There was some debate on this shortly after he was fired. Link provided.

“The best title I could have is offensive line coach; that’s what I was put on this Earth to do,” Limegrover told ESPN.com. “So I’m in such a good place right now, both physically and mentally.”

He couldn’t say the same in the Twin Cities. Limegrover forced himself to wake up at 3:45 every morning last season to satisfy his extra responsibilities – but it just never seemed like enough. “I was working myself sick,” he said. Because he coordinated the offense from the box on game days, he spent extra time with the line during the week so the unit could make adjustments without him on the sideline.

But when four of those starters suffered injuries, balancing everything became especially tricky. If Limegrover didn’t spend more time with the line, it would’ve become a complete disaster. But, by spending even more time with the makeshift line, that meant he spent less time in other places. It was a lose-lose proposition. Minnesota’s line led the conference in fewest tackles-for-loss allowed (60), but the offense averaged nearly six fewer points per game compared to the year before. Minnesota coach Tracy Claeys fired him in November.

“With Tracy making the decision, I understood because I felt I wasn’t giving what each side needed to have, as far as being a coordinator and being an offensive line coach,” Limegrover said. “I felt that way.”

But Franklin also spoke of the potential and told Limegrover something that stuck with him: I have a lot of respect for you because – and don’t take this the wrong way – but it seems as though you’ve done more with less.

“And I said I don’t take that the wrong way,” Limegrover remembered. “Coach, think about what I can do with more.”

http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/...tate-assistant

Found this video on Youtube today that has a little bit of behind the scenes action with new OC/QB coach Jay Johnson. Seems like a fiery fellow.

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the game will take place at 12:45 p.m. on Saturday, April 9, at TCF Bank Stadium.

The Big Ten Network will carry the game live and their coverage will run from 1-3 p.m. Anthony LaPanta will call the game, while former University of Minnesota coach Glen Mason will serve as the network’s analyst.

The radio broadcast of the game can be heard live on KFAN (100.3 FM). Justin Gaard will provide updates from the sidelines for KFAN.

The football team will take the field at 12:45 p.m. for its annual spring game. The team will begin to stretch, warm up and run a few drills before breaking off into a White versus Gold scrimmage. The game, which will use traditional scoring, is scheduled to be played with two 40-minute halves and a 10-minute halftime. A running clock will be used, except for the final five minutes of the second half.

At the conclusion of the game, fans are invited onto the field for a 30-minute autograph session with student-athletes and coaches.

The spring game is free and open to the public. Doors (Gate E will be the only gate used) open at 12 p.m. to TCF Bank Stadium. Fans wishing to tailgate before the game can do so starting at 11 a.m. in the Ski-U-Mah, Victory, Gold and Gopher lots ($4 for Ski-U-Mah, Victory and Gold lots and $6 for Gopher lot).

Fans wishing to partake in Spring Game activities are encouraged to plan ahead and arrive on campus early as there are non-athletic events taking place at Williams Arena and Mariucci Arena during the day as well.

Schedule of Events:
11 a.m. – Ski-U-Mah, Victory, Gold and Gopher lots open for tailgating
12 p.m. – Gate E opens to TCF Bank Stadium
12:45 p.m. - Gophers take field for Spring Game
3-3:30 p.m. (approximately) - Player autographs on the field

I know women use a smaller basketball. But I just found-out tonight that they use a smaller faster tennis-ball too.

Is that crazy or what. Do we really have to micro-manage it down to taking a centimeter off of a tennis ball and inflating it by an extra psi or whatever. Ridiculous.

I'm not sure if I mentioned this before but the Gopher Spring Game (at this time) is scheduled to be broadcast live on BTN -- SIAP...

You seem to have good Ohio connections - any idea what's up w/ all the OSU transfers?

Groenwagen pitched the first two games and the last two innings of Sunday's game. Nice 3 game sweep of a tough Purdue team on their turf. Groenwedgen named Co-Player of the week in the B1G.

West
Miles Bridges- Michigan State
Shamorie Ponds- St. Johns
Cassius Winston- Michigan State
Malik Monk- UK
Andrew Jones- Texas
Amir Coffey- Minnesota
Omari Spellman- Nova
Frank Jackson- Duke
Marques Bolden- Undecided
Wenyen Gabriel- UK


East
Harry Giles- Duke
Jonathan Isaac- FSU
Alterique Gilbert- UConn
De'Aaron Fox- UK
Bruce Brown- Miami
V.J. King- Louisville
Markelle Fultz- UW
Jayson Tatum- Duke
Bam Adebayo- UK
Udoka Azubuike- Kansas
Tony Bradley- UNC

http://jordanbrandclassic.com/2016-all-american-boys-team/#

Link: Leitao already familiar with tight ends at Minnesota

For the second time in the last few days, the Gophers have offered a 2017 outside linebacker.

Solon Page III, a three-star linebacker, has offers from Louisville, North Carolina, Virginia, Northwestern and Tennessee, to name a few.

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Thanks for the 3 years Hudson! The OT one-timer vs Michigan at home was the goal of the year.

Best of luck with Sabres.

Hopefully this is it for early departures.

Virginia was leading 54-39....but lost 68-62. And to a 10-seed. ESPN staff writer Brian Bennett calls it "one of the worst collapses in Virginia history".

First Jacobson and now Bennett with historic collapses.

Ryan James breaks down the future of the program and what fans can expect next season.

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Yesterday Minnesota was linked to a potential transfer named Akeem Springs who will be a grad transfer and has already told the school he will and the process has begun. The Gophers are one of many who called on him with interest.

The reason he is leaving Wisconsin-Milwaukee is that Coach Jeter was fired after all of these years.

So what's next?

1) Springs really likes his school so he is willing to see who they bring in.

2) He also wants to see where Jeter goes because wherever he lands Springs will strongly consider going there are a grad transfer in the same way that Malik Smith went with Pitino that first year.

3) If he doesn't like those options he will lean towards the high major teams wanting him.

Is he worth it?

Springs is a 6-foot-4 210 pound shooting guard that originally was Northern Illinois as a freshman so he's been in school four years and is graduating.

Played 32 minutes a game this year averaging 13.2 points, 5.3 rebounds. Shot 35 percent from the arc on 111 attempts (about 3.5 trey attempts a game) but was in the mid-20s as a frosh and sophomore.

On a side note, the Panthers won 20 games this year. Jeter has been considered for jobs in the past but never left. I'm kind of surprised that he was let go.

There has been past talk about this high potential young man being a guy the Gophers were looking at but the reason they, and many others have stopped looking at him is because he doesn't have enough credits for a four year school next year. He is expected to go to a prep or play overseas next year.

Minnesota has picked up their interest in Lee College PG Tim Coleman a lot in the past 5-6 weeks. They are expected to see him work out this Wednesday. Coleman wont be taking any visits for another couple weeks at the earliest.

My story on Coleman is linked below.

https://minnesota.n.rivals.com/news/gophers-picking-up-interest-in-juco-pg

This is a guy that the GH brought up sometime in the early winter. Doogie also said something about him.

It's odd but I can find next to nothing about who is recruiting him anywhere but I did talk to his coach who gave me a final five.

https://minnesota.n.rivals.com/news/stevenson-has-a-final-five

I landed the Minnesota Iowa football game and sent a copy of it to the Brickhouse website. Erin told me it should be up sometimes this week. Enjoy guys one of the Gophers greatest wins.

Bob Bostad former O-line coach at Wisconsin was wearing a Minnesota T-Shirt and observing and taking notes while watching our line. If he stops by and observes practice a little know and a little in the fall this could be another boost to improving our OL play.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Bostad

Macura a better basketball player than any of Pitino recruits.

UNI plays better fundamental team defense and moves the ball better on offense than any team Pitino has fielded. Shoots the three better as well.

Amaud Willis-Dalton, a three star linebacker from Texas, received an offer from the Gophers Thursday.

Willis-Dalton has a list of offers than include Purdue, California, Cincinnati, Houston and Boston College.

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to watch Chelsea?

http://www.vikings.com/news/new-sta...b-dba0558f97f8?campaign=sf22961151+sf22961151

The NCAA DI Wrestling Championships finished up last weekend...and with the I Mar/Nolf and Gwiazdowski/Snyder headline matches providing lots of excitement, many people think it was one of the best Finals events ever!!

With all of this excitement at the Natty Championships and with College Wrestling on a big rise in popularity, our Gopher Wrestling program had it's weakest year in many, many years.

As most of you know, we had two All Americans - Brett Pfarr at 197 and Michael Kroells at Hwt. and we took 17th place in the team race with 26 points. While Pfarr and Kroells had very good years, it was a very disappointing year for most of us who are used to having the program in the Top 5 every year.

We have had quite a bit of discussion on the board about why this year was so weak. I still feel strongly that it's a recruiting problem that happened in 2011 and 2012 when several high level recruits came in that just didn't pan out. This left us in an extra weak position this year with no elite level senior starters and no senior AAs. Considering what we had to work with, and with several large holes in our lineup at 125,133,165, and 184, in some ways we performed pretty well for the year. Highlights were:

- We took 3rd in the Cliff Keen Invitational
- we lost 20-17 to a tough #3 OK State
- we upset #8 Rutgers
- we upset #14 ISU
- some significant improvement by Jake Short (at times)
- a good (but not great) year for RS Freshman Tommy Thorn

Other parts of the year were more painful including:

- a very ugly 34-6 loss to archrival IA
- Our weakest weights 125,133, and 184 got even weaker as the year went on
- only two AAs (when others like Thorn, Kingsley and even Short had a chance)
- except for BP and MK, real technical weaknesses across the line-up, especially on their feet.

Even J Rob was shocked and disappointed by our poor showing at the NCAAs, when he said after Day 1, "Today was pretty much the way the season's been. It's been challenging," said head coach J Robinson. "We're not wrestling our style. We're not wrestling our pace. When you get to tournaments like this, it costs you. That's just the way it is. It's something we have to take match by match and day by day. We'll do as well as we can here and then, when we get home, we'll have to fix some stuff."

And again after our wrestlers were done on the last day, "We brought five guys to the tournament and we had two All-Americans. You have to be grateful you got those two All-Americans," said head coach J Robinson. "But then you have to reflect on where we are and what we need to do. Obviously, we have a long way to go. We have to go back and we're going to have to change some things. It'll be an interesting spring."

Most sources that follow the Gopher Wrestlers think that J is alluding to the really bad technical weaknesses we showed all year and at tournament time. Guys practiced their takedowns all year, as well as other mat moves, but much of the time they were too timid to act, or even moreso, if they did...THEY DIDN'T FINISH!!! Tommy Thorn could easily have been almost unbeaten this year if he just finished his shots. And in the tournament, he lost twice in matches where if he just finishes one more move, he wins. He had #3 Kevin Jack's (NC) leg way up in the air twice and couldn't execute a simple mat return (for a 2 point takedown). I'm sure Tommy had plans to be a 4x AA as a Gopher...now he'll have 6 months to think about whether he wants to fix that problem so he can be a winner next year!!

As an aside to this point, we weren't the only team that underperformed at the Nattys. The posters on the IA Rivals Wrestling Forum are having a tough time swallowing a performance where all 9 Hawkeye wrestlers lost their last match at the Nattys and on the last day their wrestlers got only one takedown in 7 matches!! They still like Tom and Terry (TNT) over there, but have a lot of questions about technical abilities, getting new asst. coaches, and changing the attitude of the individual wrestlers from grumpy/fearful/dour to having more fun...like they do at Penn State.

I feel so sorry for Hawkeye Wrestling's problems...it brought tears (of joy) to my eyes while I was reading all of this!!

So back to Gopher Wrestling. We got 26 points at Nattys with 2 AAs and with improvement by Short and Thorn next year, plus several elite redshirt recruits coming into the lineup, we should be in a lot better shape next year. Here is what next year's lineup might look like:

2016-17

125 Lizak - Fargo AA RS Soph.
133 Brancale RS Sr./ Polakowski RS Soph. , Petry RS Soph., McKee - Fargo Champ FR
141 Tommy Thorn - Fargo Champ RS Soph.
149 Stroker RS FR - Fargo Champ/ Short Fargo AA RS JR
157 Short - Fargo AA RS JR/Kingsley RS SR, Larry Early - Fargo Champ RS FR
165 Larry Early - Fargo Champ RS FR/ Krone RS Soph
174 Nick Wanzek - Fargo AA RS JR
184 Bobby Steveson - Fargo Champ RS FR
197 Brett Pfarr - Fargo AA RS SR
285 M K - Fargo AA RS SR

Some observations:

- Lizak was 2-2 at Nattys as a true Freshman and he crushed it this year as a redshirt winning 3 tournaments. He's always been a hammer on top, and has improved on his feet and will a big winner next year
- 133 will still be our weakest weight, unless SB, SP, SP get significantly better. McKee should redshirt, but could be a big winner in the lineup if he was in there.
- Thorn will pick it up a level or two and will AA, start to compete for a natty.
- Stroker killed it this year winning three tournaments. He's also wrestled 157, but he is too small for that weight so he should be at 149. Short may still want to be at 149, but that could leave a hole at 165. Short is very strong for 149, but is not very tall for 157. Short should improve quite a bit next year.
- 157/165 not sure how this settles out depending on who grows and how much weight these guys can cut. Larry Early is ready to go, but if he can get down to 157 he might be better
- Wanzek should get better next year...maybe still not AA until he's a Senior.
184 Bobby Steveson won several tournaments and is a killer...if he can hold that weight (he'll be at 197 later on), he will be a big plus here!!
197 If J'den Cox (MO) goes to Hwt, then Pfarr is #1 and a Natty Champ. Otherwise, he is #2 with a shot at a Natty.
285 Kroells is a top 5 Hwt.

This is top #7-10 lineup, and with another elite recruiting class coming in, it gets better in 2017-18. And if we can get All World Soph. 220 lb. Gable Steveson to commit, we could be top 3 for 2018-19. Gable is leaning our way now along with 120 lb. elite Soph. friend Roman Bravo-Young. So it could be looking pretty good the next few years!

I know some of you think JRob has gotten stale and should be replaced. J is a legend (like Coach Anderson in Baseball) and you just don't replace someone like that. Our program bottomed out this year and we have two elite recruiting classes coming in, with a good possibility of a third one too. J is 69 and I think he wants 2-3 more years, then he will hang it up. Damion Hahn is sitting out there...ready for the picking. And if he brought in Kyle Dake as "Asst. Head Coach" and got him out there recruiting the elite wrestlers and helping train international wrestlers for the MN Storm Wrestling Club, that might be a winning team.

Eggum, Becker and company still have a shot for the next couple years, but they will have to do better than they have been doing lately. I think we have been pushed around too much (we haven't been as "Gopher Tough" as we need to be!!), have been technically weak (as stated above), and have still not recruited enough elite (non MN) wrestlers. Why should we be satisfied with picking up 3 or 4 top 50 wrestlers, with maybe 1 or 2 in the top #10-25...while PSU, IA and OK State get the top #1-5 wrestlers?? Eggum, Becker, Ness, and Schlatter need to get out and recruit big time...or THEY WILL BE GONE!!!

Unless we get more outstate elite (Top 10) recruits, we will still not be able to challenge:

1. Cael, Cody and PSU
2. TNT and Ryan Morningstar (a big recruiter) and IA
3. John Smith and OK State
4. Tom Ryan and OSU
5. Rob Koll, Damion Hahn and Cornell
6. Brian Kelly at MO has been a Top 5 program for several years
7. NC State and VA Tech programs on a big rise

These are my thoughts, so let's hear it...what are yours??? I know some of you must be disagreeing with me as many of you have quit posting to my threads. While I have strong opinions, and I always think I'm right...you are welcome to post and tell me that you think I'm way off base. I've been aiming to get some good discussion going on GI about Gopher Wrestling for a long time.

So here's your chance...what do you have to say??


Go Gopher Wrestling!!
With or without J, Brandon, Luke, etc., ...right back TO THE TOP!!

...As Nothing Less is Acceptable!!!

On the radio this morning it was stated that there is a Twin Cities alumni group that is pushing for Pete Najarian as AD. Kaler not buying on on it yet but .........

Here are the Top-20 teams in the 2016 Final AP College Football Poll that are not 100% commonly known for powerhouse recruiting....and their recruiting class ranking for 2012-2015:


#3 Stanford - 5, 63, 14, 18

#7 TCU - 37, 30, 50, 34

#8 Houston - 59, 50, 77, 89

#9 Iowa - 43, 55, 62, 59

#13 Baylor - 45, 31, 35, 43

#15 North Carolina - 44, 42, 23, 28

#17 Utah - 28, 44, 66, 42

#18 Navy - 86, 95, not in top-100, not in top-100

#20 Oklahoma State - 32, 36, 27, 38


Analysis: Obviously Houston and Navy are irrelevant to this topic. Houston beat Florida State in their Bowl....but that was the only good team they played all year. Iowa had an extremely favorable schedule....before getting destroyed in their Bowl. TCU's 2011 class was ranked #26....which might explain why they were so good last year. Baylor was #46 in 2011 though.

Conclusion: Recruiting matches how good a team is. Of the Top-20 teams....the only indication you can win big without great recruiting is the example of TCU and Baylor. There's a tiny chance to sneak into the Top-10 with recruiting ranked #30-40. Claeys really better step-it-up!! Unfortunately, I predict a setback. I predict MN recruiting to be ranked in the 60's.