Gophers tight end Jameson Geers emerges as key target for quarterback Max Brosmer

For most of P.J. Fleck’s first seven years as Gophers football coach, Minnesota was known as a running team, one that would feed the football to a halfback, grind out yards, move the chains and drain the clock.

This year, Fleck’s eighth in Dinkytown, the Gophers have a quarterback in Max Brosmer who can work through multiple progressions, spread the ball around and deliver a highly accurate football. They’ve become a pass-first operation and one that’s riding a three-game win streak entering Saturday’s game at No. 24 Illinois.

One of the beneficiaries of the passing emphasis is tight end Jameson Geers, a fourth-year junior who’s emerging as one of Brosmer’s top targets. Geers has 13 receptions for 128 yards and a touchdown this season, ranking fifth in catches and yards on the team.

Geers, 6-5 and 255 pounds, gives Brosmer a big target at tight end, and his value was on display late in the first half of last week’s 48-23 Gophers win over Maryland. With Minnesota facing second-and-3 from its 42-yard line with 23 seconds left in the second quarter, Brosmer found Geers over the middle, and the 6-5, 255-pounder leapt to make a tough catch for a 23-yard gain to the Maryland 35. Four plays later, Dragan Kesich’s 34-yard field goal stretched the Gophers lead to 34-10.

“I have a lot to work on, but I feel like I’m improving, and our coaches are doing a really good job of utilizing me in the game plan — just being able to be myself out there and using my strengths,” Geers said. “Throughout the back end of the year, I think I’m going to be improving even more. I’m excited for that.”

So is offensive coordinator Greg Harbaugh Jr., who spent the 2022 season as Gophers tight ends coach before ascending to the role of primary play-caller.

“Excellent,” Harbaugh said of Geers’ development. “[Tight ends coach] Eric Koehler has done a fantastic job with him and developing that room. The way we use the tight end position, it’s really fun, really cool for those guys. It’s unique. We can split them out wide … we can put them in the backfield. We can do a lot of different things.”

Before Geers could display his pass-catching skills, he first had to prove he could block. It’s required work to Fleck.

“Blocking has always been something you have to do here at the University of Minnesota,” Fleck said. “Think back to our tight ends with Maxx Williams — we didn’t coach him, but he was so tough and could block and could run. Ko Kieft set a precedent of how our tight ends are going to play. And Brevyn Spann-Ford passing that down to Nick Kallerup, and Kallerup passing that down to Jameson Geers. That’s something that we take a lot of pride in.”

Geers has bought in on that part of his game, continuing to hone his blocking skills to become a more versatile player.

“In the Big Ten, you pride yourself on being in a run-heavy offense,” he said. “Being a tight end is an integral piece of that. I take a lot of pride in the run game. If we can continue to do that and utilize the pass game, it’ll open up the run game.”

Geers is from Channahon, Ill., in Chicago’s southwest suburbs, and attended Providence Catholic High School in New Lenox, Ill. That’s the same school that produced former Gophers linebacker Mariano Sori-Marin. Geers followed Big Ten football growing up, so his hope was to play in the conference. He attended a camp at Illinois as a 15-year-old, and later received an offer from the Illini. Other Big Ten teams recruiting him were the Gophers, Iowa, Northwestern, Purdue and Wisconsin.

He committed to the Gophers in January of 2020 and listed Fleck’s culture as a big reason why.

“I fell in love with the parts about how being a better person is going to make you a better football player,” Geers said. “And I couldn’t agree with that more. … It’s a lifestyle that you got to live by, and it’s accountability, it’s striving for perfection, even though you’ll never reach perfection, but you’re chasing it. You’re doing the best that you can with anything.”

Fleck sees examples of Geers maturing as a person and as a player.

“When you’re a younger player, you kind of see it only through a microscope,” Fleck said. “I think he’s starting to see that telescope view now — this bigger picture of how it all fits and works together.”