2010 Recruiting Board

Moved to committed:
SC QB Cornelius Jones. This recruitment train has been chugging along on the track to inevitable commitment for quite some time, and he committed at Michigan’s camp on Monday. Local paper commitment article.

The situation of TX LB Holmes Onwukaife is much less clear, but it appears as though he’s been given the same treatment that FL CB Travis Williams received when he tried to commit earlier this spring: The coaches told him to wait it out, and make sure he was making the right decision. In other words, they told him not to commit.

Sam Webb Detroit News fluff on the Sound Mind, Sound Body Camp in Detroit. Included is the indication that MI QB Commit Devin Gardner is all but assured to take over the throne as the to player in the state of Michigan, replacing recent MSU commit DE William Gholston (though the indications have been piling up since long before Gholston’s pledge). Gardner has excelled at QB in such events recently, so much so that he’s taken to showing off his athleticism at WR as well.

The paring down of QBs will be done a little more liberally, now that it’s unlikely that Michigan is in the market for another.

Removed TN QB Barry Brunetti, who committed to West Virginia.

Removed FL QB Christian Green, who hasn’t been considering Michigan all-too-seriously of late.

FL RB Eduardo Clements made his way to Michigan’s camp this week, and it seems as though the Wolverines may be his new leader.

Removed FL OL Brent Benedict, who committed to Georgia.

OH DE Darryl Baldwin seems to have settled on a final list of schools that does not include Michigan. The Buckeyes, Spartans, Nittany Lions, and Irish will vie for his services. I’ll leave him on the board for now, since that’s the first I’ve heard of such a narrowing. However, don’t expect him to remain much longer: Ohio State may be receiving a commitment soon.

FL DE Delvin Jones has named a top 3 of Alabama, USC, and Tennessee. With the Wolverines not on his short list, he’ll be a candidate for removal sooner rather than later.

Removed MI DE/LB William Gholston, who committed to Michigan State. This was a shocking turn of events that was not at all expected.

DC LB Javarie Johnson has named a top 4 of Michigan, Michigan state, Maryland, and Miami of Florida. The linebacker, who only likes schools starting with the letter “M,” has not formed a timetable for a decision (and no, he hasn’t committed to Michigan, though that would likely make the Wolverine coaches ecstatic).

TX LB Corey Nelson bizarrely named Michigan his leader a while back, sight unseen (and despite holding offers from other bigtime schools). The teammate of RB commit Tony Drake has since changed his tune, however, and it doesn’t seem like Michigan is in his top 5 or top 10, much less his leader. Drake may not have a ton of time to sway Nelson, since the linebacker intends to shorten his timetable for a decision.

OH LB Jordan Hicks has named three of his official visits. Ohio State, Texas, and USC will receive officials, with Alabama, Georgia, and Florida likely to be contending for his 4th and 5th visits. Michigan is nowhere to be seen on the list, but with his teammate, TE Alex Smith, apparently very interested in the Wolverines, they have some upward mobility in his favorites list. Still, the Buckeyes and Longhorns are probably a prohibitive top 2.

After Michigan offered last week, OH S Bobby Swigert has now also received an offer from Ohio State (info in header).

SC CB/WR Nick Jones has Michigan among his favorite schools, and claims a Michigan offer (the veracity of which I’m skeptical about). He’s yet another Byrnes, SC product that Michigan is recruiting, though it seems less and less likely (i.e. rapidly approaching zero probability) that any of the bigtime prospects from that school – RB Marcus Lattimore and DEs Brandon Willis and Corey Miller – will even visit Ann Arbor, much less pick Michigan. Miller, at least, has not begun to narrow his list of suitors yet.

Removed MI CB Mylan Hicks, who committed to Michigan State.

Posted under Football

A couple weeks ago, I posted about the apparent desire by Michigan’s coaches to offer every prospect under the sun. Of course, like any strategy, there are certain advantages and downsides to this technique. What is most striking, perhaps, is the difference between what Michigan is doing, and the methods employed by arch-rival Ohio State on the recruiting trail. The post (as it was intended to do) drew a ton of responses, and I went even one step further by asking a few questions of Jim Stefani, who was more than happy to answer them.

What is going on

According to Jim Stefani, Michigan has as many as 130 offers to high school prospects outstanding thus far. Many of these, however, might be from kids that they don’t really want to commit. According to Jim Stefani, “In a sense, many Michigan ‘offers’ are not really firm offers but more or less strong indications of interest by Michigan.  Take that for what you will, but it is how many schools are now approaching recruiting.  Look at the DB who wanted to verbal to U-M last week [Travis Williams] but was told to wait.” Florida, a school that uses a similar technique in throwing around a lot of offers, had a similar situation, and they had to tell a defensive back outright that the offer he had been given was not “committable.” It appears as though the main point of contention here, then, is what an offer really means.

Shouldn’t an offer, by definition, be “committable?” Isn’t that, after all, what an offer is? Wolv54 offered a hypothesis in the comments from the previous post:

The only potential problem the shotgun approach creates is that you have a finite number of schollies and you have to slow play some guys waiting for the higher ranked guys make their decisions. I would compare it to trying to get a prom date; whereas you ask the hottest girl you know and hope she says but if not, you can always take that girl that plays in the band, right?

Michigan seems to be offering both the “hottest girl” and the “band girl,” and hoping they can get the less desirable option to wait for the hotter one before making a decision. However, with a Michigan offer now just meaning that the Wolverines have strong interest in a kid, the techniques might have to be adjusted. According to Stefani, “they need to be careful that they get the right kids to commit of those 130. Believe me, even though a kid has been offered does not mean that Michigan wants him to commit right away (or, perhaps, ever).”

So why do they offer guys without actually wanting them to commit? This hasn’t always worked out, as people (like Travis Williams) try to commit, without the staff wanting it. That can lead to one of the problems that Michigan fans fear, according to Michigan4204,

I mean damn dude, were beating out schools like TCU, Tulsa, SMU, and Baylor for some of these recruits. Players used to come to Michigan because they produced pro-level talent. You have to have that talent first of all when you arrive on campus, and half of RR recruits simply don’t have that talent.

There are certainly ways out of this (and schools like florida use them as well), but it’s not always the cleanest break, as Stefani points out, “It backfires when a kid wants to commit and the verbal is not accepted or commits and then a few months later Michigan stops contact.  That is because it will upset the prospect and, more importantly, his high school coach.  If the prospects is from a program loaded with D-I talent every year it could definitely hurt.” Michigan seems to be willing to risk this.

The Contrast with Ohio State

Ohio State, as mentioned above, is using a recruiting method that seems to be diametrically opposed to that of Rich Rodriguez and staff. Jim Tressel has given out very few offers, and has many fewer commits than Michigan, though most of their commits are more highly-rated than some of Michigan’s guys. Like Michigan has its reasons for the current recruiting strategy, Ohio State also has reasons for theirs. They already have a deep talent base, and this year, they have very few scholarships to hand out. Stefani’s take:

The longer a school waits to offer, the more time it has to evaluate prospects and decide who they want to offer.  With schools in the midst of May evaluation, combines going on every weekend and summer camps coming up in June, the Ohio State coaches will have a LOT more info at hand when it comes to making their offer decisions than the school that have offered many prospects early based on sophomore year camp/combine performances and junior film.

The Buckeyes also give themselves another advantage: “many of the elite players like to wait things out, which only helps the schools who have not picked up too many early verbals.” Of course, Michigan will wait on top-top guys who have interest, but does accepting a lot of early verbals limit their ability to do so? Probably.

As shown above, Michigan fans aren’t exactly unanimously enthusiastic about the new approach. Michigan4204 was the most harsh in the comments of the previous post, using the now-old adage “Just because it worked in the Big East doesn’t mean it’ll work in the Big Ten. Trust me I hope it does, but I’m pessimistic.” When it was pointed out that there is no reason to expect any different result simply on a different conference, he was quick to point out the talent difference between the Big Ten and Big East, which, unfortunately for his argument, seems to ring a little hollow.

So, yeah. That argument certainly doesn’t hold water. Complaining about Rodriguez’s tactics on the basis of a talent difference between conferences is bogus. Of course, that doesn’t stop ontblue from agreeing with him:

Tend to agree with Michigan4204. You can take RR’s 3/4 star guys and I’ll take the USC/Florida/Suckeyes 4/5 star guys and we’ll see how things stack up in 5 years. By the way, since when did adding a marginal guy ever add to depth? It just adds another cheerleader.

Obviously, Rich and staff think the commits that they take will be guys who are able to contribute, or they likely wouldn’t waste their time. As bouje noted, “Who are the players that are really lighting it up in spring practices? Vincent Smith 3* out of Florida. He can obviously pick the 3* recruits.”

The reasons for this approach

So why does Michigan have to recruit the way they are? For one thing, they’ll probably have a lot of scholarships to fill, unlike the Buckeyes. “[L]ast year Ohio State signed a full class of 25, so they have limited schollies to hand out this year and are being very selective,” Stefani said. “On the other hand, after expected attrition Michigan is in a position to sign between 22 and 25 kids this coming year, so the Wolverines have a lot more flexibility when it comes to making early offers.” The early offers also help Michigan get their foot in the door with some guys:

Being aggressive with their early offers means that Michigan gets on a prospect’s radar earlier than those schools that have not offered.  the old adage ‘the early bird catches the worm’ applies here.  Moreover, actually picking up early verbals gets the whole process rolling as they can market their “great” (haha, excuse me) class to other prospects, as can the kids who have already committed.  They can now tell a lot of the Ohio kids, we love you but Ohio State doesn’t.  that carries some weight.

The early offers also mean that the class fills up quickly, as pointed out by Derrick, “Wouldn’t this approach force some kids to make a decision before all the offers were gone? If a kid really wants to play for michigan or any school he knows there are only so many offers available and he should be proactive in making a commitment.” Still, fans aren’t necessarily all on board with this approach, as sebaskrator said, “I’m willing to give RR the benefit of the doubt for now. Has has been able to get pretty far finding some gems before. That said, if he is able to juggle commitments around for someone he’d like more later, great.” It’s an endorsement, sure, but I’d say that’s far from ringing.

The Future

So, when Michigan’s talent base is built up to where it used to be, at least with the types of players that Rodriguez wants, will we see this strategy continue? It’s highly likely, though a school like Florida, which has had several top-tier classes in a row now, continues to use it, as AC1997 points out “I find it interesting how Urban Myer is offering everyone and their brother too, being from Utah he had the same problem that Rich Rod did (and probably worse).” The key thing that needs to happen before Michigan can audible the recruiting strategy is to show results on the field, according to Stefani, “First and foremost,once Michigan starts winning again it will become a magnet for national kids and be able to hold off on offering second-tier kids too early.” Ohio State obviously doesn’t have this problem right now, as he points out:

Ohio State is a top-tier national program that has gone to a couple consecutive BCS championship games.  They are an elite school that a LOT of kids want to play for, be they in-state kids or national kids… They can afford to wait on a lot of in-state kids because they know that they can get them later in the recruiting timeline if they finish second on some of their top national targets.  Michigan, on the other hand, is in a rare rebuilding mode and is not longer a “hot” school with national prospects.

In the future, once Michigan (hopefully) starts having on-field success again, this argument will all become moot.

There are still benefits to Michigan’s technique, as Stefani says “The risks [for an approach like OSU] are that by waiting too long to offer a prospects you have ‘bigger fish to fry’ you will lose out on him to another school (e.g. Devin Gardner to Michigan).  Once prospects are offered bythe Buckeyes, they will often have to do a ‘catch-up’ job in showing them the love.” However, It seems that Michigan will likely never go from the extreme that they’re currently occupying all the way to Ohio State’s, wherein they offer very few prospects early. In the end, a happy medium is probably most desired. AC1997 probably sums it up best: “Maybe he feels that 3-9 means he has to do that.” In another year 3-9, hopefully, will no longer be an issue.

Posted under Analysis, Coaching, Football, Recruiting

2010 Michigan Recruiting Board goes here. There’ll be another substantive recruiting update on Monday, because I couldn’t fit all the information into this one.

The Wolverines are among the favorites for TX QB Jeremy Johnson. The same article is also posted on other schools’ Rivals affiliates with titles such as “West Virginia, Baylor among Johnson’s favorites.” With doing much further research, I would assume that is something of a top 3 for him. Remember, WVU sites were expecting him to commit to the Mountaineers at their spring game not too long ago, but he didn’t

PA QB Anthony Gonzales has been nominated to play in the US Army Bowl. This doesn’t mean he’s in the game (it’s essentially a semi-finalists list), but certainly speaks to his talent.

FL WR Kenny Shaw is blowing up this spring, and also indicating that he is probably all-but-committed to Florida State:

Shaw visited FSU unofficially last month, and wanted to pull the trigger then.

“Honestly the reason was my parents,” Shaw said. “They wanted me to wait it out, take my visits over the summer, and then make a decision after my senior year.”

With Michigan’s current stockpile of WRs in the 2010 class, it’s sad to see a talent like Shaw fall by the wayside for Michigan, but them’s the ropes, I guess.

FL WR Chris Dunkley has transferred from Royal Palm Beach High School to Pahokee. This might slightly increase Michigan’s chances for him (he’s mostly considered a Florida lock, however). Also, it gives Pahokee an awesome set of WRs with Fred Pickett, Dennis Hall, and De’Joshua Johnson already there. Speaking of Johnson, however, he’s narrowed his list of choices to 3, Florida State, Alabama, and Oklahoma State. He won’t be removed quite yet, but considering he’s stated he doesn’t want to play in a spread offense (which, lol at him, is the scheme that best fits his skill set), and is serious enough about it to eliminate Florida, he’s probably gone baby, gone.

He also dumped Michigan, which was a difficult decision since the Wolverines have three former Blue Devils on their roster and were the first team to offer Johnson.

“I’m not going to knock them, but (the spread is) why,” Johnson said. “That was my school for a while. That was my first written offer and all my teammates are up there. It would have been fun.”

Sounds like he really liked the Wolverines, so maybe Rich will be able to convince him that players in the spread can make it to the NFL (Steve Slaton, Pat White, the ever-gusty Percy Harvey).

A spring game visit to…Northwestern?… has “wowed” OH OL Christian Pace, and the Wildcats’ turnout of 3,000 fans was enough to vault them near the top of Pace’s list of favorites.

Removed PA OL Seth Betancourt. He is selecting a school today from a list of finalists that does not include Michigan. All indications are that he’ll don a Boston College hat.

The Charlotte Observer’s hideous Blogspot-hosted (lol) blog has some very nice things to say about NC DT Gabe King‘s ability to play the game of foot-ed ball. Caveats about his being a discipline case persist, but Michigan has offered and appear to be strong for him, so keep him in mind, even if you don’t think he’s worth the potential trouble at this point. Edited to reflect the correct name, because I’m apparently not fond enough of proofreading.

Florida is the leader for FL DE Lynden Trail (info in header).

Not a ton of information is available for free in this article about PA LB Jordan Paskorz, but the alt text for the image in the post is “Paskorz is favoring Michigan, Virginia and Pitt.” take that for what it’s worth.

More from the Sporting News on the faux-commitment of FL CB Travis Williams (they think it’s a real commit). Conventional wisdom, direct quotes, and logic say: He wants to commit, RR told him not to for now.

Michigan has offered FL CB Rashad Knight (info in header). He is a more highly-rated prospect than Williams, at the very least, and indications (article title: “Michigan Jumps in Front for Knight“) are that he also holds Michigan in high regard.

Has GA CB Jonathan Mincy been offered? I haven’t even heard of the kid, much less as somebody who was likely to have received a Michigan offer, but he’s now added to the board, tentatively listed without said offer.

CA CB Troy Hill says Washington is his #1 school right now (info in header). Remember, he said a while back that his interest in MIchigan was waning, so he’s teetering on the edge of removal.

Posted under Football, Recruiting

Bow before the 2010 Recruiting Board.

ESPN posi-fluff on LA QB Munchie LeGaux. They say his stock is likely to rise, though it’s unclear whether that might result in more offers for the dual-threat passer. He performed well at an Elite 11 camp.

An update on SC RB Marcus Lattimore‘s favoring of Auburn:

Running back Marcus Lattimore (6-0, 210) of Byrnes High in Duncan visited Auburn on Friday and Saturday with his mother, stepdad and a friend, and he left there with the Tigers the favorite for his services.

“They’ve got a big lead,” Lattimore said. “Georgia and Florida State would be second. And USC and Clemson are still going to be up there. My mom liked (new Auburn head) Coach Gene Chizik and everything. He has a three-year plan for me and no other college has done that for me.”

Lattimore said he won’t take any more visits until he goes to Penn State this summer. He will attend the Nike camp this weekend at Georgia.

Are they so entrenched that they can’t be beaten? Certainly not. Does it sound like Michigan has a good chance? No.

Despite the lack of news on FL RB Cassius McDowell of late, he reports that the Wolverines still lead for him. It’s unclear whether Michigan is interested in taking another scatback-type in this class, but if they are, the HS teammate of Denard Robinson and Adrian Witty is certainly a good option.

Sounds as though OH RB Roderick Smith is about ready to drop for the Buckeyes. Removal from the board is coming soon for Smith.

FL OL Torrian Wilson isn’t saying Michigan leads for his services anymore, but SoFlaFootball still says the Maize and Blue are in his top group. The Wolverines, Tennessee, and Stanford will be three of his unofficial visits, with the remaining two TBD.

CA DT Kirifi Taula wants to stay in the PAC-10 (info in header). He’s cruisin’ straight towards removal from the board, and it appears as though his days on it are limited indeed. His high school, Anaheim Servite, is a pretty big USC feeder, so don’t be surprised if he eventually ends up there.

The eligibility saga of NC DT Gabe King continues, as the North Carolina High School Athletic Association has declared that he will not be able to play football for Northern Guilford (where he has transferred) in the fall. This will probably cool some schools on him, and a Greensboro correspondent has said that King is probably a guy that Michigan should stay away from, as King is always facing some sort of disciplinary issue.

Removed PA DT Aaron Donald, who has committed to Pitt. He is a high school teammate of CB prospects Cullen Christian and Brandon Ifill. Michigan’s recruitment of Ifill has tailed off a little bit, but the Wolverines are still the favorite for Christian. I assume Donald’s commitment will give Pitt a bit of help for either of those two.

OH LB Jordan Hicks has a top group consisting of Ohio State, Texas, Florida, and USC (info in header). No word on whether that a finalist list, or simply current favorites. We’ll wait and see what the next phase of his recruitment will be, but I certainly don’t think Michigan is in strong position.

Audio interview with FL LB Christian Jones, with some brief mentions of his recruitment (Michigan is not mentioned). His Florida State ties are pretty strong, so be aware that Michigan’s chances to land him are probably not very good.

FL CB Travis Williams recently visited Ann Arbor, and came away with a decision made (info in header). The two premium sites disagree on whether he’ll actually commit to the Wolverines soon, but ESPN showcases its continued incompetence, reporting that Williams has committed (he hasn’t). Even just gleaning the information from article titles, it’s pretty clear that he wants to commit to Michigan, but the Wolverines aren’t quite ready for that, because they like their chances with more highly-rated guys like FL CB Lo Wood and PA CB Cullen Christian, and don’t want to reach for Williams while those other guys are still in play. Should Michigan snag Travis in the end, don’t let that 4.95 40 time on Scout scare you: ESPN reports a combine-verified 4.61.

Track-a-palooza!:
2009 signee Fitzgerald Toussaint ran a 10.86 100m over the weekend.
MI CB Dior Mathis ran a slightly-less-impressive 11.0 100m.

Hilariously whiny and deliciously SpartyNO fluff in the Free Press about how Michigan State could totally recruit Cass Tech if they wanted to.

Posted under Football, Recruiting