stephen herron

Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man. Stephen Herron's decommitment went from foregone conclusion to likely outcome to possible outcome, but after spending several weeks denying any ongoing interest in Stanford, Herron finally yanked the band-aid.

 

The most likely scenario was that Herron hadn't gotten formal word from Stanford admissions, and has now received said word. Herron was a composite five-star until recently, and remains a top-100 prospect.

Michigan now has three defensive end commits, 5-star SDE Chris Hinton, 3.5-star-for-now SDE David Ojabo and 3-star WDE Gabe Newburg, and will presumably look to replace Herron in the class. They remain Lloyd-Christmas-There's-A-Chance interested in 5-stars Zach Harrison (a presumed Ohio State lock) and George Karlaftis (a Purdue commit).  The Herron news may actually help somewhat with 3-star DE Aeneas DiCosmo, who seems to be down to Michigan and Stanford



Michigan's class is now down to 18 commits, and is ranked #9 in the country and #2 in the Big Ten behind Ohio State.

Next commit is fairly obvious

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GA CB DJ Turner has fielded a number of Michigan crystal balls in recent days, and since he's also set a commit date of June 25th those have extra oomph. Turner is a 3.5 star sort who has some big name schools after him—he recently visited ND and scheduled a trip to Florida this weekend.  He was more of a 4 star sort until recently, when a 247 composite update dropped him from #280 to #435.

If Turner does end up committing—and it's not entirely clear if there's serious competition—that would probably signal the end of CB recruiting. Michigan flipped FL CB Te'Cory Couch from Tennessee a few weeks back and took five defensive backs last year.

Potential committed risers

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Two commits have put in impressive camp performances and may be in for a rankings rise. MI OL Karsen Barnhart drew mention as a top performer at two recent regional shoe-sponsored camps. Wiltfong at the local Opening regional:

…won the majority of his reps in 1-on-1s, a wide body that moved well, could match power with power and also had the quickness to take on outside pass rushers.

And Trieu in Chicago for a UA camp:

…yet another good performance here. He can bend and move his feet. He is still learning technical aspects of pass pro but right now his competitiveness and athleticism allows him to win.

Per Webb, Barnhart plays in a wing-T in high school so the technical aspects of pass protection are not exactly emphasized. Barnhart reports that Michigan sees him as a tackle and, early, as a bonus TE a la Spanellis last year. Video here for 24/7 subscribers.

Only 24/7 reported from either of these camps so don't expect big rankings fireworks across the now three sites that rate folks. I'd imagine he moves into the four star range there; he's currently just outside it at #381.

Since he is a quarterback and will be at the Opening, NV QB Cade McNamara has a better shot at significant moves up *cough* industry-wide. Brandon Huffman had him the top offensive player at the Vegas Opening regional:

 …was ripping the ball through windy conditions early on in the camp and threw with a lot of poise and confidence throughout. He was accurate, threw with touch and showed off the quickest release in the camp. McNamara was the lone signal caller invited to the Elite 11 Finals next month in Southern California.

Rivals did not attend the camp but Adam Ghabour caught up with McNamara afterward:  

“I feel like my release is so different, and something that no one else has,” McNamara said. “I don’t really know if there was something special [about my performance]. I just went out and did what had to be done. I felt like I was very accurate. I had a lot of zip on my ball, and I was able to control my ball really well when it came to one on ones, and I put the ball in the right place.”

McNamara is already a composite four star in the top 300 so he'll have more resistance in front of him if he wants to move up; the Opening will be a good oportunity to do so.

Defensive ends solid?

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Michigan got two high-profile early commitments from defensive ends, one of which people had written off as KY DE Stephen Herron supposedly made googly eyes with Stanford. If that was the case at one time it is apparently no longer so, per Josh Newkirk:

“It’s pretty strong,” he said of his Michigan commitment. “A lot of schools like Stanford push pretty hard. My best friend went to Purdue, they push pretty hard. … But other than that, I try to stay really committed to my commitment. I got a year left. But I’m not looking right now.”

Herron says he has no intentions on visiting other programs either.

“It’s not planned,” he said.

"Commit is committed" is usually not that newsworthy, but this is a bit different. A majority of Herron's crystal balls, including ours, are still Stanford flip picks, and OH DE Gabe Newburg's commit was widely interpreted as something Herron-related. Apparently not?

Meanwhile, GA DE Chris Hinton has not given anyone a reason to think he's wavering in his commitment but Georgia's Rivals site checked in anyway. Verdict: waste of time.

Athough Hinton has been firmly committed for a long time, it hasn't stopped the pursuit of several schools.

"I have not visited anywhere else since I committed. I’m pretty solid on that," Hinton said on his Michigan commitment. "Georgia for sure. Stanford and Clemson. That is really the big three still coming at me hard."

At the end of the article Hinton does admit that if "something crazy" happened he'd look around, as one does when someone asks you a bunch of questions and won't stop until he gets something approximating a "correct" answer.

Still in search of DEs though

Even with Herron apparently solid to give Michigan a three-DE class there are some more guys being heavily pursued.

NJ DE Aeneas DiCosmo has Michigan in his top five and is coming up on a decision. Since that top five is Stanford, M, Notre Dame, Northwestern, and… uh… Clemson, it's clear that academics are meaningful for DiCosmo, and that often means fist-shaking in Stanford's direction.

That may be the case here too, as Brian Dohn asserts that this weekend's trip to The Very Inaccurately Named Farm is "huge" because several people have told me it is "a dream offer." DiCosmo has visits to ND and Michigan set up for mid-June, with Michigan batting cleanup. It kind of sounds like Michigan would do well to just get to that visit without a Stanford commit happening. A bunch of crystal balls for Stanford have already come in.

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KS DE Marcus Hicks has Michigan in his top two with Oklahoma…

After taking … trips Hicks will be ready to trim his list of suitors down to a more manageable five. For now, though, he can only name two that will definitely make the cut.

Said Hicks, “I think Oklahoma and Michigan would be in there.”

…and 13 OU predictions on the crystal ball. Michigan's best bet is that this is one of those recruitments. The Oklahoma 24/7 site:

They do feel confident in Hicks, but they are getting frustrated that he has not pulled the trigger and they are recruiting other DE and DT.

Hicks told Sam Webb that he would be taking his recruitment into the fall, so could be one of those things where the school is all like "you gonna commit" and the recruit is like "in a bit" and the school is like "we will now court these other large angry people" and the recruit is like "I take offense!" and then everything falls apart not like this has happened to Michigan ever.

Another point in Michigan's favor as they try to make up the gap: Hicks is taking the ol' road game unofficial as Michigan plays ND in the opener.

Etc.

CA LB Tristan Sinclair is a guy to keep on the radar as a potential VIPER(!); no offer yet.

Chris Hinton Slides Into Your DMs

ESPN released their initial Junior 300 for the 2019 class, and they're a major outlier for Michigan's top commit, five-star defensive lineman Chris Hinton. They rank Hinton, who's no lower than 14th overall and 2nd among SDEs on the other three sites, at 97th overall and 9th among DTs, with the rationale that they believe he's a better prospect on the offensive line:

Highly touted Hinton should switch to offense

Defensive tackle Christopher Hinton is the son of a former All-Pro offensive linemen. The younger Hinton should follow in his father's footsteps and switch to OL. The four-star Michigan commit is a stout run-defender, but defensively he would be more of role player and run stopper. As an OL, he possesses good flexibility, feet and a frame that can support more size and on that side of the ball, by contrast he can be an excellent, "full-time" player.

Many prospects would ignore this perceived slight or lash out at the site in question. Hinton chose a different tack and went straight to the source to see how he could improve:

That's certainly not how High School Me would've handled things.

Meanwhile, Michigan still did well in ESPN's rankings. The rest of the commits:

  • OH OG Nolan Rumler: #3 OG, #48 overall
  • KY DE Stephen Herron: #11 DE, #82 overall
  • IMG ILB Charles Thomas: #3 ILB, #250 overall

Two players in the top three at their position and two more in the top 100 overall. Not too shabby for a four-person class.

[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the roundup.]