Sting Factor: OL Austin Barber decommits from Minnesota
When a major program loses a key recruit, Rivals.com takes a look at how big of a blow it is to the respective school, analyzing it from a local and national level. To quantify the “sting” of each decommitment, we assign a score from one to 10, with one being no big deal and 10 being a catastrophic hit.
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THE STORYLINE
Minnesota coach P.J. Fleck has had tremendous success recruiting massive offensive linemen, bringing them into the program and developing them even further.
Austin Barber looked like that kind of project, a 6-foot-7, 314-pound offensive lineman from Jacksonville (Fla.) Trinity Christian. It was also another major recruiting win in the state of Florida for Minnesota and that’s also important to Fleck and his staff.
But in recent days, Barber backed off his pledge to the Golden Gophers. This sounds like a case of the three-star offensive lineman deciding to stay closer than home rather than heading to the Twin Cities.
Recently, Mississippi State offered, but many other programs throughout the Southeast are involved in Barber’s recruitment and could step it up even more now that he’s back on the market.
The Gophers are left with only two offensive line commitments in three-stars Logan Purcell and Cameron James.
LOCAL REACTION
“The decommitment of Barber is one that doesn't come as a huge surprise, especially after he picked up the recent offer from Mississippi State. It's a situation where he really liked the Gophers and committed in the spring after taking a virtual visit, but he was never able to step foot on Minnesota's campus. Therefore, over time, he began to have second thoughts and now wants to stay closer to home.
"Minnesota is now left with just two offensive line commitments in 2021 in Purcell and James. With Barber now out of the picture, the Gophers will likely look to add two more offensive linemen to this year's class. They are making a strong push for Ru'Quan Buckley to fill one of those spots and now the search will expand a bit.” - Sean Williams, TheGopherReport.com
Sting Factor: 6
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NATIONAL REACTION
“Based on the success Fleck has had with huge linemen from Florida this one hurts a bit because Barber fit exactly what the Gophers like on OL at Minnesota. This leaves the Gophers a bit thin at OL, and it doesn’t help efforts in the state, either." - Mike Farrell, national recruiting director
Sting Factor: 7