Minnesota Football Recruiting: Gophers football with several visitors this weekend

With the fantastic spring being had by the baseball team, Gopher football recruiting has been neglected here. But have no fear, PJ Fleck and staff have actually been recruiting their tails off and this weekend is a big one with several recruits in town for an official visit.

CURRENT CLASS

As a refresher, the current 2019 recruiting class stands at 11 verbally committed kids. This class is not going to be as large as last year’s class, so having 11 at this point really means that are most positions, there are not very many spots remaining. Below is a look at the current class.

• QB - Cole Kramer - Eden Prairie
• QB - Jacob Clark - Rockwall, TX
• RB - none yet
• WR - none yet
• TE - none yet
• OT - JJ Guedet - Washington, IL
• DE - Jason Bargy - Momence, IL
• DE - D’Vion Harris - St. Louis, MO
• DT - Logan Richter - Perham, MN - committed last year, greyshirted and will be a part of the 2019 class
• DT - Keonte Shad - JUCO
• DT - Chris Daniels - JUCO
• LB - none yet
• CB - Tyler Nubin - St. Charles, IL
• S - none yet
• ATH - Jason Williamson - Owatonna, MN - likely LB or S
• LS - Brady Weeks - St. Peters, MO - long snapper

You can quickly see that the 2019 recruiting is going very well along the defensive line. A couple of JUCOs along the interior to help balance out the classes while the staff also added a couple of exciting ends.

But more is needed and this class may be shy of 20 total commitments, so there really are not a lot of spots remaining.

This weekend there are several visitors coming to campus to check out the U. Here is who will be visiting with a couple sentences on who they are.

OFFICIAL VISITORS

RB - Jirehl Brock - This is the kid who is headlining the weekend. Brock is a 4-star running back out of Illinois and Gopher fans who pay attention to recruiting are drooling over Brock. Most predict that Brock will end up in Iowa City, but visiting this weekend will be an important time for Fleck to work his magic.

RB - King Doerue - Texas back who is taking his first official visit this weekend but has offers from Ole Miss, Texas Tech, Texas A&M, Missouri, Nebraska, Arkansas, TCU, Notre Dame and many others. Big and bruising back who will be coveted by many of the programs listed above.

DT - Isaiah Gibson - You may notice that there are already 3 DTs committed to this class. But Gibson would be an absolute take, regardless. Has taken an official visit to Wisconsin, has another set with Purdue and the current crystal ball projects he ends up at Kentucky.

DT - Jason Blissett - See note about DT numbers in the paragraph above. But once again, Blissett would be a take! Brooklyn New York prep school kid who appears to be down to Rutgers, Syracuse and Minnesota. But more offers continue to come in and he has dozens of offers.

DT - DeAngelo Griffin - Yet another DT coming up this weekend. One will certainly be accepted, possibly two. Griffin has offers from South Carolina, Wake, Indiana, Georgia Tech, Kentucky, Maryland and others. Georgia kid who could add to the Georgia Gopher legacy.

OLB - Donald Willis - Cleveland native and absolutely a position of need in this class. Has Big Ten offers from Illinois, Rutgers and Purdue along with West Virginia who may be the biggest challenger here.

OLB - James Gordon IV - At least 2 linebackers will have to come in this class, Gordon IV is a thick linebacker with offers from Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Purdue and Iowa State among other smaller schools. Just 5’11” but comes in at 215 lbs as a soon-to-be senior.

CB - Solomon Brown - Also a major position of need in this class so Brown would be a great addition. Currently this would appear to be a battle between Iowa and the Gophers for the Florida native.

There you have 7 official visitors coming to Dinkeytown this weekend. Hard to imagine that at least one or two won’t end up committing by the time you pull up TDG on Monday morning.

GN WANTS

Give me Brock and Brown to commit this weekend and I’ll be incredibly happy. One of the DTs and Willis would be great too. But Brock and Brown are two very good players who are basically down to Iowa and Minnesota. Landing them would be a win-win.

ROSTER SCHOLARSHIP MATRIX

Always a fluid matrix, but this generally gives you an idea of what positions are of the greatest need and how few scholarships are actually available.