When Do the Gophers Get Commitments? (And Other Recruiting Questions)

We are in the late stages of college football's first installment of the offseason, that period between the national championship and most spring games. Even with those scrimmages on the horizon, practices underway, and a smattering of news items here and there, this part of the year doesn't come with a lot of substantial conversation topics. So it's a good time to do some big-picture thinking.

In the next few months, the Gophers will receive verbal commitments from prospects in the 2023 recruiting class. A few players have already given their pledges, but there are still plenty of spots available.

When should we expect those spots to be filled? History suggests we could see a series of commitments in April. Prospects can start taking official visits in April of their junior years, which tends to mean a wave of commitments in the spring months. Nearly half of the Gophers' 131 verbal commits in the P.J. Fleck era have come between six and eight months of the December signing day:

The 2017 class is excluded from discussion of Fleck's tenure because it was a
transition class and cannot be treated the same as any other year. Any in-season
commitments would have occurred under Tracy Claeys.

The most popular month for commitments has been June, which has had 38 since 2018. Despite no prospects committing to Minnesota this most recent June, no other month has seen half as many total commits. (Interestingly, the Gophers hosted 19 official visits in June 2021 and only eight the rest of the year. One might expect prospects to commit right after their official visits, but that was not the case.) December and April have been the second- and third-most popular months.

As you can see, it is rare that a prospect commits a full year or more before he is eligible to sign a letter of intent. By number of months, Tyrik Henderson and Jonathan Mann were the only to commit 20 months in advance; Mann's April 17 commitment beats Henderson by a couple days for the earliest by calendar date.

It is more common to see extremely early commitments than late ones, however. Only four prospects have committed after the first Signing Day, compared to 10 who did so at least a year before it.

One prospect who committed to the Gophers before his senior year is composite 4-star receiver Anthony Brown, brother of Michael Brown-Stephens. However, Brown decommitted this February.

He, nor any other 2023 recruit, is counted in these data, but his case can be compared to past blue-chippers who didn't end up signing with Minnesota. Jaylen Mayfield, Avante Dickerson, and Sam Jackson (who committed twice to the Gophers) all were 4-star prospects who didn't end up as Gophers after giving verbal commitments.

For a program that doesn't sign that many big prospects, it can start to feel like a trend. One of the top comments on the Reddit post about Brown decommitting reads: "I sorta expected this...seems like every year we get a highly ranked guy that we can't hang on to."

But is there truth in that, or is a pessimistic fan base seeing a negative pattern where there isn't one? I think it's closer to the latter, but I admit it's inconclusive.

Since 2018, Minnesota has seen at least one 4-star prospect decommit in two of Fleck's five seasons. There have been three in total. (Brown makes it three years in six, and four players total.) That means that about a fifth of the 4-stars to commit between 2018 and 2022 have ended up not signing, which is comparable to the rate at which Minnesota's other commits don't eventually sign.

The big question, then, is at what rate all 4- and 5-stars sign with the schools to which they initially commit. It would take too much time to investigate that, but I admit that it's possible there's a disparity nationally between signing rates for blue-chippers and all other prospects. And it's harder to declare that the Gophers don't (or do) have an issue retaining 4-stars when they attract so few in the first place. In short, it's unclear whether it's an actual problem or not.

We can speak with a little more authority on potential relationships between a recruit's commitment month and whether he is retained in the final class and, eventually, stays on the roster.

Within the sample, exactly 25 percent of the Gophers' 92 commitments that came six months or more before Signing Day ended up not signing. Comparatively, all but three (9 percent) of prospects who committed within five months of Signing Day signed. In other words, commits from before or during the spring are more likely to change their mind than those from the back half of the year.

But it's worth noting that roster attrition affects late commitments more than early ones. Three-quarters of signees who originally committed at least six months before Signing Day have made it to campus and then stayed on the roster without transferring or departing the program for any reason other than graduation or the NFL Draft.

That proportion drops to 55 percent for signees who committed less than six months before Signing Day. (Both figures should be treated as overestimates of long-term retention rates, considering Fleck has yet to see any of his signing classes fully graduate — including the 2017 class, which has four representatives on the current roster, plus a former walk-on in Clay Geary.)

It's not hard to devise a general hypothesis for why it works this way. High school kids can rush to decisions, and that becomes even more likely when put under pressure to make a quick decision. Coaches want to fill out their classes quickly so that there isn't as much work to do during the season and closer to Signing Day, which creates a picture of scarcity — "We've only got so many spots, and there's no guarantee one will be there in December."

The kids who commit early have a lot more time to reevaluate their choices. A recruit could also easily change his mind over the course of a summer, especially if he has a big senior season and gets more offers. If, after letting all that time pass, they determine that the school they initially picked is still right for them, it makes sense that they would be more likely to look at their destination as a long-term home.

Conversely, players who commit closer to (or after) Signing Day may have done so under the pressure of a deadline. They could walk into situations that they realize after a year or two aren't for them.

If you want to make it specific to Minnesota: Fleck has a reputation of putting a lot of pressure on recruits to commit. (How much of any individual story you believe is up to you, but there's no denying the reputation exists.) He rarely signs players in January, filling out most of his class in the early signing period. He often talks about how people either love him or hate him. Some players who decide to attend Minnesota in the weeks leading up to Signing Day might find out they are in the latter category once getting to campus.

There's also the larger question of whether attrition is an issue more specific to the Fleck Gophers than to past coaching staffs or to other programs. It's impossible to answer definitively without a more complete data set, but certain anecdotal points make the question a fair one.

Fleck signed 67 players in his first three years. Of them, 28 (42 percent) either did not arrive or left the program early. Again, we need additional context; in a time of dramatically increased transfer activity, that could be a more mundane number than it seems on its face.

That said, there are programs that don't see many of their players transfer. As an example: Clemson, for all the ways that Dabo Swinney earns criticism, does not sign oversized recruiting classes and does not see many players leave. According to 247's transfer portal tracker, Clemson has seen an average of 7.5 players depart every year since 2019. Minnesota, by comparison, sees 11.5 outgoing transfers a year. This number has increased as Fleck has relied more on adding experienced players via the portal.

Medical retirements are another factor to consider when examining Minnesota's roster churn. Last year, WCCO spoke to some former Gophers about how they had to give up football due to injuries. They described practices that were more strenuous and violent than they expected — or, if they had transferred in, seen at other schools — as well as a pressure to quickly return to the field and act as if they were feeling "elite," even if they weren't.

Since that story, Jason Williamson and Bryce Witham have also retired from football. Though this is an inherently dangerous sport, it's important to acknowledge that Minnesota may have a problem with medical retirements — and that it might be for unpleasant reasons. College football is an unpleasant business.

We should keep that in mind when discussing any dimension of recruiting and roster management, and for any program. It's an area where those with money and agency (coaches) can use their power over those who often have much of either (players). This usually occurs in ways we don't regularly see, and we don't always want to acknowledge it. It's important to remember that behind recruiting ratings and any kind of data are young people.

All commitment and decommitment dates come from 247Sports' recruiting database. High school and junior college prospects offered scholarships comprise the dataset; transfers and preferred walk-ons were not observed except where specifically mentioned. To avoid double-counting, players who were committed to Minnesota multiple times only were counted by their final commitment date. (For example, M.J. Anderson originally committed in August 2018, de-committed, and then re-committed in December. He was considered a December commit.)