Minnesota Football Recruiting: Official Visitors This Weekend, Current Commits and Mystery Guests

This weekend is a huge one for Gopher football. Two weeks remain before National Signing Day and the Gopher football staff is scrambling to fill out their 2017 recruiting class.

Since the day P.J. Fleck took over as the Gopher’s Head Coach, he has secured 14 verbal commitments to the 2017 recruiting class. That averages to about 1 per day! Many of those verbals are visiting this weekend along with a handful of others who we hope to have Golden in the next few days.

This Weekend’s Confirmed Visitors

Current Elite Committed to Minnesota

These are largely the kids who followed Fleck to Minnesota from Western Michigan (not all of them but most) and this is their first chance to get on campus before National Signing Day and they make their commitment permanent.

• QB/S - Rey Estes - C28 Profile
• RB - Mohamed Ibrahim - C28 Profile
• WR - Demitrius Douglas - C28 Profile
• OG - John Michael Schmitz - C28 Profile
• OT - Kyle Sassack - C28 Profile
• DE - Nate Umlor - C28 Profile
• DE - Noah Hickcox - C28 Profile
• DE - Esezi Otomewo - C28 Profile
• DT - Tyrone Chambers - C28 Profile

Visiting but Not Committed to Minnesota...yet

Here are the important recruits visiting this weekend. These kids are either uncommitted or currently committed to other schools.

• S - Kendarian Handy-Holly - (scout profile) - a 4-star safety. Handy-Holly was pursued by the former staff and is being aggressively pursued by the new staff. Landing Handy-Holly would be a huge get and really bump this class in terms of overall talent, particularly at a position of desperate need.
• DT - Kevin Kegler (scout profile) - 3-star defensive tackle who is currently committed to South Florida.
• S - Adam Beck (scout profile) - a 3-star safety who is currently committed to Texas Tech.
• WR - Jafar Armstrong (scout profile) - a 3-star WR who is currently committed to Missouri. Armstrong is 6’0”, 200 lbs and runs a 4.4 40.
• DE - Boye Mafe (scout profile) - Hopkins product who has a Gopher offer and is essentially deciding between Minnesota and Rutgers.

As I mentioned above, coming out of this weekend with Handy-Holly giving a verbal commitment (and not visiting elsewhere next weekend) would be huge. Getting Adam Beck to flip from Texas Tech would be really nice as well, considering how light we are likely to be on defensive backs.

Next weekend is the last weekend to get kids on campus before National Signing Day and the Gophers plan to have more coming next weekend. But this is a big one with so many coming and several who are possibly going to give their verbal after the visit.

Stay tuned...