CFB Sleeping on Future 1st Round Pick Gophers QB…?

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Drake Lindsey - Minnesota Gophers starting quarterback
Credit: Photo courtesy of Minnesota Gophers Athletics

The Minnesota Gopher football team will kickoff its 2025 season Thursday night at Huntington Bank Stadium against the Buffalo Bulls, marking the start of a new quarterback era in Dinkytown. The Drake Lindsey era.

This week’s opener won’t be Lindsey’s first time taking a college football snap. The redshirt freshman spent the 2024 season learning and developing behind one-and-done Gopher-turned-Viking, Max Brosmer. During his true freshman season, Drake got on the field where we got a taste of what Minnesota’s now-redshirt rookie can do.

The 20-year-old out of Fayetteville, Arkansas looked damn good, in his limited playing time last year, completing 4-of-5 passes for 50 yards, 1 touchdown and 0 interceptions. You can’t take much from that small of a sample size, but the little you can glean is undoubtedly positive.

Still, it’s impossible to know what the Minnesota Gophers are going to get out of their new QB, unless you are in the U of M practice facilities on a weekly basis, access that nobody outside of the football program has.

CFB pundits lukewarm on MN Gopher QB, Drake Lindsey

Thus, projections and predictions involving the 2025 Gopher football team are underwhelming, at best, entering Thursday’s season opener. The Gophers over/under win total is just 6.5 and most national pundits have them finishing at the bottom of the Big Ten.

Those attempting to pre-judge quarterbacks this year don’t even have Drake Lindsey on their radar. Well-respected college football analyst and insider, Josh Pate — who does work for On3, ESPN and Yahoo Sports — released a top 10 Big Ten QB list. He left the Gophers’ new starter off his rankings completely.

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Again, that’s somewhat understandable, given Lindsey’s never started a collegiate game. But those inside the Gopher football program are extremely high on their new QB, as are others who have worked with him. That includes one QB guru who has worked with Drake Lindsey to a degree that others have not.

Quincy Avery is a renowned quarterback trainer — see his Hulu documentary titled: The Quincy Avery Effect — who owns a QB training company, called QB Takeover. The list of quarterbacks who have tapped Avery for tutelage is impressive.

The QB whisperer has worked with Patrick Mahomes, Deshaun Watson, Jordan Love, CJ Stroud and Jalen Hurts, among others. Avery and his small team of QB coaches pride themselves on training football throwers of all ages, from middle school all the way to the NFL.

QB whisperer goes all in on Drake Lindsey

Well, Avery has been training Minnesota Gophers quarterbacks recently, including new Vikings backup Max Brosmer (see below) and the aforementioned redshirt freshman, Drake Lindsey. His biggest takeaways on the Gophers’ new QB?

Just like the quarterback who proceeded Lindsey, Avery is convinced that the football world is sleeping on our former high 3-Star high school prospect in a MAJOR way.

In fact, Quincy is so high on Minnesota’s redshirt freshman that he took his admiration to Twitter recently, where he stepped out on a QB ledge, tweeting that Lindsey will finish the 2025 CFB season as a top 3 quarterback in the Big Ten, before he eventually develops into a first round draft pick…

I’m willing to bet a good chunk of change that a top 3 QB in Big 10 isn’t on this list right now. Drake Lindsey is so much better than anyone understands. I truly and honestly believe he’s gonna be a Rd1 pick when it’s all said and done.

Caption from Quincy Avery tweet above

Can we trust Avery’s judgement of quarterbacks? Well, if his work with some of the best quarterbacks of this generation isn’t enough to convince you, then maybe his pre-draft scouting report on Max Brosmer.

Avery already hit on Gophers QB Max Brosmer… and nobody listened

After working with the Max last year, when he arrived in Minnesota, Avery knew exactly what the Gophers — and eventually NFL — had in their one-and-done quarterback. During the pre-draft process, Avery says he called every NFL scout in his rolodex, trying to get them to take a flyer on the under-radar QB up in Dinkytown.

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None of them took Avery’s advice. As a result, the Vikings signed him as a UDFA, where he quickly made himself uncuttable during training camp. Looking forward, most have Brosmer’s floor as a long-time backup in the NFL. If he develops beyond that, the sky could be the limit.

So, if you are a MN Gopher fan who fell in love with Brosmer while he was here, you’d better make some room in that football diary for Drake Lindsey… because it sounds like he is coming for your hearts on Thursday night in front of what will be a packed Huntington Bank Stadium.

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