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Based on reports out of fall practice and expected contributors, this would be my projected 2-deep for Gopher Football 2013.
With comments below...
| MINNESOTA | ||||
| OFFENSE | ||||
| Pos | 1st Team | YR | 2nd Team | YR |
| QB | Philip Nelson | SO | Mitch Leidner | rFR |
| RB | Donnell Kirkwood | JR | Rodrick Williams / Berkley Edwards | SO / FR |
| FB | Mike Henry | SR | Tyler Hartmann | rFR |
| WR | Isaac Fruechte | JR | Andre McDonald | SO |
| WR | Derrick Engel | SR | Eric Carter | FR |
| WR | KJ Maye | SO | Jamel Harbison | rFR |
| TE | Drew Goodger | JR | Maxx Williams / Lincoln Plsek | rFR / SO |
| LT | Ed Olson | SR | Marek Lenkiewicz | JR |
| LG | Zac Epping | JR | Joe Bjorklund | SO |
| C | Jon Christenson | SO | Tommy Olson | JR |
| RG | Caleb Bak | JR | Isaac Hayes | rFR |
| RT | Josh Campion | SO | Foster Bush | SO |
| DEFENSE | ||||
| Pos | 1st Team | YR | 2nd Team | YR |
| DE | Theiran Cockran | SO | Alex Keith | SO |
| DT | Ra'Shede Hageman | SR | Scott Ekpe | SO |
| DT | Cameron Botticelli | JR | Roland Johnson / Yoshoub Timms | SR / rFR |
| DE | Michael Amaefula | JR | Hank Ekpe / Ben Perry | FR / JR |
| OLB | Aaron Hill | SR | Nick Rallis | rFR |
| MLB | Damien Wilson | JR | Jack Lynn | rFR |
| OLB | De'Vondre Campbell | SO | James Manuel | SR |
| CB | Derrick Wells | JR | Briean Boddy-Calhoun | JR |
| S | Cedric Thompson | JR | Martez Shabazz | SR |
| S | Brock Vereen | SR | Antonio Johnson | SO |
| CB | Eric Murray | SO | Jalen Myrick / Demarius Travis | FR / SO |
This team may not exactly be "young", particularly when it comes to the 1st team O and D. But they are lacking in seniors. When you factor in the 2nd team where you have 8 redshirt freshmen in the mix for playing time along with 9 sophomores, then you start to see that there is still plenty of youth on this roster.
| 1st Team | 2nd Team | Total | |
| FR | - | 4 | 4 |
| rFR | - | 8 | 8 |
| SO | 7 | 9 | 16 |
| JR | 10 | 4 | 14 |
| SR | 6 | 3 | 9 |
Things can still shift around and there are few other player in the mix for playing time that I did not include in the above chart. Additional tight ends and defensive backs come to mind pretty quickly.
I would expect that an official 2-deep will be released a week from Monday leading up to the UNLV game. Until then you can use this as a guide for discussion.