Today is day 2 of the Norwood Teague era. Our new favorite AD spent the better part of yesterday doing interviews and meeting with donors. He is saying all the right things thus far but I'm really looking forward to his tenure. I will have more thoughts on Teague and his media rounds later today, but first there are a ton of good links to throw into the Nugz.
To lead things off, Jerry Kill finally has his second verbal commitment in the class of 2013! Alex Mayes is an OT from Van Alstyn, TX is your newest Golden Gopher. He is one of the top 100 players out of Texas and the three-star kid chose the Gophers over other BCS offers from Kansas, Colorado, Kansas St and UConn. His ESPN/Scouts Inc eval leads me to believe he is currently a good run blocker who will need some development as a pass protector.
This guy is a tough customer who displays a nasty finishing effort when run blocking. Mayes appears to be a developmental size prospect in need of a red shirt year before earning meaningful playing time.
This is one the potential commits discussed in my recruiting post a couple weeks ago. With our limited available scholarships this is one kid I am pleased we have secured. I would expect that we will not be landing another offensive tackle (maybe not another offensive lineman) with this class. This also puts us in the running for another Mayes, younger brother Connor is a highly recruited center in the class of 2014. Landing Alex certainly won't hurt out chances.
- FBT has a full evaluation and shares his thoughts on the Mayes commitment.
- I'm not sure if this was ever covered here but in case you missed it Ra'Shede Hageman had his disorderly conduct charge dismissed. This should be no real surprise as Hageman was trying to break up the fight, not participating.
- The "next big thing" for Gopher Football is Philip Nelson. I can't disagree with this assessment but one could make an argument for Andre McDonald
- You probably recall that last year Coach Kill had his Minnesota Lopher list of guys who were not doing the things required of a Gopher. They received a pink T-Shirt and got to do extra conditioning during practice. Well Urban Meyer has a similar list but his list is hilariously the Maize list. I love rivalries and largely because of Meyer and Brady Hoke this one is getting better.
- Speaking of rival schools, this too is pretty funny. The University of North Dakota was mailed the championship banner for winning the FCS National Championship. The problem here is that it was North Dakota State who actually earned this banner. Maybe it is best of the NCAA stays out of declaring a national champion for football, they tend to screw things up anyway.
- Gopher Illustrated takes a look at the top 2013 targets for Gopher basketball ($).
- Tubby's 2012 class earned a B- grade according to ESPN (insider).
- Is Gopher athletics better off now than they were before Joel Maturi took over?
- Adam Weber is currently the back-up QB to Peyton Manning in Denver.
- Lastly, I was gone most of last week so I don't know if this receive proper attention. But Gopher sports continues to do well academically. 22 of 25 Gopher teams have an average GPA of 3.00 or greater. The 3.18 student-athlete average is the highest since tracking began in 1999.