MINNEAPOLIS – It's been just a year since Jerry Kill took the field for his first spring practices, only five months since he wrapped up a 3-9 debut season with the Gophers football team. It may have been lackluster, but that record in part represented something residual, another man's system, another man's recruits.
Now, as the spring practices of Kill's second season wrap up, it's easy to see that this has become his program. It's no longer about the past, about what Kill has to overcome. Instead, what's happening on the field is about what he's building, and the future was at the forefront during this year's spring practices, where three freshmen, including two quarterbacks, competed after enrolling a semester early.
Mitch Leidner and Philip Nelson are two of the top in-state quarterback recruits out of Lakeville South and Mankato West, respectively, and Scott Ekpe is a defensive tackle from Lewisville, Texas. It's an impressive group of freshman early enrollees, and so far, Kill and his staff are pleased with the progress each has made. And though the three will get a head start on their classmates in regard to training and integrating with the team, there are also reasons to be skeptical of the ever popular practice of freshman early enrollment in college football.
Three freshmen isn't an inordinately large number for a team to enroll in the spring, but to have two quarterbacks in that group is rare, especially at Minnesota. Kill said that all three freshmen have handled themselves well in the classroom and weight room, and he's pleased with the quarterbacks' vertical jumps and speed. Especially for the quarterbacks, whose training and expectations in college are "a whole different ball game" Kill said, this month of practices is invaluable.
The two came in at a high level. Nelson is rated as MaxPreps' No. 2 pro-style quarterback in his class and the No. 40 player in the country. Scout.com ranked Leidner as the 56th-best quarterback in the country and a three-star recruit. But high school talent like theirs still has a long way to go before it equates to a shot on a Big Ten squad, even on a struggling Minnesota team.
"This is like a bonus time for a quarterback with all they have to learn with the transition from high school to college," Gophers offensive coordinator Matt Limegrover said.
Even with the three freshmen Kill and his staff managed to get to campus this spring, the Gophers head coach said he'd have liked to take two or three more high school players early. With graduating college seniors absent from spring practices, squads can be thin, and to have extra bodies on the field always helps. Orchestrating early enrollment can be a complicated process, though, and Kill said he did as much as he could to get the players he wanted to enroll early.
That Kill and other coaches even entertain the option of bringing a freshman to campus in January is a growing phenomenon in the past decade. Ohio State's Urban Meyer has nine early enrollees this spring and said he first heard about freshmen enrolling early when he was at Florida, where he coached from 2005-10. It's the "new wave," he said, and using numbers obtained from Rivals.com early enrollment trackers, freshman early enrollment in BCS conferences increased by 24.8 percent between 2009 and 2010, from 101 to 126.
Early enrollment can be a way for teams to get around an NCAA rule that prohibits them from signing more than 28 players (25 freshmen) in one class. Early enrollees are not counted among those numbers. That can sometimes lead to oversigning, though, which has brought critiques of the practice. But for many schools, early enrollment isn't about getting around rules; it's about maximizing recruits' potential and keeping up with the trend.
"I think it's becoming more popular all throughout the country because we now have guys that are talking to us in the class of 2013 and even 2014 who say, 'Hey, just to let you know, I'm planning on leaving early," Limegrover said. "Sometimes that affects how you go about things."
Limegrover added that often it's players who bring up the option of early enrollment during the recruiting process. One of the most crucial things about a successful early enrollment is that a player be ready, that leaving home early be an idea he's comfortable with. There are also academic considerations related both to enrolling and to graduating, and Limegrover said it's usually better to wait for recruits who consider themselves ready to bring up the option.
Those are often the players who are most competitive, most driven to succeed in football. Those best informed about the process are the players who have met the academic requirements to graduate from high school a semester early, and the edge they'll gain from an extra semester of practice is motivation enough to get them through the extra effort required in school.
"Usually those guys are thinking, 'Okay, this is something that I can do,' and it depends on what school they go to whether they can do that or not," Limegrover said. "That's usually brought up more by the recruit, and to be honest with you, that sometimes makes a guy a little bit more appealing."
Of course it does, but often the players who enroll early are the ones a coach already knows he wants at all costs. Just look at Meyer's 2007 class of freshman early enrollees at Florida, which included four eventual first-round picks: Cam Newton, Mike Pouncey, Maurkice Pouncey and Joe Haden. That list alone should be enough to get most coaches on board with the process.
For players good enough to entertain the idea of leaving college early, an extra semester can mean that much more. But for players like the ones at Minnesota, talented but not to the point that they can assume the NFL draft is in their future, it gives them an early start with the team. When fall camp begins, the system won't be new to them, and for some players enrolling early can lead to an advance shot at a starting role.
Look at Wisconsin's Travis Frederick, who in 2009 became the team's first true freshman to start a season opener on the offensive line. Badgers coach Bret Bielema credited Frederick's early enrollment as a key factor in him earning that opportunity. With experiences like that, Bielema said he hasn't seen any negatives to the process since he arrived at Wisconsin in 2004.
And then there's Ekpe, who between the time he arrived in Minnesota in January and the beginning of spring practice in late March added nearly 30 pounds to his already 248-pound frame. Enrolling early provides players with early access to top-notch trainers and weight programs, to nutritional tips and advice that might not be had in a high school gym.
"He is eating and growing and right in front of our eyes," Kill said of Ekpe. "We told his mother to take a picture because you knew he was going to grow."
In addition, academics go beyond just the standards recruits must meet to enroll early; they also figure into the advantages of arriving a semester early. Instead of starting their first college classes in the midst of what's most likely the most intense football training they've ever experienced, freshmen who enroll early can get accustomed to the pace of college classes with only spring ball to worry about. They can learn what coaches are looking for, Limegrover said, and have more time to work toward better meeting their expectations.
But it's just one spring, a handful of practices and at most schools a hyped-up scrimmage. That's not going to make or break a career, and one spring shouldn't be enough to set the tone for or derail a player's prospects.
"The biggest thing about it is that you try not to expect too much early on because it is such a tough position," Limegrover said. "What you're hoping is that those guys go through the spring and just lay a foundation."
It's a funny thing, when coaches start talking about early enrollment. It's a trend they're wise to get on board with at the risk of their program being left behind, and how could they not like it, really? More time with players, more practicing, an earlier start to negotiating next fall's depth chart – early enrollment seems pretty perfect from that point of view. Yet when coaches like Kill and Limegrover, even Meyer and Michigan's Brady Hoke are asked about the practice, it seems that their first instinct is to temper its benefits. They know it has its flaws, that if not done right it can hamper a program. If college football were just the game and nothing more, if there weren't classes and regulations, standards of conduct and the threat of punishment from both schools and the NCAA, early enrollment might just be the best thing to happen to college football in some time.
But it's not because all those things exist. Bringing a freshman to campus early calls into question things like maturity and assimilation, even homesickness. Players that choose to enroll early miss a chance at a final season playing a different high school sport. They miss senior prom and graduation. They're 17 and 18 years old, thrown in with players in some instances five years their senior. They're forced to mature, faced with a college social scene that can be a dangerous temptation for some. They're neither recruits nor freshman, really, in a self-imposed limbo and banking on improvement.
"I think the biggest drawback in that area is sometimes those guys are kind of a man without a country," Limegrover said. "They're not part of the group that's already been here, the freshman group, so they're a little behind those guys. Those guys have formed some friendships and some bonds… They're here faster than the rest of their class. If you have one or two of them, they kind of struggle with where they're going to fit."
Hoke said all three of his early enrollees this spring are acclimating well academically and socially. That said, three players and several months of success aren't enough to sway the Wolverines' coach. He's still skeptical of that maturity level and unsure whether missing out on the final months of high school is really worth it.
Really, though, it seems that coaches' hesitance is a moot point. Freshman early enrollment is here, entrenched to varying degrees in different programs. Limegrover said he believes that the trend varies more between teams and staffs than by conference, though the Big Ten, Big 12, SEC and ACC have traditionally outpaced the PAC-12 (PAC-10 before 2011) and Big East. Really, though, it's the powerful programs within those four conferences that drive the numbers. Look at Minnesota, where three freshmen is a significant number, or less successful Big 12 programs like Kansas State and Iowa State, who do not traditionally see large influxes of high school players enrolling in January. But then there are programs like Florida, Texas and Oklahoma, who can see upward of five early enrollees each year.
Although part of that depends on the cache of certain programs and the caliber of recruits they're attracting, part depends on location. Texas and Florida high schools in particular seem to send more senior football players off to college in January than any other states, and often those players choose their in-state schools. In East Coast states, those numbers are fewer.
Those factors, both geography and program success, play a part in why Minnesota has seen low numbers of freshmen enrolling early, and no doubt the transition from Tim Brewster to Kill played a part in keeping those figures down last season. But with a new staff in place and three players on campus, Kill might be setting a precedent for the future. Not only will he be better able to evaluate how well the three play and how they handle the situation, but their performances will also send a message to Minnesota's recruits about whether early enrollment is beneficial. Especially for the two in-state quarterbacks, these months and next season will go a long way toward cementing where the Gophers will stand as early enrollment most likely remains a growing trend in college football.
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