Minnesota Football: Breaking down Gophers 2023 QB commitment
The Minnesota football program is finally going to need a new starting quarterback next season and one new name to the mix is Drew Viotto, the Gophers’ newest pledge.
Minnesota football fans might start to wonder if Tanner Morgan is permanently entrenched as the Golden Gophers’ starting quarterback as he’ll be back as the QB once again in 2022.
However, Morgan will actually be leaving Minnesota football after the 2022 season so the Gophers will need to have some other quarterbacks on the roster and they do.
Minnesota landed a three-star quarterback in the 2022 class and backed that up with another addition to the QB room in the 2023 recruiting class this week in Drew Viotto.
Why it’s a solid move for Minnesota
Viotto isn’t a highly-touted prospect but he’s got diamond-in-the-rough potential. The 6-foot-4, 215-pound quarterback from Walled Lake, Michigan, ranks No. 953 overall in the 2023 class according to the 247 sports composite rankings.
Viotto is the 19th-ranked prospect from the state of Michigan and until the P.J. Fleck and the Gophers offered him, he was committed to Eastern Michigan.
However, with the quarterback class dwindling and just a few of the top-25 players at the position uncommitted, Minnesota jumped into the mix with an offer on May 25. Viotto has an official visit set for June but he also pulled the trigger on a commitment to the Gophers.
Obviously, Viotto isn’t a four-star or a top-100 QB. But Minnesota isn’t the kind of program that is going to get a lot of big-time prospects. But that’s ok. Morgan has proven that Minnesota football can win pretty big with a three-star as Morgan ranked outside the top 1,000 when he signed.
It’s all about development and Viotto will get that chance at Minnesota. He’s a big kid and he’s got a big arm, so there are tools to work with. While I wouldn’t expect him to truly contend for the starting job next season, you never know.
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At the very least, it gives Minnesota another capable arm to potentially lead the program down the road, and hopefully, he’ll produce in a similar fashion to Tanner Morgan.