Article

MSU Football Coach High on Recruiting Class

Jamrog Adds Size, Including a 'Big Ten'- Caliber Lineman

February 3th, 2005
By Chad Courrier
Free Press Staff Writer

MANKATO During the recruiting season, Minnesota State football coach Jeff Jamrog listed players by position on the big board in his meeting room.

He wanted to have a long list of available high school players because you never get everyone you want.

Until now.

"The reception we got from players who visited here was outstanding," Jamrog said. "I've never been anywhere where we got everybody we targeted, but we did this year."

Building on the success of last season's 6-5 record, Jamrog signed his first recruiting class at Minnesota State Wednesday, getting seven junior college players who will enroll immediately and 27 prep players who represent the future of Maver-icks football.

"The whole staff did an outstanding job, I can't say enough about them," Jamrog said. "They were out there busting their butts. The put a lot of miles on their cars."

Jamrog's emphasis was size, and he's landed eight offensive linemen, two from junior colleges - Zach Verdin and Luis Solis - that he feels may be able to provide immediate help to fills the holes left by last season's seniors Christian Har-meyer and Bob Jeske.

The high schoolers are Adrain Battles (6-foot-4, 280 pounds), Josh Clausen (6-3, 270), Nate Fehr (6-6, 270), Alex Lauer (6-5, 325), Andy Schoon-over (6-4, 275) and Mike Ziedler (6-3, 290).

"The six high school players, we feel really good about them," Jamrog said. "We may end up redshirting some of them, but there's a couple of guys that when they come through the door, they look like they've been in a college system for a couple of years."

Jamrog also concentrated on defensive lineman, signing Josh Ankley (6-4, 295), Chris Brunkhorst (6-4, 285), Brad Diel (6-3, 265), Andrew Franklin (6-2, 265), Austin Hayner (6-3, 240), Mark Peterson (6-2, 245) and Jared Schwanz (5-11, 285).

Jamrog said that he had given up on recruiting Brunkhorst, whose coach said a couple of months ago that he was going to attend Michigan State.

"I don't know what happened, but he's a Big Ten lineman," Jamrog said. "He's as good-looking a kid as we'll ever get here."

The rest of the class includes two quarterbacks, two running backs, one tight end, four receivers, four linebackers and five defensive backs.

The class is a diverse geographic group, taking advantage of the coaching staff's regional ties. Jamrog has history in Nebraska, and he drew two players from the Omaha area. Spence Nowinsky and Joe Klanderman are former Minnesota State players from Wisconsin, and they talked eight players into coming here from that state. Ken Gordon has roots in Missouri, where he grabbed three players.

And there are 11 kids from Minnesota.

"You try to find kids in this area, and then you start branching out," Jamrog said. "The biggest determining factor in recruiting is distance, and we were able to get some kids from five, six hours away.

"We had a lot of parents make the visits, and they felt comfortable with Minnesota State and Mankato. It was an easy sell."

Jamrog likens this group of incoming players to the first class when he was an assistant at Nebraska-Omaha in 1994. Nebraska-Omaha went 1-10, then signed 36 players. The next season, the program was 3-8 before jumping to 10-1 in 1996.