the greatest mid-february weekend in the history of mid-february weekends

Two NFL players from one Columbus suburb in one weekend. [Bryan Fuller]

Inspired by recent events, we thought it'd be a fun idea to relive the cause of my carpal tunnel great recruiting weeks in recent Michigan history. While it's a little early to judge some of these, I took a stab at ranking the best commitment runs in Seth's database, which extends back to the 2002 class (but is missing commit dates for 2003—I don't think this mattered much because, as you'll see, commits didn't used to coordinate like they do now.). The rules:

  1. To qualify as a run, at least five players must commit within the span of a week. (I reserve the right to fudge by a day.)
  2. Players who decommitted aren't in the database and tracking down their commits dates is a ton of work for rather depressing information, so those guys don't count. It's better this way, trust me.
  3. Players across multiple classes count, which got Denard onto this list, so you're welcome.
  4. National Signing Day runs had to be of some note to make the list because, in the before times, commits used to drop en masse on NSD. Again, trust me, it's better to omit some of these.

We start with the one you'd expect.

8047439657_c709c3675d_o.jpg

Taco (#33 in purple) and Butt (between #40 and the ref) stood out among high schoolers. [me]

1. Mid-February 2012: The Greatest Mid-February Weekend

Commits: Jourdan Lewis, Taco Charlton, Jake Butt, Patrick Kugler, Wyatt Shallman, Kyle Bosch, Chris Fox, David Dawson, Logan Tuley-Tillman, Jaron Dukes

Yeah, we have a tag for this one.

The strength is at the top with three early-round NFL draft picks, all of whom were excellent college players. Jake Butt is in the discussion for best tight end in school history; Taco Charlton was a fearsome rusher on one of the best D-lines in school history; Jourdan Lewis was the best player of the three in college. Those three take this group to the top.

While it's hard to ask for more than the above out of one recruiting weekend, the rest didn't exactly pan out as hoped. Only Patrick Kugler exhausted his eligibility at Michigan among the five O-linemen, and he was never able to seize the center position and excel as most everyone expected. Wyatt Shallman will always be beloved around these parts for his brief wallaby ownership and other wonderful off-field stuff, but injuries and positional uncertainty marked his football career in Ann Arbor before he grad-transferred to Ohio.

Still, three All-American-level players in one weekend is a heck of a haul. The benefits of landing Lewis, who's still a staple in Detroit and is close with Lavert Hill, are still showing themselves.

[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the list, which includes a healthy chunk of this year's team.]

recruits

Follow the end of the 2016 line so see where previous classes stood at this point in the process. bigking it makes clickger.

This is gonna be a lot of data and not much analysis that comes from it. Anecdotally, recruiting in the period before this changed dramatically as fans involved themselves in the process. To have a guy like Henne locked up a year out was weird for 2004; Kevin Grady, who pledged to Michigan the summer before his junior season, was unheard of.

The question was has the timeline of committing changed significantly from then to now, or did the thing settle down? I also wanted to see what went on with the other recent transition classes: was 2015 dramatically different from 2011, or 2008?

To answer it I gathered the commitment dates of Michigan freshman recruits since pledging became something reported on the internet (class of 2004). The result was the above chart showing a slightly greater emphasis on getting more commitments around signing day of the last class, and that May-July period between spring and fall practices.

Also under Rodriguez and more so under Hoke, Michigan began taking more guys over a year out from Signing Day. I would expect that to remain thing but not to any great extent. I'll be able to say more once I've gotten the national data to some semblance of sense.

Are they committing earlier to Michigan? On the whole, yes, except for transition classes for obvious reasons.

michigan avg commits

Taking a mean day is misleading because there are definitely certain periods (summer, near singing day) when commitments bunch. The Greatest February Weekend in the History of February Weekends that built the 2013 class was not repeated, but the 2014 class signed so early that Hoke's last two classes were half-full by now.

You'll note the classes after coaching transitions were also set forward from those a few years out. That is a reflection of the recruiting cycle stretching well beyond a year out. Harbaugh's 2017 class has begun before 6'6 tight ends who camp have ratings—or should—but that isn't a new reality.

Was the 2015 transition class like other transition classes? Your memory is saying "there were never so many decommits" and your memory is correct:

transition classes

I showed with stars where the last coach retired/was fired/mutually parted ways, and the new one hired. Football seasons began about 175 days out. From there you can see the 2015 class falling apart as the team did, while the greater uncertainty of Rich Rod's 2010 just stagnated the growth of the class. Carr's retirement went relatively smoothly.

The 2015 class was also off to a much stronger start, including 5-stars in George Campbell and Damien Harris over a year before NSD, whereas the 2010 class was built under the shadow of Rosenbergmadeupagate. The 2008 class largely came together during the 2006 season, and in its aftermath.

Within all that you can see how critical a few weeks in winter were. Rodriguez weathered a bit of attrition and finished his class with, if not all he needed (ahem, defensive backs), several players who'd become long-term starters in his system. While we waited for Dave Brandon to get maximum Dave Brandon is Handling This time during The Process, the 2011 class went on a roller-coaster, and Hoke, despite being a fantastic recruiter, was given too little time to add everything he needed.

Event (days to NSD) 2008
Carr->RR
2011
RR->Hoke
2015
Hoke->JH
Coach search begins Nov 20 (78) Jan 6 (27) Dec 2 (64)
New coach announced Dec 17 (51) Jan 11 (22) Dec 30 (36)

On the Data

You can have it here:

A lot of this was from the 247 database, which was from Rivals' database, which was wrong in a lot of spots (for example they give dates they don't know for the 2004 class as 7/8/2003). In the process of tracking down the real dates I asked the guy who covered Mike Hart most closely and got a bonus story for us:

hart story

So thanks John L.!

sfb-header-2014_640

Via Hail to the Blue in the comments, "The softball team is in action today, tomorrow, and Sunday in Lafayette, LA at the Ragin' Cajun Invitational. Follow @umichsoftball on Twitter for live updates. Couple of tough games against UL-Lafayette today and tomorrow down here."

Pitchers and Catchers! There used to be a day sometime in the late summer every year when I start to get really excited about football. This tingling would progress to a low hum when practices started up, and would be a spinal vibration by the time I'm racing into the stadium for whatever MACrifice we're starting against. I miss that. Last year we were doing the basketball book so August was just a bleary eyed gauntlet, and the year before the season started in Jerryworld. This year I already know that excitement will be damped down by a month's worth of reliving The Horror.

Baseball's version of that is pitchers & catchers reporting. Mack Avenue Kurt:

Pitchers and catchers reporting isn't so much an event, or even a day on the calendar, as it is a metaphor: It is the day that winter's back begins to break; a promise that day follows night.

Rk Sport Revenue
1 Football $81,475,191
2 M Basketball $14,799,440
3 Ice Hockey $3,248,026
4 Lacrosse $2,378,900
5 W Basketball $440,353
6 Baseball $312,388
7 Softball $300,721
8 Volleyball $151,635
9 W All Track Combined $141,452
10 W Gymnastics $100,723

You can't dampen pitchers and catchers day, not when Omar Infante is the rookie you're praying will lead the offense, not you're seeing his back plus Prince Fielder's and your 4th best pitcher's because the expense of being so awesome has passed what awesome can net.

Sorry, this is supposed to be about Michigan not the Tigers. Ah but it is, for it's a lead-in to Raoul's comprehensive preview of Michigan's baseball team. It's still tough for a northern team to be more than a good mid-major in this sport, but Bakich seems to have Michigan heading in that direction.

When baseball is really good (e.g. their 2006 run) they're the fourth sport in these parts. Are they Michigan's true #4 sport? There was a interesting thread this week where the question of that sport's identity was posed by Wolverine Devotee. To that discussion I added the list at right from Michigan's Title IX reporting. Some of those teams (like lacrosse) are benefiting more from ticket sales/TV revenue generated by opponents' fans. I tried to compare where each stands among other universities, but many schools lie their asses off in those reports regarding women's sports revenues, for example West Virginia says their W Track & Field team takes in what Michigan's hockey team does. My guess is this gets them around a Title IX provision but I don't know which. Either way it makes the stats useless.

As for Michigan's fourth sport, I still think it's softball.

My bloody valentine. Sunday there will be a whole bunch of recruits who don't have drivers licenses yet watching the Wisconsin game at Crisler. Next week there will be a large and star-heavy group of those who can drive, and who can also say things like "I'm committing to Michigan," say, for example, if they were suddenly taken by a wave of euphoria that might accompany an effective conference title clinch over a rival. This is not crazy; it has happened before. Go make our football team good, basketball.

FWIW HopeInHoke's diary shows winning the conference from here is possible, but nowhere near a certainty. MSU's only road loss in-conference is to Wisconsin; remember when that was a thing we used to just chalk up to "happens to everyone"? LSA's weekly stats report shows Michigan's superior to an average of remaining opponents in everything but rebounding.

[After the jump: things Marcus Ray et al. say about Michigan's 2014 secondary]