the just released schedules were a flat-out statement that the B10 doesn't believe SOS will matter in playoff selection
Michael Taylor
Snake Oil Season - How the class will finish
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My five year old is in bed and my wife is planning a visit to a friends, so I thought I'd do a little web snooping to see if I could figure out how our class will finish.
We currently have verbals from the following 25 prospects:
The front page of Scout has a picture of Tennessee commit MLB Michael Taylor (3 star on Scout/3 star on Rivals). Rivals shows OLB Darrin Kitchens (2 star on Scout/3 star on Rivals) as a Michigan visitor the weekend of January 8th. Sam Webb on his December 18 Recruiting Round Up on WTKA (part one&part two) indicated that Michigan is now in the hunt for Cincinnati verbal DT Jibreel Black (4 star on Scout/3 star on Rivals) and a 4 star DT currently committed to an ACC school (Darious Cummings, Fre'Shad Hunter, Kelcy Quarles, and Shawn Green are the only players in the Scout database that fit this criteria.) Finally, the Scout premium message board has headlines suggesting that there's a mystery Olineman, currently committed somewhere, that may be considering Michigan. Not to mention the coaching changes at both Notre Dame and Florida that may put players we on the board have never considered into consideration.
Adding the new rumors to the previous prospect list gives us at least 14 quality players that we are still recruiting.
This all looks great to me as a fan, but then I question how many of these stars can we fit in the class? Sam Webb states, in the December 18 podcast, with absolute certainty that the class only has room for 26? Which means only one of the above can join us without some departures from the first 25. The trouble with his conviction is that he was the source of the original misinformation that only 25 could join this class.
I believe he is wrong again. As I discovered when researching an earlier diary (NCAA Scholarship Limit Review), you can apply early enrollees to either the current class or the previous class if there is room. We know that Michigan ended up with 21 in the last class, meaning we can apply four of our seven or eight January enrollees to last year's class. So we can provide 25 scholarships for the coming class plus four to the previous class for a total of 29. Technically, we could offer 28 for this coming class, plus four for the previous class, but we could only provide scholarships to 25 of the 28. The extra three offers above the 25 are intended to deal with any non-qualifiers we may have. The 28 number becomes a possibility when rumors that a couple prospects from the original 25 may not qualify. Coach Rodriguez might decide to fill to 28 and assume three will end up in the next class (a la Adrian Witty) as either nonqualifiers or greyshirts.
That means we have four if we don't want to deal with any greyshirts or seven if we want to shoehorn them in. Who would we take? My four/seven would be as follows:
It is exciting to watch the rebirth of our program!!
Edit: The comments section has really got a lot of great information about some possible snake oil prospects.
We currently have verbals from the following 25 prospects:
Ricardo Miller - Early enrolleeIt is well known that the following players are still under consideration for any remaining scholarships in this class:
Jeremy Jackson - Early enrollee
Jerald Robinson - Early enrollee
Devin Gardner - Early enrollee??
Antonio Kinard
D.J. Williamson
Tony Drake
Stephen Hopkins - Early enrollee
Marvin Robinson - Early enrollee
Drew Dileo
Jordan Paskorz
Christian Pace - Early enrollee
Kenny Wilkins
Conelius Jones
Courtney Avery
Austin White - Early enrollee
Terry Talbott
Terrence Talbott
Will Hagerup
Carvin Johnson
Cullen Christian
Ray Vinopal
Richard Ash
Josh Furman
Adrian Witty - Early enrollee
CB - Tony Grimes (4 star on Scout/3 star on Rivals)However, there may be a few more.
DE - Clarence Murphy (3 star on Scout/3 star on Rivals)
S - Sean Parker (4 star on Scout/4 star on Rivals)
OG - Torrian Wilson (3 star on Scout/4 star on Rivals)
DT - Big Tex Beachum (4 star on Scout/3 star on Rivals)
DT - Jonathan Hankins (3 star on Scout/3 star on Rivals)
DT - Michael Thornton (4 star on Scout/4 star on Rivals)
CB - Dior Mathis (4 star on Scout/4 star on Rivals)
CB - Rashad Knight (3 star on Scout//4 star on Rivals)
The front page of Scout has a picture of Tennessee commit MLB Michael Taylor (3 star on Scout/3 star on Rivals). Rivals shows OLB Darrin Kitchens (2 star on Scout/3 star on Rivals) as a Michigan visitor the weekend of January 8th. Sam Webb on his December 18 Recruiting Round Up on WTKA (part one&part two) indicated that Michigan is now in the hunt for Cincinnati verbal DT Jibreel Black (4 star on Scout/3 star on Rivals) and a 4 star DT currently committed to an ACC school (Darious Cummings, Fre'Shad Hunter, Kelcy Quarles, and Shawn Green are the only players in the Scout database that fit this criteria.) Finally, the Scout premium message board has headlines suggesting that there's a mystery Olineman, currently committed somewhere, that may be considering Michigan. Not to mention the coaching changes at both Notre Dame and Florida that may put players we on the board have never considered into consideration.
Adding the new rumors to the previous prospect list gives us at least 14 quality players that we are still recruiting.
This all looks great to me as a fan, but then I question how many of these stars can we fit in the class? Sam Webb states, in the December 18 podcast, with absolute certainty that the class only has room for 26? Which means only one of the above can join us without some departures from the first 25. The trouble with his conviction is that he was the source of the original misinformation that only 25 could join this class.
I believe he is wrong again. As I discovered when researching an earlier diary (NCAA Scholarship Limit Review), you can apply early enrollees to either the current class or the previous class if there is room. We know that Michigan ended up with 21 in the last class, meaning we can apply four of our seven or eight January enrollees to last year's class. So we can provide 25 scholarships for the coming class plus four to the previous class for a total of 29. Technically, we could offer 28 for this coming class, plus four for the previous class, but we could only provide scholarships to 25 of the 28. The extra three offers above the 25 are intended to deal with any non-qualifiers we may have. The 28 number becomes a possibility when rumors that a couple prospects from the original 25 may not qualify. Coach Rodriguez might decide to fill to 28 and assume three will end up in the next class (a la Adrian Witty) as either nonqualifiers or greyshirts.
That means we have four if we don't want to deal with any greyshirts or seven if we want to shoehorn them in. Who would we take? My four/seven would be as follows:
1 - Michael ThorntonThat would make for an amazing finish, that I'm sure most of us would be thrilled with. I realize Thornton is a long shot, but we're in the game. It is just as likely that we will end with a player or two we've not yet heard of.
2 - Sean Parker
3 - Tony Grimes
4 - Clarence Murphy
5 - Torrian Wilson
6 - Big Tex Beachum
7 - Rashad Knight
It is exciting to watch the rebirth of our program!!
Edit: The comments section has really got a lot of great information about some possible snake oil prospects.
Go Check out MVictors NOW! Or, after the debate, at least.
Filed under:
Awesome job by Michael Taylor on WTKA the other day. He called in to
talk about Tony Mandarich's steriod use. OMG it's hilarious. Check
out at MVictors.
