Carolina Panthers wide receiver Ihmir Smith-Marsette had a Minnesota connection years before the Vikings selected him in the fifth round of the 2021 NFL draft.
Smith-Marsette revealed on the “Men on Melrose” podcast — a show dedicated to Iowa athletics — that he was briefly committed to the Gophers in 2017 before flipping his commitment to the Hawkeyes, where he caught 110 passes for 1,615 yards and 13 touchdowns across his four-year college career.
Smith-Marsette said the Gophers pressured him to commit after offering him a scholarship for their 2017 class. After reluctantly giving them a verbal commitment during a visit to the U, Smith-Marsette said the Gophers kept asking him to make an announcement on social media before he left, calls he tried to blow off, but he eventually obliged to before heading home.
“I got home and I sat down and I was thinking like, ‘I really don’t wanna go there,’” Smith-Marsette said on the podcast. “And it was just like heavy on me, I was like, ‘(Expletive) it, I’m going to Iowa.”