recruiting rankings

It's still offseason, so I'm still coming up with ways to turn my spreadsheets Michigan fan bar arguments into content. This one asks which class did the best job of loading up per position. We'll do the units too at the end.

Rules: Since 1990. Transfers count for the year they joined the team. Contributions at that position (but not at others) count. Underrated/Bust is a measure of what we got versus what people thought of the class when they signed. Janus is the Roman two-faced god, for the class with the highest highs and lowest lows.

More All-Michigan [Blank] Teams: 5-Stars, 3-Stars, 4-Stars O/D, Pros O/D, 1879-Before Bo, Extracurriculars, Position-Switchers, Highlights, Numbers O/D, State of Michigan, Names, Small Guys, Big Guys, Freshmen

Quarterback & Running Back

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Only controversial to the haters. [Upchurch]

1st Team: Class of 2009

Give Rich Rodriguez this: his first full class was everything we thought Peanut Butter Jelly Time would be. Denard Robinson accrued over 10,000 yards at Michigan: 6,250 (8.4 YPA) passing and 4,495 (6.2 YPC) rushing. There were 49 touchdown passes that ended with #EATING motions, and 42 touchdown rushes that ended with a kneel. Classmate Tate Forcier flamed out in the end but not before the Year of Moxie and bailing Denard out of some holes in 2010; we'll always have 2009 Notre Dame.

And that was just the quarterbacks. Fitzgerald Toussaint has a good claim for best back at Michigan since Hart, even if we had to add "Poor Damn" to his later career. Vincent Smith was a part of some of the most memorable plays of his era (including those that aren't about Clowney), and has a spot on any team as the perfect third down back.

Those guys left little for tiny Technician Teric Jones, who moved to cornerback later in his career.

[After THE JUMP: Biggest Bust, Most Underrated, Biggest Janus, etc.]

Go up, gasballs [Patrick Barron]

Offense is here as well as an explainer, so we can just dive in. There wasn't a lot of movement on this side actually.

Hi [Patrick Barron]

I track how recruiting rankings of Michigan's commits move over the course of the recruiting cycle, because it's useful to have a record of this stuff, and because the way the rankings change often tell us more about the player's prospects than the rankings themselves.

Previously: December 2019 offense and defense. July 2019 offense. Feb 2019 offense/defense, July 2018. This class mostly came together this year, meaning except for McCarthy and El-Hadi (who haven't changed much) I didn't get comprehensive snapshots until March, so we'll start there.

There were few camps this summer for re-evaluations but Rivals and 24/7 have been updating their rankings. ESPN has been so laissez-faire that you can see how everybody moved up one spot in their rankings after former CB target Tony Grimes reclassified to 2020. We're not going to have much fall football either (the state of Michigan just announced practice can resume), and a lot of these guys would have opted out if there was, so this class is probably staying where it is. They're also going to show up on campus with the same eligibility as this year's freshmen, who get a year in college weight programs to get ahead of them. For that reason many are planning to enroll early, perhaps even this fall.

Also: My rosters have been updated with the new eligibility rules, latest recruiting ratings, and new weights, along with the recruiting comps list.

Gravity: Players will naturally drop as more players are evaluated; a few spots relative to their previous ranking is standing still.

Ratings: My star ratings are on a curved 5-star scale and based on a composite of available national, state, regional, and position rankings, as well the sites' individual ratings and stars. A quick table of what the scores mean:

Site 5-star High 4* Solid 4* Low 4* High 3* Decent 3* 3* Pile Meh/?
247Sports 98-104 94-97 90-93 88-89 86-87 81-85 70-80 67-69
Rivals 6.1 6 5.9 5.8 5.7 5.6 5.5 4.9-5.4
ESPN 91-100 86-89 81-85 80 79 77-78 70-76 59-71
Composite 0.99+ 0.97-0.98 0.90-0.93 0.88-0.89 0.86-0.87 0.81-0.85 0.7-0.8 <
MGoBlog 5.00 4.67 4.33 4.00 3.75 3.50 3.25 3.00

I'll use the larger font for guys with interesting changes. Let's go!

[After THE JUMP]

Risers

It's Blake Corum Day here on MGoBlog dot com

I like to check in quarterly to see the movement in recruiting rankings of Michigan's longtime commits. This is because how much they move and when can tell us things about a guy.

Everyone and (in many cases literally) their mother will be on campus this weekend

More reds and greens.

They go up mostly.

Hybrids and Daxes

Stargazing [Patrick Barron]

Mouseovers!

Grayson (GA) offensive lineman and Michigan commit Trente Jones

Sort of like how things have been going on the field: a bunch of good things, one bad thing

stargazing

Tracking the changes in star ratings of the 2019 commitments