The dead period ends on the 11th correct ?

What is the ETA on coaching hires ?

MJH? Do you have an update on Chambers? Has he be been contacted by Fleck and offered? If he has been offered is he weighing his option between us and Ole Miss? He would be my favorite WMU flip and probably my second favorite guy in the class behind Blaise.

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Fleck lands a big one. Olney (Md.) Good Counsel running back Mohamed Ibrahim, the nation's No. 36 running back, has committed. Ibrahim also holds offers from Iowa, Kentucky, and West Virginia. Ibrahim is now tied with Andries as Minnesota's highest-rated commit.

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From 247 article. The zone blocking and balance based off the run game reminds me of Mason a touch.

"Fleck’s offense is a spread-option style and emphasizes getting the ball to his best players in the system. Much of the foundation Fleck has on offense is built around the running game. They run zone blocking and often use an H-back to pave the way on the edge. In addition, he will call a zone running play with a bubble screen wrinkle on a consistent basis. When you watch tape of Western Michigan, you will see a plethora of formations and option designs that tailor to the best players on the field. Fleck does a great job of isolating his players and placing them in situations to be successful. Not to mention, he trusts his quarterback to make accurate reads and calls at the line of scrimmage on a consistent basis."

wren will hate it, but this latest recruit has me wondering what the over/under is right now for wins next season. I'll be conservative and say 7 wins, 'cause Coach Fleck says he isn't worried about wins in the early days, he's more concerned with installing the system.

tompowers2016@gmail.com

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Purdue up 48-32 with 12 minutes remaining.

Link: Morgan ready to make Minnesota elite

Had technical difficulties late last night but will crank out stories today.

It will be interesting which way Fleck goes in the style of defense he brings to the B1G. Still waiting to see if he brings his WMU DC or stays with Sawvel.

Fleck opened up by saying that he hasn’t had more fun in coaching than the past two days. Said that it was “elite” and that he was very honored and humbled to be the head coach at the University of Minnesota.

He said they do want to have a spring game, although they are not sure when exactly it will be yet. He wants to sell out TCF Bank Stadium for the spring game.

On if he will receive or defer if he wins the coin toss, he said he will defer. He said he wants to get the ball after the half, after being able to make halftime adjustments. Says there’s “no better coaching staff in America at making adjustments than the one’s coming here”.

PJ additionally wants open practices for the public.

Fleck had an interesting story in his first year of coaching, he came to Minnesota and the first coach he reached out to was Dave Nelson at Minnetonka High School. He wanted to recruit some of Nelson’s players, but Nelson had to go let his dog out. Nelson invited Fleck over to his house to let his dog out, and he stayed and chatted with Coach Nelson for a half hour. Fleck said it was a unique experience and that he is grateful that Nelson was so generous to him as a first year position coach.

As far as recruiting current commits and new commits, Coach Fleck said when he got here they evaluated everyone as fast and thorough as they could, and noted that he has talked to all of the in-state Minnesota commits, and that they are all “on board”. He said they are continuing to evaluate the players out of state that are committed. The new players that he flipped from Western Michigan to Minnesota, he called them Big Ten Players that are excited to be Gophers.

For scholarships for next year, PJ said you can take 25 scholarships each year, regardless of the outcome of the investigation. Even if those players that are suspended leave, it will not add to the amount of scholarships they have available for this year, they will just be a few spots short on the back end. Coach said he is not concerned with that right now. He mentions a time at Wester Michigan where they only had 41 scholarship players available for spring ball. Coach said he took the job for the challenges.

Dave asked where he sees the team on January 1st of next year, Fleck said it is a process. A few times he re-iterated that he is not going to change the tradition, but change the culture of the team, and that his ultimate goal is to win a National Championship here. Fleck said he has taken some heat already for saying he wants to win a National Championship, but says “if that’s not your vision, then why am I here?” Going forward, everything that we will do will be at a National Championship level in terms of recruiting, facilities, academics, social life, spiritual life, etc.

Coach Fleck said he isn’t concerned with the wins right now, but is focused on what we can do now that will correlate to championships later. “We want to sustain an elite culture, at a high championship level consistently, for the next coming years.”

Coach Fleck will be announced at halftime of the Gopher Men’s Basketball game tonight at 6:30pm. He jokes “I might have Pitino throw me an alley-oop”. The past few days he says he’s been putting together his staff, with a ton of interest for this job, and also recruiting. That includes recruiting our current players to think that the University of Minnesota is the greatest university in the world.

PJ hopes to have his whole coaching staff hired by Thursday, and he’s heading to the National Coaches Convention in the next few days, and hopes to have the whole staff here on campus by next Sunday. PJ said that he is going to do everything he can, and has heard the fans as to which coaches fans want to keep, and he’s going to do everything he can to give them a role with Gopher Football (I assume he is talking about Sherels, among a couple other coaches).

He concluded with saying he is extremely excited to get working with Dave and Mike, and he wishes Sid a speedy recovery. Sid is one of the first people he met when he came to Minnesota, and that he looks forward to working with him in the future. He joked that “he may not have many fans here, but he has one in Sid”.

Does anyone have a way to get recent photos of the new athletic construction from the ground or the air?

PJ Fleck high energy big time recruiter...
New Athletes Village to go with amazing stadium/locker room
New early signing period coming soon

This will allow PJ to get big time kids on campus in the summer

I imagine his high school camp will be fun

my biggest takeaway from yesterday is that, for better or worse, Gopher football is not ping to be relegated to a complete second thought for twin cities sports fans anymore. They will be very high profile.

Some will be hoping Fleck and the program fall flat on their face. Hopefully many, many more will at the very least take a much bigger interest in the outcome of the program. And others may end up jumping on the boat.

Either way, the interest level in gopher football is going to be off the charts both locally and nationally, which is what many have been wanting for a long time.

I hope Fleck can deliver the culture change. It's going to be Much more difficult in this town than Kalamazoo but the upside is much greater too. Ski U Mah

I would personally like to see him stay at QB as he reminds me of Antwaan Randel-El, but will be interesting to see what Fleck decides.

Gopher Wrestling's RS Freshman Fredy Stroker decided to transfer a couple days ago and yesterday his friend RS Freshman Larry Early also decided to transfer. Both wrestlers were having a hard time finding a place in our starting lineup...Stroker was having trouble cutting down to 149 and his record this year was 7-9. Larry Early also had troubles at 157 earlier in the year and went up to 165, ending up with a record of 7-7. With Junior Jake Short solidly entrenched at 157 and with Nick Wanzek dropping down to 165 from 174 as of the Southern Scuffle, there was no place in the lineup for either wrestler.

It's a shame to have to lose 2 out of the 3 blue chip recruits from our 2015 class. We still have 197 pound starter Bobby Steveson, who is doing fairly well. While the loss of Stroker and Early may not have much of an effect on this year's team, it will leave some big holes in our lineup two years from now when Short and Wanzek have graduated. So, we will need to see a major recruiting push for 157 and 165.

The other factor that comes into play here is that Junior All-World heavyweight Gable Steveson (Apple Valley, MN - brother of Bobby) has not committed yet. Gable has been waiting to see how Bobby does at the U and many people think we still have a leg up on Penn State. Gable is a close friend of both Stroker and Early, so this can't help.

Gable just won the 285 pound title at the Cheesehead Invitational in Kaukauna, WI this past weekend by pinning his way to the title. In a very positive note for our Gophers, Sophomore 195 lb. Daniel Kerkvliet (Simley, MN), who is verbally committed to MN, won the title beating two top 10 ranked wrestlers. Kerkvliet is the top 195 lb. wrestler in his class, ranked #9 overall, and may well be the top wrestler in that whole class by the time he graduates. He's That Good!!!

Gopher commit Patrick McKee (younger brother of Mitch) also won the title at 120 over the weekend.

If we can get a commitment from Gable Steveson, we will be in good shape to draw in some other elite recruits. But, it's going to be tricky as I still think it comes down to who can help Gable become a world champion in Freestyle. Coach Eggum is working very hard on lining up big donors to the MN Storm...which may help us get the Gable Steveson commitment done. Gable wants to come to Minny, but he also hears Cael Sanderson's voice off in the distance: "Gable come to PSU and be a champion."

The answer is not yet clear... to be determined!

Here's an article on Larry Early's transfer from FloWrestling:


Larry Early Leaving Minnesota

Photo: Pam Streifel
Larry Early Leaving Minnesota

Jan 7, 2017
Ryan Holmes
FloWrestling.org

Just a few days ago, redshirt freshman Fredy Stroker announced that he will be leaving Minnesota. Now, Larry Early III has announced that he will be transferring, as well.

"Fredy and I did talk about everything, but we haven't decided if we will go to the same school or not," Early said. "We both just want the best situation for ourselves."

Early has been given a full release and has begun searching for his new school. Unlike Stroker, Early will not be leaving any stone unturned when it comes to finding his new home, stating that going to another Big Ten school is not out of the question.

"The coaches have been completely supportive of me finding the right situation for myself," he said. "And I'm not really leaving any schools out. If I feel that a school in the Big Ten is a good fit, I will make that move."

Early competed solely unattached this season at both 157 and 165-pounds for Minnesota.

"Right now I feel like I can compete at either 157 or 165, it all depends on where my new teams needs me to be," Early said.

This dude can flat out recruit. We will have a top 25 class this time next year. No doubt!

Link: Ohio State preview

Many of these players committed in the spring, so their recruitments being closed early is one reason why some of them don't have a lot of offers. Most everyone he's flipped was committed to WMU either before Minnesota had any commits or when Minnesota just had Andries and Abojei committed.

Link: https://minnesota.rivals.com/news/expert-q-a-jarritt-orlando-of-bronco-blitz

Jarritt is the publisher of BroncoBlitz.com, WMU's Rivals affiliate

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Allendale (Mich.) three-star tight end Nate Umlor has flipped from Western Michigan to Minnesota. He also had an offer from Illinois.

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I noticed we're ranked #25 by CBS Sports (which updates their rankings more often). But even more noteworthy is our RPI shot up to #5. We had been holding steady in the #10-15 range for a while.

Also, as Matt's Twitter noted....I like the tweet by Adam Zagoria, who is a well-known high-school hoops insider as most of you know. He again tweeted that Jamir Harris might be the best shooter in the nation. Apparently his team plays tough competition, and Harris is shooting 50+ percent from the arc.

The season premiere of the basketball version of BTN's The Journey will air after the Minnesota against Ohio State game tonight. Extremely well produced show for those that haven't seen it. A nice story on Amir and his sister Nia is featured.

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Quarterback Tanner Morgan

Defensive End Noah Hickcox

Defensive End Esezi Otomeweo

WR Chris Bell

LB Trenton Guthrie

OG John Michael Schmitz

TE Nate Umlor

OT Kyle Sassack

Link: Morgan is elite on and off the field

Great activity on the flipping players front. Love seeing the action.
However.
Anyone concerned about the net result here?
-total number of scholarships now in this year?
-who (player wise commits)from the previous regime goes away?
-is Fleck already counting (scholarship wise) on the final effect of the suspensions?
-gotta save room for Cashman and possibly keeping T Moore.
-if Fleck is indeed successful are we going to regret not having more room next year?
Again no complaints, just questions worth fleshing out