Before I get into the recruiting roundup, I'm planning a recruiting mailbag post for tomorrow and could use a couple more questions. If you've got one (or more!) please send me an email or tweet it to me. Now back to your regularly scheduled Jabrill Peppers update.

Jabrill Peppers Heat Status: Infinity Chilli

If you somehow haven't watched this just do it already. Yes, all of it.

As the recruitment of Jabrill Peppers evolves, Michigan's chances of landing the five-star corner appear to be getting better and better. The latest news from Peppers is that he's moving up his decision timeline and putting Penn State back in the mix—he'll make a May 18th visit to Happy Valley per 247's Steve Wiltfong ($) [emphasis mine]:

“They never left the picture,” [Paramus Catholic head coach Chris] Partridge said of Penn State. “Them and Michigan were his top visits. He decided he wanted to move up his decision timeline. He doesn’t have any negatives about Penn State. Them or Michigan. He wants to go and stay overnight at Penn State.”

Peppers is still aiming to get to Stanford before deciding.

“He is looking to commit sometime in early June,” Partridge said.

Peppers previously visited Penn State on February 20th, and while his coach is now talking up the visit there wasn't nearly the same over-the-moon reaction in the immediate aftermath as he had post-Michigan. Securing a second visit from Peppers is remarkably impressive for Bill O'Brien and PSU considering the circumstances; it seems unlikely they'd be able to overtake Michigan. This is very important considering the next bit of visit-related news:

2014 DB Jabrill Peppers hasn't cancelled his Stanford visit but it is proving difficult to plan around his track schedule, per his coach.

— The M Block (@TheMBlock) May 8, 2013

Despite finding it difficult to reschedule his trip to Stanford, Peppers is moving up his timeline. Even the staunchest of pessimists has to take that as a very good sign for Michigan's chances.

As it stands, it's hard to see a scenario in which Peppers sticks to his new timeline and doesn't choose the Wolverines. Penn State—and, if he makes the trip, Stanford—is still a threat, but there's more than one reason for Peppers to take a final visit: not only does he want to make sure he's making the right decision, he's got a high school teammate—QB Steve Shanley—who visited Happy Valley with him in February and is still hoping for a Nittany Lion offer.

PSU insiders certainly seem less optimistic than their Michigan counterparts—for good reason, with the sanctions and all. If early June is really the decision timeline, the Wolverines are going to be very tough to beat here. The current commits certainly seem to think so—either Drake Harris knows something we don't or he's just a very confident recruiter, via Sam Webb ($):

When asked if he thinks Michigan has a good chance of landing Peppers’ after their private conversations?

Harris replied, “I’ll just say we have good chance.”

Do you feel good where things stand with Peppers?

“I feel great!” Harris replied with a coy smile confidently.

Go ahead, watch that highlight tape again, and allow yourself to get a little excited.

[Hit THE JUMP for more from last weekend's camps, this weekend's visitor list, notes on new offers, and more.]

I don't know if Beamer is still going to be around for this but hey look an honest to god legit opponent in a home and home:

Michigan & Virginia Tech will play a home-and-home series during the 2020 & 2021 seasons; 2020 (Michigan Stadium), 2021 (Lane Stadium).

Da'Shawn Hand will be out of school for multiple years at that point, and the 2020 game is a home anchor for a year when Michigan plays OSU on the road. Thumbs up.

Previously: CB Reon Dawson

Welcome to episode two in "Michigan just wants you to be 6'2", cornerback." In this case, they want you to be that so badly that they'll offer you at camp even though your offer list currently reads "Charlotte and the SWAC." That's Channing Stribling's story.

Virtually the first articles most sites wrote about Stribling came at Michigan's camp. I mean:

Q: When you came up for camp, did you even consider this a possibility?

No sir, to be honest, I didn’t think so at all. Me and my friends, we came up here mainly to visit Ball State and some of the MAC schools. I didn’t think Michigan would even look at me. I went to N.C. State’s camp two weeks ago and Kentucky’s camp right before I went to Michigan.

Then the first day of one-on-ones, they told me they liked me, but I thought they were just trying to be nice. But they were really interested.

And Michigan already had Conley, Thomas and Lewis committed. I don't think they expected to offer the kid either. Ball State did offer, by the way. He still picked Michigan.

Sam Webb's impressions from that camp:

How this kid is such a relatively obscure prospect while playing for  such a powerhouse program is a mystery.  Standing 6-2 and maybe 165-pounds, this Tar Heel State product is extremely fluid (despite his length), and possesses quickness that belies his size.  Though not a blazer, he has good football speed.  Furthermore, he has really good leaping ability and ball schools.  Some schools might be scared away by his slender frame and lack of elite top end speed. Others, meanwhile, might see pure potential… a youngster that could become more explosive once he adds more muscle to his slender frame.

Michigan got lucky in one particular way; Stribling was a recent convert to defensive back and had performed at the other camps he hit up as a wideout, not a defender. It's possible if he'd played corner at NC State or wherever he would have picked up an offer and possibly taken himself off the board.

When the sites got around to ranking him, they were relatively enthusiastic. Rivals moved him up to their highest three-star ranking. He's only a few spots away from four stars (their safety cutoff is 24). Scout has him three spots away from a fourth star at CB. The other two sites gave him perfunctory you-committed-to-Michigan three star rankings, but we're talking about a guy who had offers from Charlotte, Howard, and Hampton before he hit Michigan's camp. (He might have had an NC State offer, too, but there's conflicting information on that.)

The main reason he popped up those rankings is… well, he got a Michigan offer and committed. But a strong #2 is a bust-out senior season. He kicked it off($) against Tennessee commit and top 50-ish WR Marquez North. Stribling(1) had more receptions than North(0) in that matchup. IE, Stribling picked off the first pass of the game and helped shut North out the rest of the way.

ESPN's Kipp Adams, a writer for their Georgia site, caught that game and came back claiming Michigan had pulled off "grand larceny"($):

Through nine months, more than 70 programs have come through Butler High School in Matthews -- and with good reason. … The fact that all of those coaches missed on Channing Stribling is remarkable. …

In this humble writer’s opinion, Brady Hoke and his staff should be wearing ski masks when discussing Stribling on signing day, as they have stolen a gem from the Tar Heel State.

Scout's Chad Simmons named Stribling his "top performer($)" of that week of the season, saying it "looks like [Michigan] got a steal" and "has great length, plays the ball well, and has the body to really add significant weight." Simmons wrote a separate article on the kid as a result:

You have to love the size right away. He is a long and rangy corner with potential to add significant weight to his frame. He can work on his footwork, making his back peddle more smooth, and his explosiveness out of his breaks, but he showed he could play the ball, he turn and ran with receivers well, and he did a nice job of keeping his eyes on the quarterback and receiver.

Stribling has a lot of upside on the next level. He juggles multiple sports, so once he begins to focus on football and football only, he is going to get better fundamentally and physically.

Stribling continued to annihilate all comers as he helped drive Butler to a state championship. He had another pick and a kickoff return TD the next week added two more INTs over the next three games, scored four touchdowns in their hsfopoff opener, and had a TD and INT in the state championship game, whereupon Scout claimed he had "huge upside."

As a result, everyone and their uncle named Stribling a potential sleeper. Tom went with him on a Wolverine Nation roundtable; Rivals's Mike Farrell named him as a guy who would be getting a bump (albeit apparently not a huge one) after just a couple weeks of season; 247 picked him as a class sleeper for Michigan, noting his senior stats:

Michigan signed four other defensive backs that were tabbed as four-star recruits, however Stribling has the size at 6-foot-2, 170-pounds, and athleticism, 4.5 in the 40-yard dash, to be the best of the bunch. …he registered 37 tackles, 14 pass breakups and six interceptions while also being a playmaker on offense with 37 catches for 636 yards and eight touchdowns.

So there you go. Stribling showed up in a big way as a senior. He's got pounds to pack on, and when people ask him about his strengths he says this:

“Not having to totally guess [anymore], but knowing how and when [my opponent] is going to break. I know what he’s going to do before he does it.”

Raw upside length, upside length raw, raw raw length upside. You get the idea. Compounding that upside business is the Copp factor, in which a kid who plays a bunch of sports in high school can get a lot better once he focuses on just one. Stribling plays basketball and runs track as well.

A few more details on what Michigan's won from ESPN:

…a tall, rangy athlete with very good ball skills and long striding speed. Talented prospect with big play potential on both sides of the ball. Could be a late bloomer with his physical upside. While high-cut without overly smooth transitional skills, this is still a prospect we feel can play on the perimeter at the college level and have success. Lacks elite initial burst and explosion but brings a lot of quickness, speed and range to the position and can turn and run with most receivers with his good acceleration and top-end speed. … Can stick to the hip in-phase and while his high-cut frame makes it difficult to sink out of breaks, his length and range also make it difficult for receivers to create separation. Has the height and high-point skills that are coveted on the outside to matchup with today's taller receivers. Can turn and run with most wide outs but we question if he has the hips to transition smoothly without wasted motion versus faster vertical receivers at the BCS level.

Does that sound like the #33 player in North Carolina? His coach:

“Long arms. He controls his body very well. You see a lot of kids in high school that size, they have a tough time managing where everything is going, but Channing does a great job with body control.”

Finally, Stribling brings the sort of personality Michigan is looking for. He spent the full week at camp, giving Curt Mallory an opportunity to get the know the guy's talent and coachability…

"Channing came to our camp (in the summer) not only for a day, but for the whole week, I got a chance to be around Channing all week long," Mallory said. "I really got to work with him more than just once. You see his height, you see his range and you see his competitiveness.

"The more you were around him, the more you fell in love with him -- he really brings a lot of length to the position."

…and his coach indicates he's a program guy:

“With his competitiveness it rubs off on his teammates he raises the level of play among his teammates. He is a great kid the teachers love to have him in class; Channing has a great personality and a great respect for those in authority. He is mature kid but still a kid who interacts well with adults and kids."

Michigan's swinging for the fences here, and so far so good.

Etc.: Is from a military family. Plus one. Hoke is not Urban($):

"A lot of other schools were talking to me about offering me later after they see what type of stars I had and where I was ranked, but Michigan was different," Channing Stribling told Scout.

"They saw me at their camp and they did not care that I didn't have all the stars and that I wasn't ranked high. They liked me and they offered me. That is what really stood out to me when I committed to them."

Why Morgan Trent? Trent is pretty much the only tall-skinny-long corner in recent Michigan history unless you want to count Troy Woolfolk, who was constantly injured, and James Rogers, who was not very good.

Trent was a bit faster, Stribling is a good amount longer. Trent couldn't change direction very well, and when people talk about a 'high cut' athlete that's one of the things that comes in that package of worry jargon. That's basically Stribling's limiting factor: how fast can he change direction?

Guru Reliability: Moderate. Stribling was virtually unknown until his Michigan commitment and while the sites did check him out as a senior, they are still working from a relatively slight knowledge base. It seems tough for the sites to shoot someone way up unless they see a guy in person at one of their camps, for a lot of reasons.

Variance: High. Raw upside length.

Ceiling: High-minus. Frame excellent, lacks that top-end speed.

General Excitement Level: Aw, crap. I don't like doing this so early in the profile series when I haven't dug deep on most of the class, but…

Sleeper of the year

The last three years of SotY: Jake Ryan, Desmond Morgan, and last year's co-award to Ben Braden and Jehu Chesson. I think that's a pretty good track record right there.

This determination is made easier by the fact that traditionally I hand this out to a guy with no four-star rankings and there are only a few guys who meet those criteria this year: Stribling, Csont'e York, Khalid Hill, Dawson, and Da'Mario Jones. Soon this award will be "the guy who doesn't have four stars somewhere."

Projection: Almost certain redshirt. He's got another year to work his way into the lineup slowly behind Countess/Taylor before Taylor's graduation throws the boundary corner job open. If you're asking me right now to pick who wins that battle, I say Stribling. Tentative, obviously.

We need to make space in the warehouse for the HTTV books and new t-shirts, so we're cleaning out some of the older shirts and stuff before they go stale. Flows, twosies, brunettes, Lloyd Brady, Tremendous, Ermahgerd, Winningest, even a Worst State Ever, are knocked down to $5.00. Also if you want last year's HTTV, we're gonna try to clear those out too.

Click on each for a link to the item. If the link goes dead, we sold out.

Two dolla:

Five dolla:

(!!!)

Five dolla:

Ten dolla for American Apparel version of it. For onesie, Five dolla:

Five dolla:

Five dolla:

Fiiiiiive dolla:

Five dolla.

aw hamburgers

Hello, Duke. Michigan draws a game at Cameron Indoor for next year's Big Ten/ACC challenge. Irritatingly, that's Duke's second consecutive home game and Michigan went on the road twice in a row in 2011 and 2010. But, hey, Duke. That likely concludes the big boy section of the nonconference schedule, which now reads:

• @ Duke
• @ Iowa State
• vs Arizona
• vs Stanford (N)
• Hypothetical Puerto Rico slate: Auburn, Florida State/VCU, Georgetown/K-State

If Michigan doesn't get knocked into the crappy section of their tournament they'll have six games against quality high-major (or VCU, same thing) competition. Auburn doesn't count, and they may put Michigan with Long Beach State or Charlotte if they think those teams are actually worse than the Tigers.

That is some heavy lifting in the nonconference. It's not quite as heavy as Duke's epic schedule a year ago but as long as Michigan doesn't screw it up by putting a bunch of Binghamtons on the schedule they should have a quality nonconference SOS number.

That's resolved then. Jared Rutledge is officially headed back to the USHL for a year:

Red Berenson: "Rutledge is returning to junior hockey for a year. He will either come back here or transfer to another school."

Hockey is weird in that you can just do that and come back and it's like nothing ever happened. It does count as a redshirt year since his five-year clock started last year, so he will have three years to play three when he returns to college. Will he want to return to a place with two more years of Racine and three of Nagelvoort? I'm a little doubtful about that, but with the way Red is you know the door will be open.

gone. gone. gone. gone. gone. gone. etc.

Kind of good, part two. Six(!) softball players were named first-team All Big Ten after Michigan roared through the league schedule 20-2. Sierra Romero was both the freshman and player of the year, Carol Hutchins coach of the year, etc.

Here is Romero's Big Ten slugging percentage.

1.125

!!!

Also her on-base percentage was .659. That is nuts.

No Wolverines made the All-Defensive Team, probably because they didn't have to dodge missiles from Romero.

You have destroyed all comers. The current tote board for the EDSBS charity bowl:

Our rivals feel decrepitude and shame, except the Notre Dame folk, who immediately start talking about African-American graduation rates because that's what they do after every setback in life. Impotent? But the graduation rates!

Here is a fairer tote board:

MICHIGAN: 4,462.88
REST OF BIG TEN COMBINED: 1009.96

Northwestern does get a point for having one donation for 54.51. /shakes fist

Punting will be just fine. Kyle Meinke saves me the trouble of filtering through Matt Wile's pooch-infested yardage record and coming up with the correct statistical profile we should use going into a season where he's going to be the obvious starter at the spot. Drumroll:

Filtering out pooch punts, Wile has averaged 42.6 yards on his 20 career attempts. That would have ranked 35th nationally last year, and third in the Big Ten behind Hagerup and Michigan State's Mike Sadler.

Wile blasted three Outback punts an average of 49 yards and dropped seven of his nine pooch punts inside the 20. He's mastered that drop-it-funny sky kick that's getting more popular these days.

So, yeah, Michigan will be fine. Given what we saw from Kenny Allen in spring they've even got a backup plan. I'd expect Wile to move over to kicker next year with Brendan Gibbons gone, leaving Allen and Hagerup to battle for the punter job.

Credit where it's due. Michigan's revenue blew up since 2009. Why? Hmm.

Michigan made $52.4 million in ticket sales in 2012, up from $37.5 million at the start of the boom in 2009. That's a 39.7-percent leap.

Going by the budget numbers:

CLUB/SUITE REVENUE, 2009: 0.
CLUB/SUITE REVENUE, 2010: $7.8 million
CLUB/SUITE REVENUE, 2011: $14.8 million

That's almost entirely Bill Martin's doing, along with the usual incremental increases in ticket price. The vast majority of the rest of it is the Big Ten Network, leaving things like The Big Chill being sponsored by Arby's and Let's Present This Basketball To A Middle Manager doing almost nothing other than paying for the salary of the guy Brandon hired to copy things from pro teams.

On the other hand, Brandon doesn't appear to be playing polo on a sailboat at critical junctures, so he's got that going for him. One day we will have an athletic director who has the faintest idea of what it's like to not be filthy rich.

Kameron incoming? A previously tentative suggestion that CA SF Kameron Chatman would visit Michigan is… well, still tentative.

“They said that they have an offer for me, they just want me to get on campus,” Chatman explained. “They don’t really like to offer without you being able to visit the campus and see what they really want. They said once I get on campus, they’ll offer me.

“I think my dad was talking about me going up there for my birthday, June 1st. They have a camp or something like that. I’m not sure right now, but I think I might go up there.”

He seems to have a hazy top three of Michigan, Oregon, and Washington, with Washington rumored a tenuous favorite. He's originally from Portland before he moved to Long Beach. Surprised MSU isn't involved since his AAU team is ICP Elite.

Meanwhile, 2015s won't get offered until June 15th, always the most interesting recruiting day on Michigan basketball's calendar these days. IL PG Hyron Edwards is likely to get one of those offers:

The Illini and Boilermakers have offered and the Wolverines, who won’t offer class of 2015 prospects until June 15, seem to be heading in that direction. He said he hopes to work in an unofficial visit to Bloomington when in town for the adidas May Classic and will be in Ann Arbor on June 1 for Michigan’s elite camp.

“(Assistant) coach (LaVall) Jordan has been talking to me about it,” he said of a potential scholarship offer from Michigan. “If I do get the offer, that would be pretty great.”

Indiana also offered a while ago.

Etc.: Chris Webber! Chris Webber! But I want to hang out with Maurice Taylor, you guyyyys. And Louis Bullock. Vince Edwards still status quo, deciding between Michigan and Purdue. Staples ranks M 16th. Hruby on who exactly is harmed by the McLemore money moving around thing, references Catch-22.

It is this:

Now, a couple things probably leap out at you: "Thursday or Saturday" and "Sunday or Monday" plus a definite Monday game against Ohio State that's part of a series about a month before conference play starts in earnest.

The latter is because that hockey series bookends The Game, which is pretty cool. Note that that conference series is at the end of November/beginning of December and then there's almost a month before Michigan plays another Big Ten game. Wisconsin and Minnesota will also drop the puck that night for a "doubleheader," sayeth MGoBlue.com, so expect both those games to be televised.

I haven't been able to dig up anyone else's schedule yet so I can't tell if they're going to be moving some of these games around to get more of them on BTN. If doubleheaders are a common occurrence then clearly they will at least be moving times. Michigan would be the early game when there is a Central time zone game on the docket.

I was hoping the Big Ten folks would try to line up more things like that OSU megaweekend, but they did not have many opportunities. At least not for Michigan, anyway. M doesn't play Wisconsin, it's beside the point for Michigan State, the Minnesota game is probably before hockey season is allowed to start, and Penn State is the week after. They may or may not be able to put together a joint PSU/M weekend there, but no one wants to kick the season off with conference games.

Because the stupid format of the conference tournament squeezes what what a three-week process down to one weekend, Michigan will have two extra weekends to futz with. They will likely 1) not fill that January 3 slot in anticipation of not having some kids back from the World Juniors and 2) not have a series like those odd BGSU Tuesdays.

What about the nonconference schedule?

We know a few things. Michigan travels to UNO November 15th and 16th. They also go to UNH the 18th and 19th. For some reason I believe they're headed out to Boston to play the BC/BU twin bill they usually do when they go out there but I can't dig that up except this random blog that BC Interruption trusts implicitly about BC hockey scheduling. He was right about the setup of the latest Frozen Fenway double-header, FWIW. I assume he's right and Michigan will play BC plus some other Boston-area team, whether it's BU, Harvard, or Northeastern. Northeastern did come in a couple years back, Michigan may owe them a return.

They will play in the GLI, as always, and four of their nonconference games will be against the Bentleys of the world because that's just how college sports roll, and Michigan's already going on the road for six quality games. It would be nice to get a couple quality nonconference home series in the mix.

I'm a bit dubious that'll happen. They're not playing Miami, UMD, North Dakota, Michigan Tech (a possibility because of Mel Pearson), or WMU (though they are in the GLI). I'd be shocked if things are cordial enough to schedule Notre Dame after the Irish canceled the Michigan series with maximum asshat engaged. So who's left? ECAC teams, mostly. Which would be okay, but I was hoping Michigan could get some sex appeal on the schedule with their 14 nonconference games. They have, but not at Yost.