Lemming honors Kill and Glassock with national awards, praises the Gophers' recruiting efforts

Tom Lemming, who has 37 years of experience as a national recruiting analyst, praised the recruiting efforts of Jerry Kill and Gophers recruiting coordinator Billy Glasscock.

January 26, 2015 at 7:17PM

Veteran recruiting analyst Tom Lemming honored Jerry Kill with National Coach of the Year honors last week on CBS Sports Network. Lemming also recognized Gophers recruiting director Billy Glasscock as one of five national directors of operations of the year.

Lemming told me today that Urban Meyer and Nick Saban have been repeated winners of his National Coach of the Year award, and he wanted to recognize Kill. Jimbo Fisher was another finalist.

"I take everything into account, how you built it up from scratch," Lemming said. "[Minnesota] was down in the dumps for a long time, and [Kill's] doing it the right way, evaluating and developing the top prospects.

"It's a lot easier to build up Ohio State or Alabama or Florida State -- the other three finalists in our coach of the year thing. I just thought he made more of an impact than they did at their schools and actually made a bigger jump than they did."

Lemming had good things to say about several of the recruits in Minnesota's 2015 class. A sampling:

QB Demry Croft: "Nobody knows about him. I'm only an hour away from [Rockford, Ill.], so I go up there and I've seen him. I love the kid. He's got great potential. He's that good. He could be a big, big time guy. He could be the guy that could lead them to a Big Ten championship someday."

DB Antonio Shenault: "He's another big-time, four-star kid out of Chicago. Legit cover corner. He's got terrific all-around ability."

OL Quinn Oseland: "He has an excellent offensive line coach at Sacred Heart-Griffin [in Springfield, Ill.] State champs again this year. Quinn Oseland has potential to be an All-American at Minnesota."

about the writer

about the writer

Joe Christensen

Sports team leader

Joe Christensen, a Minnesota Star Tribune sports team leader, graduated from the University of Minnesota and spent 15 years covering Major League Baseball, including stops at the Riverside Press-Enterprise and Baltimore Sun. He joined the Minnesota Star Tribune in 2005 and spent four years covering Gophers football.

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