Maybe I should read all the news before I decide to post it.

Troy Woolfolk, a 6-0, 180 CB from Sugarland, Texas, has commited to the Wolverines. He is the son of former UM running back Butch Woolfolk.

This makes me wonder about the recruiting of defensive backs. We already have three (though Finch will probably be a weakside linebacker), and have yet to gain commits from the two we apparently covet the most – Ronald Johnson and Dionte Allen. This, combined with the recruitment of players like CA CB Michael Williams ,akes me wonder why we are taking so damn many DBs.

Is defensive back more of a position of need than I thought it would be, is this recruiting a reflection of English’s new position giving him more power, or a shift in ideology to a more-speed oriented defense? Only time will tell.

Posted under Recruiting

James Rogers, a full-week camper from Madison Heights Lampheer committed today.

He is a 6-3, 185 Wide Receiver who got the Smokehouse Award as camp’s fastest player. His previous offers were all for the RB position, from MAC-level schools and Colorado.

Rogers is not yet ranked on Scout.com

Posted under Recruiting

Scout has posted 3 Mallett highlight videos, and no, I’m not going to repost them, because they’re not free. However, I have a few quick points about them that I’d like to say about them.

• He is not slow. I would say he’s much more of, say, a Roethlisberger than a Navarre. He had a play-action QB draw touchdown form maybe the 10 yardline, and he was trucking it in there. Also, there was a play where the protection broke down, and he at least was able to get away form a couple defenders, which brings me to the next point…
• He actually ran a defender over on that play, and kept on running (though not very far). It certainly demonstrated that he had some pretty strong legs. Also, he plunged forward on a QB sneak touchdown (something we could have used against Notre Dame), and actually pushed the pile behind a pretty weak burst by his o-linemen.
• He has good pocket presence, and gets the ball out of there petty quickly. When nothing’s open, he’ll move around in the pocket a bit and wait for something.
• He is really accurate, which is actually a little surprising, as you hear almost exclusively about his strength, rather than laser-like precision. Like any QB, he made a couple errant throws, but most of them were spot-on. (Keep in mind that this video was only of completions, so maybe the 30% that he didn’t complete were piss-poor, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt).
• He plays from the shotgun and under center about equally, which is to say, a lot more shotgun that he’ll ever run at Michigan.
• He runs some pretty good play action (something his team also does often), and a couple times faked out both the entire defense AND the cameraman. If we move to a more play action oriented offense under DeBord, he should be able to fit right in.
• He has a couple pretty good teammates, including #4 Joseph Anderson (who, I was surprised to see, was nowhere in Scout’s database).

That’s all I really took away from it, but if I think of anything else, I’ll be sure to post it. I’m still planning on going to his game against Findlay (OH) and trying to get some film, so I’ll keep you updated. The film (assuming I get it) will certainly be MUCH MUCH higher quality than any I’ve ever seen on Scout.

Posted under Recruiting

Jerimy Finch, SS/WLB prospect from Indianapolis Warren Central High school verbally committed today. He is a big hitter, and a likely four-star prospect.

Next year’s recruiting class is looking a lot better than this year’s already. At this time last year, we had only two recruits (5* Brandon Graham and 5* Justin Boren, though Boren was only considered a 4* at the time). We should be looking to get at least as many 5* prospects as we did last year, and more 4*, rather than the smattering of 2 and 3 that we ended up with.

I must admit, however, that this past year’s class would have been killer save for the Jai Eugene decommit. Oh well, if we end up with RoJo and a couple of our other top DB targets, all will be forgotten.

Posted under Recruiting

…and there is much rejoicing.

Hopefully he can get a few other big-name recruits to drop pretty soon, and really get the recruiting ball rolling. Hopefully, his lack of an emu-like appearance will give him an edge over Jimmy Clausen.

In other news, Brian at mgoblog came across some information that Mallett will be playing against Ben Roethlisberger’s alma mater, Findlay high school, in Cincinnati on September 15th, in the hilariously-titled “Ohio vs. USA Kirk Herbstreit Challenge.” Though it’s the day before the Notre Dame game (and 5ish hours away from South Bend), I may just make it down there to watch the game. More updates coming as the time approaches.

Posted under Recruiting

Cue intense optimism/pessimism.

Posted under Recruiting

Jai Eugene decided that he didn’t want to be so far from his son, and switched his commitment to LSU. That’s a shame; he could have been great here.

Jonas Mouton, on the other hand, is apparently headed to UM.I guess we’ll find out tomorrow.

After signing day (which is tomorrow, in case you didn’t know), I’ll have a post breaking down recruiting, and I’ll start looking forward to some on-field stuff.

Posted under Recruiting

I’m sure it’s old news by now, but Washington OT Steve Schilling committed to UM. IF we somehow managed to snag Mouton, I would feel really good about this recruiting class.

Posted under Recruiting

So far, the recruiting year has gone pretty well. Michigan’s recruiting class is currently ranked 13th by Rivals.com and 6th by Scout.com. I’ve never been too heavily into recruiting, but judging by how some prospects were rated that panned out well (and poorly), I’d say that Scout is more accurate, though the real value should be somewhere in between the two.

So far, we have 15 commits. 2 of them, Justin Boren (OL – Pickerington, OH) and Carlos Brown (RB – Franklin, GA) have decided to graduate high school early, and are currently enrolled at the University.

Rivals has our recruiting class as currently having only one five star recruit in Brandon Graham (LB – Detroit). Scout, on the other hand, has four of our recruits as five-stars. The additional recruits are Boren, Jai Eugene (CB – Destrehan, LA), and Marques Slocum (DL – Philadelphia). However, Slocum was a commit from last year who needed a year of prep school to meet academic standards. As a 2005 recruit, Rivals deemed him 5-star worthy.

I won’t go too much into other recruits right now, but they are definitely all worth mentioning a little something.

Posted under Recruiting