Underclassmen to Watch Recruiting Report: Ryan Retzer (Belle Plaine-2023)

One of the cooler and more underrated aspects of writing for Northstar Football News is uncovering, tracking, and hyping up the younger upcoming prep recruits the state of Minnesota has to offer. Getting ahead on the recruiting trail of a future potential highly rated recruit and helping to disperse their film and get their name out there as a underclassmen is a very cooling feeling as a writer in my position. I also can't help but think a good one has been found with this newest recruit for this report: Belle Plaine High School 2023 grad Ryan Retzer. The 6'2, 240 lb. freshman is about to enter his second year of high school and is poised to make some waves coming up in Minnesota after playing varsity football for Belle Plaine in 2019 and having a impactful year as a OG/DE on the Tigers 3-6 2019 season and recorded 32 tackles in his second varsity season. Retzer has the measurables, skills, and attitude of a future scholarship athlete, and I'm very fortunate to be one of the first writers he contacted. Check out this first-look, exclusive interview with the 2023 grad as we discuss his football career thus far, playing football for Belle Plaine, and some of his areas to improve upon. Hope you enjoy! <a href="http://www.hudl.com/video/3/9725101/5dab0652041ef50f6c3b27f2">Freshman Season Hudl</a> NFN: Hello and thank you for your time, Ryan! Congratulations on completing your varsity football season in MN. Please begin by telling us a little about yourself, where you're from. when you started playing football & what you love about it, and some fun facts about you! Retzer: “I am a very active student athlete who plays 3 sports(football, basketball, and baseball). Playing sports has always been my favorite thing to do and a bond that can't be broken with my teammates. I work hard to get all A's in school and be the best person I can possibly be on and off the field. I am from Belle Plaine, MN, a small town with a population of 7,000. I started playing football in first grade in our Community Ed flag football program. I played one year of that and then got moved up to play 3rd and 4th tackle football for one year then playing 4 years of 5th and 6th grade football from 3rd grade to 6th grade. Football has always been my favorite sport because I love to win and hit other people. Hitting someone hard or pancaking someone is the best feeling ever. There are also many key lessons that I get from football that come into play in my everyday life like hard work, respect, responsibility, and teamwork(not giving up and doing your part). Some fun things about me are I am able to try out for the USA National team, enjoy traveling, volunteer in the community, I also work at Minnesota's Largest Candy Store in Jordan.” NFN: Awesome. Now get into your first varsity season in 2018. How was the experience and how do you think it went? Retzer: “My first year of varsity football was in 2018. It was quite a learning experience since everyday I had to work and show myself that I can compete with the seniors as an 8th grader. I worked my way up to practicing every day with the varsity o line in individual sessions. My first real game on varsity was against Marshall who was a 4A powerhouse. I came in in the second half playing both offense and defense since one of the lineman was hurt. In the last 2 games of the season I was able to start varsity at right guard and learned a lot just from those two games that would help me going into the next year. Most of the things I learned was to have good technique, stay low, and keep your feet moving which is what helped me go against bigger and stronger kids. I also learned that if I didn't lift all year and continued to get better 3 days every week in the weight room I wouldn't have been able to compete against kids on varsity. Some of the lowlights were that we didn't have a great year only won one game but we had to keep going as a team and work hard everyday at practice. I had to help promote a winning culture amongst my teammates that attitude and effort will make a difference. I felt my season went pretty good and that I could have started earlier and was ready and didn't feel intimidated when I went in. I just wanted to beat the guy in front of me every time and do my job for my team. Another highlight was having the best weight room attendance all year and perfect attendance for summer.” NFN: That's great. How about 2019? What were expectations like going into the year? And how did you build on last season? Retzer: “The 2019 season team expectations were pretty well set once we learned about the new offense that was going in and that was to be the nastiest on the field and we don't care if they know the play we are just going to go right at them. The moto for our line set at lineman academy was G.E.T.A which mean “get after their a**.” As a line we took this to heart and that was our expectation every practice and every game. We were to get after every player and kick their ass no matter who it is. Our offense this year was the power T 3back under-center running offense. We wanted to make sure teams knew that they played Belle Plaine and were scared to play us again. I expected the line to win against every d line and make it so they couldn't stop us. Every game we need to be in and finish since we are in control with our offense and our defense can hold against every team no matter how good their offense is. I knew people and teams were not going to think much of us this season since we had one win last year. Well let's prove them wrong and show them that we have more fight and are better than last year. My expectations for 2019 were also pretty obvious and that was dominate and put people to the ground every single play. Starting both ways was my goal and get all district. I expected myself to help lead this team to great things and make sure everyone did their job. We built on last year by saying we are going to have another season like this since this isn't Belle plaine football. We are going to just get nasty with this new offense and knock they other team down every single play again and again. We didn't want to win only one game a season we wanted to be in every game and make it competitive. The off-season was one where I knew what I needed to do get stronger and faster which I did in the weight room and at speed and agility. My weights really improved over the summer and winter making more gains and feeling a lot stronger. I gained 15 pounds since the 2018 season. I did several linemen drills over the summer and went to camps like NDSU and University of Minnesota. I believe in the Belle Plaine football program since there is a good future ahead of us if we keep in the weight room and work hard every practice. This is where I've always been and no one can take the roar out of this TIGER!” NFN: No doubt. Lastly please give us some details into the ‘19 Football season, what you want to improve on for next year, and some personal goals for yourself. Retzer: Our first game of the season we knew was going to be tough against our rival Jordan who we previously lost 64-0 the year before. Going in we were not intimidates and knew what needed to get done and that was put up a good fight and we did. On the first drive we drove on them, but ended up short with a costly penalty, but it showed that we can run on any team. We ended up losing the game 7-35, but it showed as a team our mistakes and what needed to be fixed. The next game was against New Ulm the team we beat last year, but recently got a new head coach and offense. We knew this was gonna be another battle like last year but we finally took over and our offense dominated in the first half and most of the 2nd until they scored 3 big touchdowns in a row to win the game and we all knew that was a game that needed to be won. Next game was against Marshall who has always been a solid team no matter if they had a bad year. That night our offense couldn't click and defense couldn't stop their speedy running backs and wide receivers. The one good thing out of that game was I got to go up against a 6-6 Iowa commit and a NDSU commit playing linebacker which was good to see where I need to be and just to get good reps against dominating talent. The score of the game was 68-0. Next we played Sibley East a game where we had to come out and dominate since we knew that this was one where we could take it to them and we did! Our offense clicked and put up big numbers with rushing almost 300 yards. Our defense also had a good game that shut them down most of the 2nd half. Final score of that game was 36-21. Now against Norwood was a very similar game just more dominate all around allowing like 30 yards in the first half and putting up points in the 1st half and doing our jobs in the 2nd. Final score was 30-12. Against Fairmont who was ranked in state and runners up in state from last year we had one of our best losses that I felt we should have won. It was a loss in the books but a win in our hearts! The first half was crazy as we ran a whole possession through almost the whole 1st quarter and we ended being up by 1 at half time with a score of 22-21. The crowd was really quiet because they didn't think that we would come in here and do this to them. They thought they were gonna blow us out. In the 2nd half would couldn't do much with our offense, but our defense held good only letting them score once. With 7 min to go in the 4th quarter we had to punt and then their offense scored. When we got the ball back we had to go for it on 4th and could not convert. They scored two more times. It was one of those games where we played a really good game just didn't put 4 quarters together. Final score was 22-41. 2nd to last regular season game we played TCU in a cold snowy game and just went off and only allowed 16 yards in the first half we won the game 42-0. Our last home game was against Luverne who had about the same record and about the same scores against other teams, but we couldn't do much and didn't get past their defense in the second half after they changed things up. We lost that game 35-16. In our postseason game we played Providence Academy and we fought hard against them making it close at halftime. After that we made some big mistakes and they took over. We ended up losing 33-14. Not the way we wanted it to end, but it showed that we need to finish games and work in all four quarters to finish a game. We need to consistently be in the weight room to be strong through all 4 quarters of a game to play to the end. Overall I thought my season went pretty well for a freshman who started both ways. However I am still not good enough! There are a lot of areas that need work and I can help that by keeping in the weight room, speed and agility drills, and footwork, film watching, attending camps and providing leadership on and off the field for my teammates. Some of my accomplishments this year were being a two-way starter, leading the team in pancakes and the highest accomplishment was achieving my personal goal, ALL DISTRICT.” Keep your ears to the ground with c/o ‘23 watchlists as Retzer's stock will only rise as he gets older! The well-spoken rising sophomore is poised for a big year in 2020!