“The most interesting man in the world” was a popular grandiose advertising campaign used by the beer brand Dos Equis. And “the most curious player I have ever been around” is a statement Gophers head coach P.J. Fleck has used to describe new quarterback Max Brosmer.

The sixth-year transfer from the University of New Hampshire plays chess to help sharpen his decision-making on the football field and strums a guitar to unwind off it. He brought a handful of new Gopher teammates to his Georgia hometown to bond last spring, and in fall camp, and could be found in offensive line coach Brian Callahan’s office learning the finer points of pass protection.

Like the classy and cosmopolitan bearded gentleman in those ads for Mexican beer, Brosmer can live up to that credo: “Stay thirsty, my friends.”

After a losing season in 2023, the Gophers sought an upgrade its quarterback play and quickly courted Brosmer via the NCAA transfer portal. During spring practices, he initially careened along a learning curve, but his path appeared to smooth out for him during fall camp.

Since Brosmer’s arrival in December, Fleck, assistant coaches and his teammates have raved about his acumen and leadership skills — in a similar vein to how they boasted about predecessor Athan Kaliakmanis’ ability to sling passes a year ago.

Both lines of praise sound catchy, but must be backed up in performances on the field. For Kaliakmanis, inconsistency led to his transfer to Rutgers. For Brosmer, his first prove-it moment at the FBS level comes in the Gophers’ season opener against North Carolina at 7 p.m. Thursday at Huntington Bank Stadium.

Brosmer said he will have approximately 25 family members and friends — from parents to grandparents, aunts, uncles and old teammates — in Minnesota to watch him play major college football for the first time.

“I’m super excited to not only see them, but also have them see me and my new team in a new light,” Brosmer said. “And show them we can compete at any level.”

Fleck noted Brosmer’s curiosity during Big Ten Media Days in Indianapolis in late July. Brosmer’s father, Colin, saw that trait emerge when Max was in elementary school. His eldest son was always asking a lot of questions.

“He wants to know why things are the way they are,” Colin Brosmer said. “That’s kind of the way his brain works. It’s extremely detail oriented. The quick answer isn’t always the answer that works for him.”

In particular, Max showed an interest in human biology, a fascination that turned into an avocation within his family. His mother, Jayna, and a grandmother are nurses.

“He’s always been interested in thinking about being a doctor, so any medical-type questions that might be going around the dinner table or the house, we definitely saw that early on,” Colin shared.

Coming out of Centennial High School in Roswell, Ga.,  Brosmer had some recruiting interest from schools in the now-Power Four conferences (including North Carolina), but was further down on their lists. Brosmer ended up picking New Hampshire, an FCS school, because it felt like the right fit.

“We were really big on trying to coach him to go where he was really wanted and not where was most flashy,” Colin Brosmer said. “It was all about trying to get on the field. At the end of the day, it was a lot of Ivy League (programs) and a couple of FCS schools.”

At New Hampshire, he was the first player in program history to start as a true freshman, and threw for 1,967 yards in 2019. After the pandemic, his sophomore season was lost to a torn anterior cruciate ligament in 2021. He threw for 3,157 yards his junior year and 3,464 last season, when he was a Walter Payton Award finalist for the top player in FCS. He completed 62 percent of his passes over his 36-game career.

Along the way, Brosmer earned an undergraduate degree in biomedical science and started work on a masters in kinesiology.

Weeks after Brosmer committed to transfer to Minnesota last December, he was pouring over the playbook in the build-up to the Quick Lane Bowl in Detroit. He impressed coaches with his immediate grasp.

“I ask a ton of questions,” Brosmer said. “I ask way too many questions. I overthink sometimes, and I’ve gotten better with that. … I think through every single thing that happens. I try to make the best decision possible.”

Brosmer’s eagerness to learn and become a better player led him to extra tutelage under quarterback trainer Quincy Avery starting in his freshman season at UNH. Avery, in turn, connected Brosmer with performance coach Seth Makowsky.

Makowsky has used chess to help a wide range of people — like NFL quarterbacks C.J. Stroud, Jalen Hurts and former Viking Josh Dobbs. That list also includes Dodgers star Mookie Betts, actor Cameron Diaz, members of UCLA’s football team and the USA artistic swim team. (Via Makowsky, Brosmer got to know U.S. silver medalist Anita Alvarez.)

“There’s ancient wisdom in this game that’s been around for thousands of years,” Makowsky told the L.A. Times in a 2023 story. “So we are able to kind of distill that and use the game as a vehicle for really importing a lot of lessons and concepts, and give them tools to navigate the good times and bad times.”

Brosmer started working with Makowsky when he was a freshman in college and now plays about 10 games a day. Every single day, he said.

“(Seth) uses that mindset to teach efficiency,” Brosmer told the Pioneer Press during Big Ten Media Days. “If this happens, what do you do next? … When you talk about football as a quarterback, you want to be a surgeon. Making quick moves (He snaps his fingers three times). You see one thing, you gotta go there.

“If you spend too much time thinking about little things that you see on the field that maybe don’t matter, then you’re caught in a cloud of like, ‘What do I do? What do I do?’ ” Brosmer said. “Then you are too slow. You have, like, three seconds to make a decision, maybe less.”

Gophers quarterback Max Brosmer speaks during an NCAA college football news conference at the Big Ten Conference media days at Lucas Oil Stadium, Thursday, July 25, 2024, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

Brosmer wears a wristband that reads “threats and attacks.”

“For me, it’s chess, but it’s also on the football field,” Brosmer said. “It makes football chess, because you’re assessing where you’re getting threatened from, and then where you can attack. Chess is the same way.”

Chess necessitates for players to think multiple moves ahead, but also adjust if that plan is erased from the board by an opponent.

“You gotta be able to change direction and refocus your attack,” Brosmer said. “That same with football, ‘OK, I want to throw this route. I’m gonna throw it. All right, cool. Pre-snap, I have it. Post-snap, oh (shoot) they clouded it, let me go back to my cloud answer right now.’ Just knowing that in the back of your head.”

Brosmer often plays chess digitally, but also has been playing with Gophers offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach Greg Harbaugh and others.

“It didn’t go well for me,” Harbaugh said. “He’s played a couple of guys. It doesn’t go well for them, either. He looks at chess as if you get one reaction from the secondary, you have to understand without looking at it and what is happening on the other side of the field or what the underneath defender is doing. He looks at chess that way. You have to be ahead on the next move.”

Harbaugh said in one chess game Brosmer purposely sacrificed his queen — the best and most versatile piece in the game. “He was like, ‘I’m going to beat you without the queen,’ ” Harbaugh said. “Then he beat me.”

Harbaugh walked into the team meeting room the other day to find Brosmer and guard Quinn Carroll playing Tic-tac-toe.

“He’s like, ‘(on) the third move, I’m going to win.’ Then he wins,” Harbaugh said. “He’s always like that. He’s always thinking. He’s a unique guy. It’s fun to be around.”

Carroll has seen Brosmer’s intelligence translate beyond his position on the practice field.

“He has an amazing depth of knowledge there,” Carroll said. “We will make the calls in (pass) protections specifically, and then if he sees something that we can’t see down in our stances, he can completely flip the protection for us. He understands it just as well as we do, so that has been huge.”

Harbaugh believes Brosmer’s leadership ability is his “superpower.” Brosmer mentioned a recent bonding dinner with the wide receivers at a Hibachi restaurant.

“How he can get people to come with him; That is probably what he is best at,” Harbaugh said. “Not mentioning anything he does football-wise.”

But like rave reviews a year ago about Kaliakmanis’ arm talent, execution in games is what will matter most. In spring ball, Brosmer admittedly had trouble throwing into tighter windows at the FBS level.

“You know it is going to close fast because of the level of athlete is different and it’s better,” Harbaugh said.

Harbaugh thought Brosmer was attempting to throw the ball too hard last spring, when a shift in ball trajectory was a better answer. He has seen his new QB figure it out through film study in the summer and in practices during fall camp.

“He’s rolling,” Harbaugh said last week. “He’s really in a good state mentally, which I’m really excited about.”

Related Articles

Gophers football: Flipping P.J. Fleck’s game of ‘what if?’ on its head

Gophers football: Breaking down position groups for 2024 season

Gophers football: New defense to have litmus test against North Carolina’s ‘electric’ tailback

Gophers AD Mark Coyle on expectations and reality for football, men’s basketball and wrestling teams

Gophers AD Mark Coyle discusses financial pinch, prospect of cutting sports, future of The Barn