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Golden Gophers Football: Linebacker Andre Polk Commits To 2016 Class

By Brad Berreman

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Mandatory Credit: Caylor Arnold-USA TODAY Sports

In what can only be considered good news, Golden Gophers’ head coach Jerry Kill and his staff continue to find commitments for the 2016 recruiting class in the state of Florida. Linebacker Andre Polk, out of South Fort Myers High School, verbally committed on Wednesday and he is the fourth member of the 2016 recruiting class to come from the Sunshine State. Wide receiver Dredrick Snelson (Hollywood, Florida) and twin defensive backs Elijah and Elisha Daniels (Fort Lauderdale) are the others.

Joe Christenson of the Minneapolis Star Tribune suggested Polk is a consensus three-star recruit, but Rivals.com has a  two-star rating on him with other notable offers from Iowa State, Louisville, South Florida, Marshall and Tulane.

Based on the recruiting mold we’ve seen during Kill’s tenure, Polk seems to be an excellent fit. Golden Gophers football can’t compete consistently for high level recruits, and they should only try in very specific cases. But finding under-the-radar kids and coaching them up has yielded solid results, and a few players have been able to make the leap to the NFL in recent years.

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Polk is listed at 6’2″ and 190 lbs., which immediately makes me think he needs to seriously bulk up or switch to safety for the Golden Gophers. Big Ten linebackers simply can’t be that small and have much chance to be effective against the better teams in the conference, especially traditionally run-heavy outfits like chief rival Wisconsin. But Polk can absolutely become a useful player, and Golden Gophers linebackers coach Mike Sherels deserves a lot of credit here.

Minnesota now has 17 commitments for the 2016 recruiting class.

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