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Sports Notebook
 | | Goldy Gopher shows off the Goal Line Club’s “Brew’s Crew” T-shirt at the Signing Day ’Sota Social on February 6. Signing day is when high school recruits officially sign on with their chosen colleges. Gopher fans from far and wide converged on the Gibson-Nagurski football complex for the unveiling of the 2008 recruiting class, Brewster’s first. Photo courtesy of U of M athletics. |
Gopher football coach Tim Brewster lived up to his reputation as an ace recruiter when he introduced his first official recruiting class at the Signing Day ’Sota Social on February 6. Brewster welcomed 31 new Gophers from 16 states, including 21 student athletes who rank among the top 100 players nationally at their position.
The 2008 class is the most highly rated class at Minnesota in decades and is one of the best in the nation: Rivals.com, a Web site that tracks collegiate and professional recruiting, ranked Minnesota’s class No. 17 nationally and No. 3 in the Big Ten. By contrast, the average national ranking for Minnesota’s recruiting classes from 2002 to 2007 was 54, according to Rivals.com. The 2008 class includes four four-star (on a five-star scale) recruits; from 2002 to 2007, the team signed only four four-star recruits total.
The challenge for Brewster and staff is to transform blue-chip recruits into a winning team. The Gophers’ most urgent need is on defense, which last year finished last in the nation, giving up 518 yards per game. Newcomers will have to contribute immediately if the team hopes to improve on last year’s 1–11 record.
Even as new players walked in the door, two members of Brewster’s coaching staff headed elsewhere. Defensive coordinator Everett Withers, a native of North Carolina, accepted a similar job at the University of North Carolina, and director of football operations Randy Taylor resigned to pursue other opportunities. Ted Roof, head coach at Duke University for the past five years, was hired to replace Withers. The Gophers have had difficulties retaining defensive coordinators in recent years; Roof is the team’s sixth defensive coordinator since 2000. A successor to Taylor has not yet been hired.
Gopher baseball coach John Anderson (B.S. ’77) was inducted into the American Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame in January, joining former Gopher coaches Dick Siebert and Frank McCormick, along with former player and assistant coach Jerry Kindall (B.A ’59, M.Ed ’68). (Kindall played nine seasons in the major leagues and coached the University of Arizona to three College World Series titles and 860 wins in 24 years.) In his record 26 seasons at Minnesota, Anderson has compiled a .615 overall record in guiding the Gophers to 20 second-place or better finishes in the conference. He is the winningest head coach in Big Ten history. —Cynthia Scott
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