And we roll into August! Vikings open camp today and the Gophers are just days away.
The best news of the summer was announced this weekend. Jonah Pirsig, the talented offensive tackle from Blue Earth announced that he will be a Golden Gopher!
This is great news. For one, he is a very good lineman who will be a fixture along the Gopher offensive line for a long time. But secondly, and perhaps more importantly, he is a Minnesota kid who thwarted offers from Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State and even Ohio State to stay home and help turn the program around. Andre McDonald is possibly going to do the same, assuming he keeps his soft commitment, and hopefully TE-Will Johnson will also choose the Gophers over some very good other offers.
FBT has a feature on the Pirsig commitment.
According to sources, the lion’s share of credit for landing Jonah goes to Matt Limegrover, who blew away the BEA coaching staff and the Pirsig’s with his recruiting pitch that remained consistent and focused throughout the process. Kill repeatedly told the BEAHS football staff and the Pirsig’s that Jonah was the key to his 2012 in-state recruiting efforts and to that point, Jerry and his staff delivered. The Minnesota staff was able to overcome a border town and family with split loyalties to the Gophers and the Hawkeyes and competing programs with more illustrious history of NFL linemen; in the end, his relationship with Limegrover won out, much to the delight of the Pirsig family matriarch, Jonah’s grandmother — a big Gopher fan.
Just about every lineman the Gophers have or ever will recruit will redshirt, so do not expect Pirsig to come in and start next fall. But it is looking more and more likely that in a couple years we will have an all-Minnesota starting offensive line. Ed Olson, Jimmy Gjere and Pirsig will be your starting tackles for the next three or four years. Tommy Olson, Isaac Hayes and maybe Joe Bjorklund at guards. And maybe Josh Campion at center. We will have to come up with some sort of nickname if an all-Minnesota group earns all five starting jobs.
- Tickets for the Big Ten Championship game in Indy sold out within 2 hours.
- Rittenberg gives us the Best of the Big Ten Media Days.
- This Indy Star entry with various B1G Media Day notes has a couple Minnesota related ones.
- And finally, Trevor Mbakwe is still in the running to make the 2011 USA Men's World University team. The team is down to 14 finalists for 12 roster spots. Looking over the roster I would guess that there is still one forward and one guard yet to be cut. Mbakwe is not out of the woods yet but he is dangerously close to getting a chance to play some basketball in China.
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