Minnesota Targets Carthage Running Back Keaontay Ingram

The Big Ten is going to want Keaontay Ingram as much as the Big 12 if many more days play out like Monday.

Minnesota became the 14th NCAA Division I FBS program to offer the junior Carthage running back a football scholarship opportunity and did so about five hours after Michigan broke the Big Ten ice. Ingram reported the Golden Gophers' offer through his personal Twitter account.

Carthage won the Class 4A Division I state championship this past season. Ingram (6-0, 198) was the Offensive MVP of the title game and eclipsed 2,200 rushing yards during the 15-game campaign.

The back also caught 46 passes in 2016 for more than 400 yards.

Ingram has offers from eight of the 10 schools within the Big 12 and other offers outside the Big Ten from Arkansas, Missouri, Notre Dame, UCLA and FCS competitor Stephen F. Austin.

Minnesota will endure its third new head coach in three seasons this upcoming year. P.J. Fleck joins the program on the heels of guiding Western Michigan to a 12-0 regular season, a Mid-America Conference Championship Game win and an appearance in the Cotton Bowl against a Wisconsin squad that ended the unbeaten run.

The Golden Gophers program achieved bowl eligibility in each of its past five seasons.

Unfortunately, Jerry Kill retired for health reasons midway through the fourth season of the run. Tracy Claeys led the program two bowl games, once as an interim and once as the full-time head coach, but he was fired in January after extending support to players that were threatening a boycott of the 2016 Holiday Bowl game in an effort to reinstate 10 teammates under investigation for sexual assault.

Thirty-three consensus All-Americans call Minnesota home as did 1941 Heisman Trophy winner Bruce Smith.

Ingram, like all college football prospects currently in their junior year of high school, will become eligible to sign with any school that offers him in February of 2018.

2018 East Texas Football Players With Division I FBS Offers

• Tre Allison, John Tyler, OLB, 6-0, 200 — committed to SMU; additional offer from Mississippi State (2)
• Chance Amie, Tyler Lee, QB, 6-3, 190 — offers from Bowling Green, Iowa State (2)
• Dekalen Goodson, John Tyler, DE/OLB, 6-0, 215 — offer from Mississippi State (1)
• Chasen Hines, Marshall, C, 6-3, 340 — offers from Baylor, Louisiana Tech, LSU, Minnesota, North Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, TCU, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech (11)
• Keaontay Ingram, Carthage, RB, 6-0, 198 — offers from Arkansas, Baylor, Iowa State, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas Tech, TCU, UCLA (14)
• DeMarvion Overshown, Arp, ATH, 6-4, 196 —offers from Arkansas, Kansas, SMU, Southern Miss, Oklahoma State, TCU, Texas, UTSA (8)