gophers/ncaa

Classic. Gophers rank dead last, and the coach calls the campaign "Successful". My favorite part was the recap of the five SEC schools Donavahn Jones had offers from....Please. All-State in Georgia and no offers from Florida, LSU, Georgia, Alabama or Auburn??? That's a little fishy. Then there's the "all time receiving leader from California" who the Gopher faithful are drooling over. Well....I live in California, watch a fair amount of high school football on TV, and I can assure you that the "all time receiving leader" would be a special teams player at all of the big name high schools around here (Poly, Mater Dei, Crespi, O Lutheran, Servite, Mission Viejo, etc). And to compare the kid to Eric Decker, as many posters have done recently, is blaspheme. If the Gophers really want to be competitive (and I'm not talking about 6-5 and going to the Car Care Bowl) get a coach with PRESENCE. Get someone who can walk into a living room, sell the attributes of a world-class University, sell the great community, sell the wonderful city to start a career in once you graduate. Get that coach. Those coaches are out there. They may be assistants, or head coaches at D2 schools, but they are out there and we need THAT guy to turn things around. Heck, Wisconsin did it. Wisconsin was terrible when I was a kid, and they did a total 180 and became the force they are today. I mean, how does a school like Louisville get Charlie Strong, and Minnesota gets Jerry Kill? I would bet that Charlie Strong would do better than Kill has done with the in-state talent. This year, Kill got 1 of the MN Top 10 Rivals.com recruits to commit to the Gophers. And he's the one on the list who blew out his knee. Charlie Strong, meanwhile, got the best Kentucky QB and overall #1 player in Kentucky to commit to Louisville- and he's competing against the Alabamas, Floridas, LSUs and Georgia's of the world and keeping the top talent in state....and these kids are committing to Louisville....Louisville. Ever been to Louisville? It's an armpit. But I'm not posting this in an effort to get Charlie Strong to Minneapolis. I'm posting this to make a point that there are Charlie Strong types out there who can raise the bar for Gopher football. Jerry Kill is not going to raise the bar, folks. Enough with the Gopher faithful and beat writers looking at each season through rose-colored glasses. Enough with settling for poor performance. Enough with Wilford Brimley coaching the team already. Higher standards, please. We deserve it and the kids coming to play here deserve it.

agree 100% with roadies

Hard to get excited. It's the "same old, same old".

Charlie Strong was a finalist for the U of M job at one time. We took Brewster.

The only "surprise" I will have is if De'Vondre Campbell stays committed to the gophers. I have a funny feeling he will end up elsewhere before the ink on the LOI has time to dry

The qualiry of high school football has to get better before the Gophers ever can get into the 1st division of the Big 10 (or is it Big 14?) There is no spring football, little or no summer football camps for youth, just a handful of U of M alumni coaching at the middle school/high school level. J Robinson's alumni and current wrestlers are coaching youth wrestlers all over the state and year around. The results, we are in the top 3 states in developing D1 talent. Maybe Jerry Kill should do the same.

For the uninformed, the difference between being ranked 12th and 6th is the slimmest of margins. To the haters of MN, if Kill is such a horrible recruiter then how do you explain WI, who just went to the Rose Bowl, being ranked 11th by Rivals in the Big Ten? Do you think Becky is worried about finishing next to last in recruiting?

roadies2004 Assuming you find the right coach, who can turn this thing around in 2 years, what is to keep that coach from heading to the NFL or SEC? If we change coaches and don't get the right coach, then we start over again, and again. Must be nice to live in a World where one can snap one's fingers and problems disappear.

This is Kill's second full recruiting class-his first class were mostly Brewster's kids. Give him a chance. You can't keep firing coaches every two years. Unless it is Brewster, who never should have been hired in the first place. What in the world was Maturi thinking???

Good to hear Arkansas and Bret Bielema didn't get Jones.