With the recent blitz of offers that have gone out to football recruits, how are we feeling about the prospects/targeting? There are offers to some big names and lesser well known names covering the midwest, east coast, Florida, Texas, California, etc which should give us a good first proxy for the types of kids the new staff is going after. Granted, we are very, very early in the process and many things will happen between now and next Feb when ink is on paper, but where is your confidence level right now? Are you more or less confident in our talent selection than with the last staff?

Not sure how long someone can hang onto these myths but lets go over it again.  The text below was from McCoskey's article about Schilling and Boren talking.  If you can play the NFL will find you even if you play in a pussy spread, a juco, or a d3 school.  I'm pretty sure they can find S. Schilling playing for the winningest team in college football. 

http://detnews.com/article/20110225/SPORTS0201/102250349

Sincerely,

M. Pouncey who went from pussy ball at Florida to starting for the Pittsburgh Steelers and the other hundreds of players who figured it out.

Schilling, who measured an NFL-worthy 6-foot-4 and 308 pounds, has two things against him: He has relatively short arms (he wouldn't say what his reach measured at) and he played in a spread offense for three years.

The latter will be harder for him to overcome.

Ohio State commit OL Kyle Kalis (6'5", 300 lbs) from St. Edward High School in Ohio was offered by Michigan yesterday. This is the second Ohio State commit (RB Bri'onte Dunn) to receive a Michigan offer. However, this one might be different. 

Michigan is also recruiting his St. Edward teammates TE Sam Grant, DT Greg Kuhar, and OL Tyler Orlosky who all have offers. Here's what Kyle had to say about the offer and the future.

I was offered by Michigan yesterday. I'm pretty much set on Ohio State, but my mind is still open at this point. I talked to Coach Funk yesterday and he said they would have offered me when I was 15 if they were the coaches here. He said they really want me, they really need me, and how excited they are to get to know me. They want me to come up to see Michigan and get the blue carpet treatment.

Kalis said he's pretty much set on Ohio State, but as the conversation went on he told me more about would could potentially transpire in the future, especially with his teammates. 

I might go up there with either Sam [Grant] or [Greg] Kuhar sometime. I think they like Michigan, and I know that [Tyler] Orlosky is definitely the most interested. Me and Orlosky are very close and we've always talked about playing together at the next level somewhere, so time will tell. I know Orlosky is a Michigan fan and excited to get up there to see what they're all about. I think I'll definitely give [Michigan] a chance to recruit me and I'll see where my teammates go.

Michigan has some work cut out for them if they'd like to land more than one St. Edward prospect. It sounds like Tyler Orlosky could be a big help with Michigan landing a few of his teammates, and they all happen to be at positions of need. I wouldn't get too excited about this yet, since Ohio State is very good at keeping kids committed, but it's definitely interesting to hear. We'll see what happens.

This goes along with the discussions of yesterday regarding a major D1 school about to be blown up.   I wonder if it could be TCU.  Either way wow.  Another alleged rape involving college athletes. 

http://www.sbnation.com/ncaa-football/2011/2/25/2014181/tcu-fraud-lawsui...

Morning all!  If anyone was like me, you were somewhat dumbfounded by the Hoke hire the associated process behind it.  There were certainly a lot of passionate emotions expressed - some good, mostly bad.  But now that we are are almost 2 months into the Hoke regime and have had some time to assess the hire more objectively and with saner minds, have any of you who thought once thought the Hoke hire was a bad now think otherwise?  And why?

Me?  Well, I still think this was not a great hire that was mitigated partially by a top-notch DC.  Reasons are as follows:

1. The whole "turned BSU and SDSU around" meme.  I still don't get this.  Taking a bad a team and putting together one good season before leaving doesn't really prove that he can turn a program around.  Doesn't mean he can't do it here, but doing so in the MAC and Mountain West doesn't really give me hope that he can do this in the big ten.

2. Denard.  One of the best athletes in the game, but he is a very niche QB that needs a certain coach to extract that QB talent.  The new staff is not it, which is fine, because I think Denard will switch positions by time he graduates, making room for someone more abt for a traditional offense.  IMO, Denard's Heisman days are done.

3. Recruiting.  It seems Hoke wants to concentrate on the midwest, which scares me.  Save Ohio, the midwest is a good, not great nest of football talent.  The vast majority of great football players come from the South and West. This is where we need to be.

4. Hoke's introductory press conference.  Am I the only one who was not impressed?  I love his passion, but he was very unpolished and amateur.  I get the feeling he going to say some VERY bone-headed comments when under pressure during a press conference.

Overall, Hoke's intangible's are immense, but I think there is very little tangible aspects to hold on to.  He is the coach of my favorite team and he has my full support, but I just don't see hime getting it done here.  I predict that the defense will improve, the offense will regress, and we will see what we did for most of the 2000s with LC.  He will beat OSU once and MSU twice in 5 years and out the door after 2016.  I sincerely hope I am wrong, but with Hoke's less than stellar coaching resume, hope is all I got.

Here is the map for this week....I tried using umhero 2012 offer list, and it worked out pretty well w/ little formatting issues.  Again, if there are any errors please dont hesitate to bring them up, and I'll try to incorprate the corrections in the next update.

Michigan 2012 Recruiting Map - 2/25

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**Edits:  Thanks for poitning these out IO'll have to verify these, but will include corrections in next map....

- "Centerville that Odenigbo is from is more toward the western part of Ohio."

- "Kuhar, Sam Grant and Kalis all go to the same school. Where you have Kalis' marker is the right geographic area for that particular St. Eds, I believe."