player profiles

Well… yeah, so this LA WR named Drew Dileo committed to us over… uh… Tulane, Stanford, and Rice. He plays in the slot so it's not like a totally crazy commitment. Informative update coming.

Informative update:

GURU RATINGS

Scout	Rivals	ESPN
NR	NR	75

Okay, so Dileo is a 5'9", 170 pound slot receiver from Louisiana. He's white.

Dandy Don, who must be taken seriously at all times about everything, ranks Dileo the states' 42nd best prospect. Tiger Rag is considerably more enthusiastic but wasn't exactly glowing:

19. Drew Dileo (5′9.5, 165, 4.5) Athlete Parkview Baptist HS - Dileo might not have as much bulk as some of the running backs in this class, but without question he has the heart. In 2007 he was selected as the MVP of the Class 3A championship game and in 2008 his role was not much different as he served as a running back, defensive back, and return specialist. Dileo’s size may be the only factor that keeps him from playing at the Division-1 level. However, there may be a team out there willing to give him a shot.

Heart: one gritty white guy descriptor ah ah ah.

ESPN's ranking is pretty meh but the writeup has some promise:

He is a good athlete with quickness and agility. … As a punt returner he fields the ball and accelerates while reading blocks on the run. Maintains balance even after being hit. Fights for every inch of return yardage and can make defenders miss in the open field. … Catches the ball easily in traffic and hauls in the pass even knowing he will be hit immediately after the reception. Can turn back across his body to make the difficult catches. As a slot, runs the counter and reverse to perfection. Hits and spins for extra yardage and is tough to bring down.

They end by suggesting he's "solid" and will be "sound" at any position he plays and "can be a very sure and productive player" and wow we're up to five gritty white guy descriptors (ah ah ah), four of which came in one sentence. Touch the Banner—which I have just discovered is run by frequent commenter Magnus—had a scouting report earlier in the year. In sum:

Dileo looks to be a low to mid 3-star player. He's a standout at a small school against weaker competition, but I question his ability to be fast enough or elusive enough to be a major contributor at the next level.

LSU message boards are also doubtful about his ability to play at a high D-I level, but he won the "fans choice" vote so we've got that going for us.

Coach quote:

"Any way we can get him in open space," Guillot said, "we're going to do it. He has great vision and is great at making people miss."

No white guy descriptors from the coach. Score for you, Mr. Guillot.

OFFERS

Well, he picked up an offer from Stanford after Michigan extended theirs. Given the way Harbaugh is recruiting these days that's a respectable letter to have. But… uh. Yeah. The local paper's commit article also claims a couple additional BCS offers:

Dileo chose the Wolverines with scholarship offers from Stanford, Virginia and Northwestern (Illinois) as well.

So not just Tulane and Rice. Not LSU and Miami, either.

STATS

Dileo was a jack of all trades for his team, rushing for 760 yards on 102 attempts (7.5 per) and catching 21 passes for 315 yards. Rivals doesn't have full return stats but they do have him averaging 42.2 yards on kick returns(!); he had four touchdowns in the return game..

FAKE 40 TIME

4.5 is the number, which awesome NFL guys barely run at their combines. So probably not a guy who's other big offer was Stanford. I give it one FAKE out of three.

VIDEO

Highlights of last year's Louisiana 3A state championship game, of which Dileo was the MVP; he's #3:

Mmmm. Fumbles. Also: I think that reverse flea-flicker was in Super Tecmo Bowl.

PREDICTION BASED ON FLIMSY EVIDENCE

Um. Well, this is not Kenny Shaw. Not to be a know-it-all but I'm not terribly enthused about Dileo's commitment. He's small, he's not ultra-productive or anything, and the other offers are teams Michigan should be recruiting on another level from with the possible exception of resurgent Stanford. Also, Fred Jackson's last obscure Louisiana wideout find was Laterryal Savoy, who Michigan took over Desean Jackson.

There are a lot of metrics that indicate Dileo isn't going to contribute. It's early in the year yet and maybe he'll have some sort of blowup senior year, but a guy like Dorrell Jalloh is probably Dileo's maximum upside.

UPSHOT FOR THE REST OF THE CLASS

They've got to be done at wideout, right? I mean: they've got five in the boat. Even if one—probably Jerald Robinson—is ticketed for the secondary, that's a lot of wide receivers in one class. I think they'd take one more slot if they really liked him, but that's unlikely.

As for the burgeoning class… well. One kid who has no major offers outside of Michigan is one thing. It's okay if the recruiting sites are enthusiastic about him, as they are with Robinson. But now we're up to like four (Kinard, DJ Williamson, Dileo, Tony Drake) players who don't have the offers or the rankings to suggest they're going to be anything more than serviceable if they work out. Trust the coaches and all that, yes, but at some point this goes beyond kids Michigan got on quick because they are awesome and just goes right to kids Michigan thinks they can get commits from after a 3-9 season.

At long last, FL S Marvin Robinson has committed to Michigan. Informative update coming.

Informative Update: That's right, kids: omg shirtless.

GURU RATINGS & CHATTER

Scout	Rivals	ESPN
4*, #14 S, #147 overall	4*, #99 overall	150 watch list

Marvin Robinson has been on Michigan fans' radar so long that people were worried the transition from Carr to Rodriguez would hurt Michigan's standing in his recruitment. His name first popped up after his freshman year of high school, when he attended Michigan's summer camp and was so ridiculously impressive he picked up an offer. Robinson was equally impressed with Michigan, naming M his leader early and late before finally announcing what he'd told the coaches at least as early as the Michigan State game last year: he's committed.

Michigan fans were ready to proclaim Robinson their big five-star catch whenever Robinson's commitment became official, but as you can see above… eh… not so much. Robinson's rankings were the most disappointing amongst a wide array of disappointments when they were announced. It's hard to see how he can go from this…

On defense, there's no question after seeing Marvin Robinson of Eagle Lake (Fla.) Lake Region on Saturday and Sunday that he's going to be one of the best in the 2010 class. He made big play after big play in drills and then in one-on-one battles. He was the one guy who was consistently able to hang with both the physical and speedy backs in the camp.

…to this from another camp where he was a rising junior competing against seniors…

"Marvin Robinson has a lot of upside to him as far as his strength and motor," said defensive backs coach Eugene Jackson. "He was the best out there and he's very coachable."

Lining up at safety, Robinson asserted himself in one-on-ones and was one of the more physically imposing defensive backs.

…to the #5 rising junior in Florida to the offers you'll see in the next section to "eh, bottom of the top 100." About the only thing I can find that would point to a drop is the 4.6 40 time listed on his Scout profile and at ESPN.

One thing to watch is a potential move to linebacker. Another evaluation from that same camp from Rivals' Barry Every:

6-2, 205, OLB Eagle Lake (FL) Lake Region 2010
Assets: Has a tremendous burst and excellent ball skills.
What was most impressive at camp: For a guy who is making the change from safety to linebacker, he sure looked a natural.
Areas for improvement: He just needs to get reps at his new position because all the tools are there.
On the Hoof: Has good height, long arms and wide shoulders. Robinson's frame will fill out and enable him to play all three linebacker positions.

Robinson could be ticketed for this LB/SS hybrid spot. ESPN's strangely muted scouting report—I'm used to them saying things like "Isaiah Bell melts iron with his mind!"—mentions position versatility:

Robinson is a valuable athlete that rarely comes off the field. He is one of those athletes that may not be great at any one thing but is good at everything. He has good size both in terms of height and weight. Plays multiple positions and is a very talented skilled athlete. As a safety plays the fee safety poison well and doesn't get fooled on play action passes. Intelligent center fielder that recognizes combination routes and reacts accordingly.

Maybe he's great at being awesome, huh, ESPN? Did you ever think of that?

OFFERS

This article was published in June, ten months ago, before Robinson's junior year:

Robinson, who has been the top-safety prospect at two camps this summer, received his first offer from Michigan, then Ohio State offered and at the end of the May evaluation period, USC and Florida offered him a scholarship.

Tennessee had also thrown their hat in the ring by then. So: offers from Michigan, Ohio State, USC, and Florida before his junior year of high school. When he was 15! Damn.

If it matters, further offers came from BC, UCLA, Purdue, Nebraska, UNC, Clemson, and so forth and so on.

STATS

Robinson's junior season was fruitful, and multiplied:

Marvin Robinson, the 6-foot-1, 204 pound four-star safety from Lake Region High School in Eagle Lake, Fla., finished his junior season with 98 tackles, four interceptions, four blocked punts and two fumbles caused. He also had five touchdowns on offense with three rushing scores and two receiving.

FAKE 40 TIME

As mentioned above, Robinson's 40 times are in the realistic for humans range and this may explain his unexpectedly low rankings.

VIDEO

The tubes… they have nothing!

PREDICTION BASED ON FLIMSY EVIDENCE

Robinson is good and should show up college-ready after four years of starting and all those early offers. He'll be physically ready and about as mentally prepped as you can be as a true freshman; he, I believe, is also planning on an early enrollment. If he's going to step directly into the starting lineup, though, it's probably not going to be in the secondary, where Michigan currently has no seniors. People seem to want to move him to linebacker, and Michigan's got this new LB/SS hybrid thing Robinson might be good at. The tentative projection here is that he moves to that spot and is in a battle for the starting job immediately, pending Michigan picking up a couple of quality safety recruits to go with him.

As for his ratings: it'll be interesting to see what happens with them. It's possible he was just an early bloomer who got college ready super fast and has a lower ceiling than true five star sorts. It's also possible the recruiting sites are overrating a couple of 40 times to their detriment. I assume he'll end up at an all star game or two; the results will be interesting.

UPSHOT FOR THE REST OF THE CLASS

It doesn't really matter whether Robinson is a safety or a linebacker because Michigan would take either yes please thanks much. Given the depth in the secondary, where a true freshman starts at safety next to a converted cornerback and a redshirt freshman walk-on is on the two-deep at corner until the instant Justin Turner enrolls, this will slow Michigan's pursuit of other defensive backs in no way whatsoever.

There are at least three slots left for defensive backs and if they took five more I'd be okay with it. The good news is they've got a lot of excellent options heavily favoring them. Michigan is the public, heavy leader for PA CB Cullen Christian and FL CB Lo Wood, either of whom could drop at any time. MI CB Dior Mathis hasn't been as explicit but is also widely expected to end up at M, and then there's an array of other targets like FL CB Spencer Boyd and PA CB Brandon Ifill, Christian's teammate. Robinson's commit looks to be the first in a parade of four-star secondary commits over the next couple months.

OTHER GUY NAMED MARVIN ROBINSON

Former Derby County striker jailed in 2000 for headbutting a woman now toiling in the Blue Square North, which is… uh… let's count… the sixth level of English footie. Life's been eventful:

His list of clubs, including a spell at Walsall, reads like a gazetteer of English soccer and he has suffered two broken legs and damaged his lungs.

Now, ten years on from that memorable Highbury debut, Big Marv has replaced the Premiership with the more mundane surroundings of the Blue Square North and home is now Redditch United’s Valley Stadium.

Congrats, Walsall: for some reason you're the club picked out to highlight Robinson's hard-luck life. Random biographical note that may sully your opinion of me but isn't as bad as Magic: The Gathering: I took Redditch to Champions League glory in Football Manager a couple years back.

Etc.: Gator Country "couldn't see him leaving the state" in September, when M was the heavy leader. Oops. TomVH interviewed Robinson in October; a more recent camp report.

Texas running back Stephen Hopkins did, as threatened, commit to Michigan over the weekend. Brace yourselves for Ohio State uniforms:

 

GURU RATINGS & CHATTER

Scout	Rivals	ESPN
NR	NR	77, no position rating

ESPN gives Hopkins a meh grade of 77 and provides a scouting report that makes him sound eerily similar to a current player:

Hits the hole fast and does a job getting north quickly; does not take a lot of wasted lateral steps but shows he can bounce it outside to daylight without losing a lot in transition. At his best when he plants and accelerates downhill behind his pads. Tends to run high but still is very sturdy and strong at the high school level and breaks consistent first contact. Determined back who keeps his legs driving in the pile and fights for extra yards. Difficult for smaller defensive backs to arm-tackle when he gains momentum through the second level. However, his high running style hinders his balance, often chopped down low, and yards after contact production.

Would you change a word of that if you were adapting it to fit Brandon Minor? I don't think so.

The Dallas Morning News named Hopkins the #1 tailback in the area for 2010, declaring him "the true definition of a workhorse"; he checks in at #76 on Inside Texas' statewide top 100. All these things point to a mid-three-star ranking. Given the extensive knowledge about Hopkins' game—he's racked up almost 600 carries already—that's not likely to change.

While those ratings and rankings aren't particularly exciting, there's an informative thread at 5ATexasFootball.com in which a variety of fans who saw Flower Mound Marcus grind their team into dust offer up homage. An admin:

He is a very impressive player. His size is rare with RBs today. He can run for speed and power. I didn't see him on one of his better production days, but he's one of those guys you know is a player just by watching him operate for a few plays. Physically, he is ahead of the game for his age.

And then:

When we played them in 2007 we got the ball first and went 3 and out, or close to that. They then ran about 9 minutes off the clock and scored. Pretty much every series was like that. When the other team has the ball for 9 minutes of every 12 minute quarter scoring chances are few.

…

The guys is IMO the best back in the DFW area. … The off-season between his sophomore and junior year saw him put on some size and gain in speed. He has developed into a very patient runner that will wait for the hole to develop and then explodes. His power is unmatched by any back I saw last year. …  Marcus added a inside/outside running game last year and was able to do that with Hopkins. The year before he was limited to getting his yards between the tackles due to not having the game breaking speed, last year that changed and Marcus was able to break the big one on sweeps, off tackles and power plays. One of his strengths is his ability to hold onto the football too.

That's echoed several times, with the only downer being someone who mentions he "lacks the speed to be an elite back"; I'll let this guy have the final word from the fans:

Hopkins is not that good. After he went over 200-225 yards against us he started to wear down
After he wore down, We stopped him COLD after only 7 or 8 yards.

Meanwhile, Hopkins' coach before his junior year:

"He's one of those classic downhill runners that gets stronger as the game wears on," Marcus coach Bryan Erwin said. "But at the same time, he does all the other things that you need from an every-down back. He can block. He can catch passes. Whatever you need him to do, he can do it."

And Hopkins himself:

"If you need me to pick up a first down in a short-yardage situation, I'm your man, but I don't want to be just a power back," Hopkins said.

"Adrian Peterson can run over you, but he can also take it 80 yards if he gets an opening. So I've really been working hard on improving my speed. I think you're going to see a lot more big plays from me this year."

As you'll see in the stats, he made good on that.

OFFERS

Hopkins' full slate as of a couple weeks ago, complete with pretty FAKE-ish 40 time:

Hopkins, 6-0, 220, 4.6 seconds in the 40-yard dash, has scholarship offers from Michigan, Texas A&M, Stanford, Kansas, Kansas State, SMU and Texas Tech. He's attended junior day at Texas A&M, SMU, Baylor, Nebraska, Connecticut, Texas and Texas Tech.

Though Michigan is clearly the biggest name on that offer list, that's a decent assortment for April.

STATS

The stats indicate a pounding, frequently-used back. This guy did the division for me:

But Marcus' Stephen Hopkins? That boy was proving it every Friday. Hopkins racked up 275 carries in 2008, netting him 1,689 yards and 22 touchdowns -- and that's just in 11 games! How many guys can carry the ball almost 300 times and still maintain a 6.0 YPC average?

In high school, probably lots. But it's a significant bump from Hopkins' sophomore stats:

The incoming senior has been making a name for himself since his sophomore year, when he rushed for 1,663 yards and 16 touchdowns on 343 carries for an average of 4.8 yards per carry.

That's a ton of carries. He's durable, and probably low upside, by which I mean he's not been overlooked for any reason. Recruiting gurus know all about him and say he's a middling prospect.

FAKE 40 TIME

As above, 4.6 for a 220 pound high school junior. Eh… probably not.

VIDEO

Try to suppress your natural desire to see the man with the ball fumble, get blown up by the safety, or go on a crazy rampage with an armory's worth of guns, an axe, and a lint roller:

There's not a lot of wow there, but Hopkins isn't a wow sort of back. He picks a hole and runs through it as hard and fast as he can.

PREDICTION BASED ON FLIMSY EVIDENCE

This one's easy: Brandon Minor. I've actually deleted Minor's name three different times as this post has come together and the redundancy became more obvious. Minor, a low four star, was slightly higher rated as a recruit, but everything else is almost identical.

UPSHOT FOR THE REST OF THE CLASS

Michigan now has one scatback and one thunderous moose to fill the slots vacated by Brown and Minor; a third back in the class is likely to keep the numbers up, as Michigan has already lost two tailbacks to transfer and will lose the aforementioned seniors and Kevin Grady after 2009. At this point you'd hope they'd sit tight and swing for the fences (GA RB Mack Brown, SC RB Marcus Lattimore) but if MI RB Austin White wants to jump aboard soon—doubtful but not impossible—they'd probably take him.

Is instate RB Nick Hill going to get an offer at this point? I think he'll at least have to wait for summer camp.

OTHER GUY NAMED STEPHEN HOPKINS

He was a Pilgrim, except not really since he wasn't a member of their goofy religious cult:

Stephen Hopkins (born about 1582 – 1644), was a tanner and merchant who was one of the passengers on the Mayflower in 1620, settling in Plymouth Colony.  … Hopkins was one of forty-one signatories of the Mayflower Compact and was an assistant to the governor of the colony through 1636.

Etc.: A lot of content at Prep Ticket on Hopkins. TomVH interviewed him just a couple weeks ago.