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The Path of a Prospect

05/03/2022, 9:00pm CDT
By Jon Weisbrod

Two OHS juniors have been busy recruiting trail this offseason

The calendar has officially reached football’s version of No-Man’s Land, an annual dead period and midpoint of the long offseason slog.

It’s a stationary time of the year when the final game of the previous season has long-since vanished from the rearview mirror, yet the forthcoming campaign appears as little more than a dim and vaguely-discernable light in the distance. It’s far too early to initiate any sort of meaningful or detailed preparation for Week 1 and a still couple months shy of the usual summer offseason training programs such as team camps and 7-on-7 competitions.

For Owatonna, the beginning of May signified 176 days (and counting) since its 38-33 loss to Rochester Mayo in the section title game on Nov. 6, 2021 and 124 days until of the 2022 season-opener on Sept. 2. That’s more than four months in both directions.

However, as the action on the field has remained in a state of fixed hibernation throughout the cold winter and spring months, prep football’s omnipresent recruiting cycle has endured no such respite, existing in a perpetual state of motion for the majority of the calendar year.

For coaches and fans alike, this means sifting through what has become a nonstop stream of recruiting-based content made available on a variety of online platforms. Frequent quick-hitting articles find their way to these sites each day and range from subjective positional evaluations, to individual prospect rankings, to comprehensive player profiles — all vying for real estate within this sprawling virtual database.

Locally, Owatonna’s recruiting trail hasn’t been quite as hectic compared to years past, but it also hasn’t been completely barren. Spearheading the Huskies’ list of next-level prospects are a pair of incoming seniors in placekicker Drew Henson and linebacker/running back Conner Grems.

Henson in particular has drawn a considerable amount of interest from the next level and his personal recruiting journey gained steam almost immediately following a breakout junior season in which he was named second-team All-State by the Associated Press.

Almost every school in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference — an NCAA Division II league with schools in five different states throughout the Upper Midwest, including Minnesota — has reached out to Henson in some capacity and most have extended formal invitations to join dozens of fellow Class of 2023 prospects at Junior Day events throughout the next couple months.

Henson — who is the brother of current Concordia-St. Paul kicker Sam Henson — has dotted the proverbial recruiting map and has several upcoming visits planned over the next couple months. His first formal meeting with an NCAA Division I program came in late March when he made the long trek to the University of North Dakota and met with the Fighting Hawks’ coaching staff at the school’s recently remodeled football facilities. Fellow FCS teams Western Illinois and North Dakota State soon jumped in the mix, but it’s appearing increasingly probable that Henson could possibly land at the Division I FBS level, evidenced by the personal invite he recently received from the University of Wisconsin coaching staff to attend the Badgers’ annual Specialist Camp in June.

If Henson’s current trajectory and college recruiting’s long history are any indication, Wisconsin will be just the initial wave in a rising groundswell of attention he will receive from D-I programs until the moment he signs his National Letter of Intent sometime during his senior year in 2022 or 2023.

Basically, once his name blips on the radar of one big time team, others soon take notice and things can progressively snowball from there. This obviously isn’t the case for every Division I prospect in his shoes, but Henson is fortunate enough to possess the time and resources to maximize his exposure and has already gained valuable perspective on to what it takes to play at the next level.

“Coaches care about hearing from big coaches in the kicking industry and school camps really matter,” Henson said. “They have to love what they see in person, otherwise they will move on. Individual rankings are also really important. Coaches want to know exactly where you stack up to other kickers and punters.”

As for Grems, he has taken a slightly different path, initially receiving little more than lukewarm attention from college scouts in the early portion of the offseason, due mainly to the fact that he missed a sizeable portion of the 2021 regular season recovering from an injury suffered in Week 1. Because of this, he was only able to produce a limited amount of game film and also wasn’t in a position to ring up flashy individual statistics or individual accolades. For the student-athletes like Grems simply trying to gauge their basic potential as a college prospect, this is a significant hurdle to overcome in the early phases of a recruiting process that can feel overwhelming at first.

Grems, though, remained patient and has since emerged as one of the fastest-rising college prospects in the Big Southeast District after his impressive, albeit limited, film caught the eye of a few assistant coaches at a pair of regional college programs. And then, it reached a few more coaches. And then a few more after that.

Before long, Grems’ list of Junior Day invites multiplied from just two in late-March, to almost four times that many in mid-April. Division II Minnesota State-Moorhead and the University of Sioux Falls were the first to reach out to Grems and he’s since heard from schools at all three levels of the NCAA. Recently, he paid a visit to Division I FCS, South Dakota State, and his profile will only continue to elevate more colleges express interest.

“My visit went great,” Grems said of his trip to SDSU on April 23. “I got to see an FCS powerhouse up close and how it operates. I also got to meet some players and talk with my position coaches. Overall, it was a lot of fun.”

Aside from playing opposing positions, Grems and Henson also provide an interesting contrast in where they fit within the overall college recruiting landscape.

It’s all about supply and demand.

Henson, for instance, is widely regarded as one of the top handful players at his position for the Class of 2023 in the state of Minnesota, if not the entire Upper Midwest, and matches his natural athletic tools and ideal pedigree with excellent production. However, his chance of one day garnering a football scholarship isn’t a sure thing based on the fact that many college programs — even those at the highest level of the Division I game — often don’t even budget scholarship money to placekickers each recruiting cycle.

Unlike most positions, specialists frequently spend four years at one school and the necessity for multiple backups isn’t as pressing at a position like kicker where the rate of individual turnover is extremely low. Even though Division I FBS programs have 85 “full rides” to build a roster, most would rather allocate funds toward building depth at spots that are either prone to frequent injury or viewed as invaluable in other areas. Popular positions that soak-up the most scholarship-related resources include running back, quarterback, defensive line and receiver.

Over the last couple months, Henson has gained a valuable perspective into what college coaches are looking for and how the position is recruited, and has discovered that versatility is perhaps the most important asset he can bring to the table. In his case, this means adding a skill like punting to his already excellent field goal and kickoff abilities.

“Coaches love combo guys,” said Henson, whose dad, Garret, was an all-conference punter at Division I New Mexico State in the early-1990s. “If you can punt and kick that is one more roster spot they can have for another position. When I tell coaches I am planning on punting next year I swear they start drooling.  

Grems has also been enlightened to the importance of positional flexibility as it relates to recruiting, and even though he hasn’t produced the relative statistical output compared to Henson, he likely possesses at least an equal chance of receiving some sort of football-related compensation. This is mainly due to his ability to play multiple positions as well as his natural physical abilities and strong list of athletic-based metrics.

Grems has the potential to take the field at a number of different spots at the next level and could ultimately sign with a college that features several individuals at both his projected positions (running back and linebacker) in a single recruiting class. Henson, on the other hand, will likely be the only incoming freshman kicker within his class wherever he decides to attend next year.

However, the entire recruiting process isn’t completely tethered to a systematic numbers game, and both Grems and Henson have developed into a scholarship-level prospects because of an unwavering dedication to things like weight training, nutrition, social media marketing and rigorous offseason training.

For Grems, he’s never shied away from putting in long hours in the gym and has packed on an additional 10 pounds of muscle into his 5-foot-9, 205-pound frame since he last time he took the field in early-November. He also grasps many of the key mechanisms within the overall evaluation process and recognizes that his excellent speed (4.55 second in the 40-yard dash) and eye-catching weight-lifting milestones (455-pounds squat, 325-pound bench press) will help him stand out amongst the crowd and are a part of his instantly-visible Twitter profile.

Henson has also maximized is offseason training, participating in a number of specialized kicking clinics and camps throughout the Midwest while also working directly with a few highly-successful former college kickers on the weekends.

DREW HENSON I CLASS OF 2023 I PK

2021 STATS & HONORS (10 GAMES): 9-for-10 FG; 29-for-31 XPT; 28 touchbacks; Second-Team All-State by Associated Press; Big Southeast District Special Teams Player of the Year

COLLEGE INTEREST: University of Wisconsin (D-I); Western Illinois (D-I), University of North Dakota (D-I), North Dakota State (D-I), Augustana University (D-II), Concordia-St. Paul (D-II), Minnesota-Duluth (D-II), University of Sioux Falls (D-II), University of Mary (D-II), Southwest Minnesota State (D-II), Northern State (D-II), Bemidji State (D-II), Minnesota State-Mankato (D-II)

PROFILE BREAKDOWN & NOTES: One of the hottest prospects at his position in the Class of 2023 in the state of Minnesota…Has seen his interest from Division I programs steadily increase over the last couple months and has expanded to include legitimate interest from at least one Power 5 program as of early May…Has dedicated his offseason to attending exclusive kicking clinics and regularly trains with former high-level D-I kickers.

Connor Grems

CONNER GREMS I CLASS OF 2023 I RB/LB

2021 STATS & HONORS (~6 GAMES): 22 tackles (16 solo); 2.5 sacks; 1 FR; 1 FF; 1 INT I 13 carries, 59 yards (4.5 YPC); 1 TD; Preseason All-State Minnesota Prep RedZone

COLLEGE INTEREST: South Dakota State (D-I), University of Sioux Falls (D-II), University of Mary (D-II), Minnesota State-Moorhead (D-II), Southwest Minnesota State (D-II), Wisconsin-Eau Claire (D-III), Augustana University (D-III)

PROFILE BREAKDOWN & NOTES: A compact and versatile athlete that compliments his raw strength with breakaway speed (4.55 seconds in the 40)…His physical profile (5-foot-9, 205 pounds) suggests he would likely fit best at running back at the next level, but contributed mainly at linebacker as a junior for the Huskies and flashed major play-making defensive ability…Invited to participate Minnesota Prep RedZone’s offseason  prospect camp

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Stay updated on all things Owatonna football recruiting by following the team’s dedicated account on Twitter at @OHSFBRecruiting
Drew Henson Twitter profile: @DrewHenson05
Conner Grems Twitter profile: @ConnerGrems
Photos courtesy of Gary Walter and Conner Grems Twitter account

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