phil brabbs

[David Nasternak]

I've been wanting to write a Spring Football Bits for weeks, except the biggest news coming out of there isn't what's happening on the field for 2023 but which high schoolers have been coming by to watch it. So here we are, mid Spring Ball of the most anticipated season since 2006, rolling out an update on teenagers who might sign in 2024 or 2025 and be relevant by 2026.

Oh, and one stray 2023 that's still out there.

Safety swipe. VA 4* ATH Brandyn Hillman recently asked out of his NLI to Notre Dame and is expected to join either Michigan or Ohio State($, info in title), with Michigan calling within 15 minutes of Hillman reopening his recruitment. Lorenz agrees Michigan is in front($) but makes it sound more like a 4-point lead, with Ohio State about to get possession($), as Bill Kurelic says OSU is the only school that's currently certain to get visit (video). OSU was the loser of a 5-star battle with Bama for #1 safety/#6 overall Caleb Downs on Early Signing Day. USC, who missed out late on TX 4* Warren Roberson, also offered.

Michigan didn't have a pure safety in the class but brought in three guys who redshirted in 2022 and a couple more ATHs in Jason Hewlett and DJ Waller who project to the LB and CB sides of the safety range, respectively, meaning they can afford Hillman time to develop. Not so at Notre Dame, where the safety depth chart is starting resemble their 4-scholarship player basketball roster. Their 2023 class also got raided over the course of the cycle.

Hillman played QB and several other positions in high school but it's pretty clear this is a safety offer, not a last second quarterback. He's shown out at camps, most recently at the Polynesian Bowl. Tim Prister describes a versatile "wrecking ball" and "Point A to Point B missile" who's sized like a pure safety but brings a LB's mentality. All that sounds more like Khaleke Hudson.

So how did Hillman slip loose? Hillman said "personal reasons." MnB did some message board sleuthing but only found Tom Loy claiming academics but not just academics:

[Loy] stated he “believes academics played a role here in this decision” for him to leave Notre Dame. Loy further stated there were “some hurdles” to getting him academically admitted, but Notre Dame didn’t push to get him cleared. Apparently this is a specific academic problem related to Notre Dame, otherwise high academic schools like Michigan, Vanderbilt and Virginia likely would not have offered.

It's my understanding that Michigan and Notre Dame have the same academic approach—the teams get a handful of "trust us" counters for freshmen who are reasonably close but everyone else has to get in on their own—which means non-qualifiers either A) didn't meet the minimal standard for a counter, or B) were supposed to get in on their own and now need a counter. Loy's claim that ND "didn't push to get him cleared" is a nod toward 'B' but could also translate to "he told us not to bother."

[After THE JUMP: Phil Brabbs gets a downgrade]

It's time for a football season. A great football season. A classic football season.

WHAT: Michigan vs. Washington, 2002

WHEN: Noon ET, today

WHERE: twitch.tv/mgoace

WHO: I'll be adding commentary

WHY: We need this

UPDATE: I'm having issues getting embeds to work but if you missed the stream, you can watch a replay here.

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photoshoppers, start your GNUs

So we did the meet and greet Q&A thing, and other than the liveblog portion being pretty much a disaster, A+++ would do again. I couldn't type fast enough to keep up with all the good info in the Q&A so below I've written up those answers plus some we answered after the fact via email. logo

We're tentatively talking another one the Friday night before the Notre Dame game, so calendar that. If you're coming in from out of town, Jared of Sports Power Weekends, who sponsored this whole thing, mentioned he's putting together a trip for that weekend that includes tickets for the game and a private tour of the Big House before we do drinks and ALL THE SHANE MORRIS.

Some things went way better than expected and other things not so much. Didn't go well: We had no way to plug our mic into the speaker system, fortunately remembering just in time that bartenders have friends with guitar amplifiers. The other thing that could have gone better is we forgot to warn Brian that Jehu Chesson was in the audience before your favorite blogger launched into his heuristic reasoning as to why Amara Darboh would be more effective this year because Chesson is still a waif.

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New heuristic: Chesson sitting = Heiko standing minus an inch.

Did go well: lots of luminaries showed up. Players current and former included Chesson, Countess, Donovan Warren, and John Duerr. An incomplete list of bloggers: Bryan Mac (aka BiSB), MGoPhotographers Eric Upchurch and Bryan Fuller, Burgeoning Wolverine Star, Lloyd Brady, M-Wolverine, Craig Ross, and LSAClassof2000. Epic shirts: Heiko's bubble screen smile, and a Branch-Morelli sweatshirt.

In things that surpassed all expectations, let me being with actual nicest guy in the universe Marlin Jackson himself. Walking out of the game to his car took about 25 minutes because he signed every hat, helmet, t-shirt or whatever thing put before him. We talked NBA decisions, how the Jake Butt TD was on Jarrod Wilson's as-yet-unadvanced field awareness, and that the biggest difference with this staff is they "teach football."

After being introduced by Brian as "the man who still has Reggie Williams in his back pocket," to kick off the Q&A Marlin talked about his Fight for Life Foundation. He was candid about his youth: Jackson grew up in the projects with a mother addicted to drugs and a father he never met. As you can imagine this isn't the best way to learn things like accountability, the value of an education, or even your own value and that of others. Marlin learned these things through Michigan; it's the goal of his foundation to give similarly underprivileged kids the opportunities he received because of his athletic talents.

Fight for Life runs three programs: Field of Dreams (link) is an in-school and after school program that basically helps get the kids back up to speed with their classmates. Seal the Deal (hyperlink) is a series of leagues and football camps for youth through high school with an educational/character-building component. R.A.P. (reach out and access your peers – url) is an SEL* program that gets kids to open up through, e.g. a discussion of their future aspirations or by presenting a paper on their favorite song lyrics. They need to raise about $200k per year to fund these programs.

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* Social and Emotional Learning, the spread offense of education. Full context is linked above but you may cognate as learning that's the opposite of 'Another Brick in the Wall.'

We then talked about things like that one year the Colts paired Manning with a real defense, which receivers were the hardest to cover, and his impressions on the young defensive players at Michigan today. That after the jump. But first here's three generations of next-Woodsons:

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Fuller has a nicer version on the Flickr collection but this one I took on Countess's phone is superior for capturing our new official Robot Ace Anbender headshot.

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[jump]