’s probably a really good guy, but he wasn’t too smart to do this,” Kill said. “We’re going to play Saturday night (against Nevada) here, then in four days we’re going to play a Big Ten team (Minnesota) on Thursday night there. That’s not smart.”

Kill knows what he’ll be up against when his Aggies come to Minneapolis.

“Here’s the thing we’ve got to get out of that game: We’ve got to get out without getting physically beat up and not having any players left,” he said. “I care about our players staying healthy.”

It’s unclear whether there will be a pregame handshake between Kill and Fleck.

“I don’t know what I’ll do,” Kill said. “I’ll see what he does.”

Over the past few years the Men's basketball big men have suffered more than their share of season ending knee injuries...It has really put a dent in out roster both on the starting lineup and in our depth...why are our Golden Gophers snake bitten when it comes to season ending knee injuries?

Is it just bad luck? Are we cursed?
Do we recruit player with bad knees?
Do other teams have the same number of knee injuries each year?
Is it the the floor of Williams Arena or the practice facility?
Is it the weight training regimen players go through?
Is it something to do with how we practice?

Thoughts?

It been a long dry spell. Come of PJ, who will be the next Gopher?

In the initial AP Poll for the 2022 season, Minnesota earned 31 voting points which would equate to No. 32 in the country.

“I would like to say this: I’m a huge fan of Kirk’s,” Franklin said this week. “Obviously the timing for college football in general, specifically for the Big Ten, was a challenge with our season being (postponed), with COVID. It was a very unique time for all of us.

“Some of the things that Kirk had to deal with were outside of his control. When you are hiring a new offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator or special-teams coordinator and you really don’t have — we had no spring ball," Franklin continued. "He got none of that. I think that is the best way we could describe some of the challenges and issues that had nothing to do with Kirk.”

Good stuff from our Pitt site on the new NIL Clubs that are popping up at various universities (Minnesota being one) and the man behind the programs and how each works for each university and student athlete.

General Thoughts:

• Fun practice. Under the lights at TCF Bank, energy was high at practice and you could tell the players were really enjoying themselves. Looked like they were genuinely having fun, which isn't always the case during fall camp.
• Scouts from the Buffalo Bills, New York Jets, and Tennessee Titans were on hand.
• Terell Smith has come so far. He probably has the nod on the starting job at the moment. His length is huge and he is putting it all together.
• Coleman Bryson will play this year as a freshman. Fleck said so in the post-practice presser. For a true freshman, he is really talented and the game isn't too fast for him.
• A lot of goal line emphasis today. 3rd down emphasis last open practice, goal line today. Individual session was quarterbacks and TE's working on goal line routes: slants, whips, fades, crossers, etc.
• Right tackle is competition is still wide open. I watched that position pretty close today. I think Quinn Carroll is probably the best run blocker of the bunch, but Martes Lewis has a bit better pass protection and movement to him. JJ Guedet is running with the 2's at the RT spot, but I think he is behind the other two at the moment. Lewis' upside is intriguing. That may go into the season.
• Austin Booker was dominant against the 2nd and 3rd units as a pass rusher. Offensive line depth still needs to be built up a bit. They have the bodies, but need some time.
• Daniel Jackson, Logan Richter, Cameron James, Logan Purcell, Jackson Ruschmeyer all held out today (probably also contributed to the above point)
• In 1v1's, goal line was again the emphasis. There are two split sides in 1v1's, the top side and the other side. Tariq Watson (true freshman) works with the top side. A lot of good reps for him against the Gophers best wideouts. It is clear the staff thinks highly of him.
• The GA's and equipment staff are the hardest working individuals round. They are hustling and running around all practice long.
• A mix of rap and rowser music today for practice. The siren music still comes on for important fourth down and third down plays, with the intent that the players have to focus through the chaos.

Was Bucs leading receiver in loss to Dolphins - 6 catches for 73 yards on 7 targets.

General Thoughts:

- I think Minnesota is finally getting to the point they are recruiting the body types they desire. All offensive lineman 6'5"+, all corners/defensive backs 6'0" or taller, all defensive lineman (ends especially) 6'5". Besides Trill Carter and Jacob Schuster, I think every DT is at least 6'4". With Deven Eastern and Gage Keys, you are looking at two DT's that are 6'5" or taller. All defensive ends are at least 6'4". Every tight end is 6'5" at least. The body types especially on the lines are noticeable.
- Michael Dixon is not just a gadget player, he is an every down player. He looks tremendous and the staff will use him in a variety of ways.
- Beanie Bishop had a guardian cap on today, signaling an injured player. He took part in individual drills but nothing more.
- Michael Brown-Stephens, Kristen Hoskins, and Justin Walley returned kicks today. Walley punt returner.
- Coleman Bryson is an impressive true freshman. Easily holds his own out there. With Howden graduating and if Nubin goes to the NFL, watch for him to start or play heavy minutes next year even.
- A decent amount of under center snaps today. I haven't seen that at a Gophers practice since Fleck got to campus. The team incorporated a number of outside zone runs and play action rollouts out of the under center look.
- Dylan Wright is a baller. He stands out almost in every session. Had a sick corner route catch tip toe on the sideline and caught a number of dig routes which he is unguardable versus. One of his dig routes he caught would've been a long gain, potential touchdown against Terell Smith.
- Today I saw Tanner Morgan be patient and go through his progressions on a few plays, something he hasn't always done in the past. He also stepped up to extend plays a number of times, which is exciting to see as at times in the past he tends to back up in the face of pressure.
- With no Bishop, Terell Smith took advantage and had himself a nice day. Multiple PBUs for him.
- Morgan had the best day of the QBs. He looked sharp. The Kirk Ciarrocca connection will do him a lot of good this season.
- The team worked in a number of situations during their 7v7 and team sessions, working with an emphasis on 3rd down. The offensive staff focused on a lot of first down type plays at the sticks (curls, out routes, finding the soft spot, etc.)
- A lot of running back swing routes today, which I don't recall seeing a ton of in the past. In one portion the QBs were working with the RBs on wheel routes. May be an emphasis on that this season. Trey Potts is the smoothest pass catcher of the bunch.
- I didn't see much of JJ Guedet today. Martes Lewis and Quinn Carroll at RT. Quinn may be a step slow, Martes is still a bit raw. I'm not sure what kept Guedet out today, but that is one to watch. That is the one weak spot among the group.
- Offensive line had themselves a decent day. For having four new "starters", the first play of team had Trey Potts burst a long one. Ersery-LT, Ruschmeyer-LG, Schmitz-C, Filiaga-RG, Carroll/Lewis-RT.
- No Daniel Jackson today, but MBS, Dylan, and CRAB are a pretty elite trio. With Jackson their top four will be fun.
- Fun moment seeing Coleman Bryson make a mistake on a play and the next time he came to the sideline he pulled Tyler Nubin aside and they two had a long discussion about the play/responsibilities.
- Interior defensive line I am still wanting to see more from. Trill Carter is the leader, but between Logan Richter, Kyler Baugh, Gage Keys, and Deven Eastern, they will have to develop and be consistent players.
- Jalen Logan-Redding is the starting DE opposite of Rush. Jah Joyner, Austin Booker, Danny Striggow, Lorenza Surgers all rotated in.
- Justin Walley continues to impress. Ryan Stapp opposite of him is a nice player in his own right.
- Michael Dixon works in the slot in their base 4-2-5, on passing downs they moved Stapp into the slot and brought in Terell Smith.
- Braelen Oliver and Mariano Sori-Marin are the two LBs in the base package.