2016 FB Realistic Recruiting Pool via 247 "Warm Interest" V4.0
Hello football fans. This is version 4.0 of a monthly segment I will do of UM offers that are (as a floor) receiving "modest" interest, utilizing 247's "warm interest" gauge. Original purpose of this was to winnow down the 100s of offers Michigan gives to a small pool of players where there is at least a whiff of a chance. But after this massive run of commits in June Harbaugh has done much of that work already for the 2016s.
All caveats, warnings, and wag of the fingers about this methodology can be found in earlier versions:
Aquaman was kind enough to comment on methodology of the "warm interest" on the V1.0 so I'll copy/paste that here:
The "temps" are usually set by how our analysts agree on where a certain prospect is leaning, but if a prospect reaches out and wants his page a certain way, we always go with their wishes.
Good example is Jeffrey McCulloch (http://247sports.com/Player/Jeffrey-McCulloch-47648). Michigan is in his top group with Texas, Bama, LSU and probably A&M among others, but he wanted his page to reflect that he's even with everyone, even though we know they're not.
It's about as good a basic gauge as you'll get on a prospect's interest. We try to avoid situations where it appears the interest is being embellished. In fact, I'd probably move Curtis Robinson and Isaiah Chambers among others to "cool" at this point.
The one group this methodology misses are those committed elsewhere who are strongly considering UM, so we play those by ear.
-----------------------
When we last met in May I wrote this about the lack of commits (at the time 6, with 0 in the prior 30 days):
Hopefully some movement happens around camp time in June.
Well that escalated quickly.
-----------------------------
This period saw an avalanche of commits from no stars to borderline 5 stars - 14 in all, and June isn't over yet! All parts of the country were represented except for the sinkhole that is OH. The vast lack of defensive recruits was addressed, albeit with a lot of "under the radar" types whereas the offense - esp OL - picked up HS studs galore. With that said with recent data unearthed on how Harbaugh seems to have a "rolling commitment" system in place to SOME degree, some of the names below will most likely not be in the class come Feb 16 - both based on their own decisions and apparently Harbaugh's. It will surely be interesting to see the Harbaugh @ UM precedent and how it compares to Stanford.
Changes since V2.0:
- New commits - 14. OT Ben Bredeson, OT Devery Hamilton, OG Michael Onwenu, TE Sean McKeon, ATH Chris Evans, ATH Victor Viramontes, ATH Kiante Enis, DE Ron Johnson, DL Rashad Weaver, LB Dytarious Johnson, CB Antwaine Richardson, CB Benjamin St Juste, S Devin Gil, S Josh Metellus.
- New Michigan "leaders" in ballz - WR Ahmir Mitchell, WR Brad Hawkins, TE Naseir Upshur, DE Terrell Lucas, CB Tony Butler* (Pitt commit)
- New warm interest (Offense) - WR Chase Claypool, WR Grant Holloway, OT Landon Dickerson, OG Johncarlo Valentin
- New warm interest (Defense) - DE Terrell Lucas, DE Marlon Davidson, DE Isaiah Chambers, LB Erroll Thompson, LB Jeffrey McCulloch, LB Jonathan Smith, CB Jared Mayden
- No longer Warm - RB Toks Akinribade (Iowa), RB Vavae Malepeai (Oregon), WR Donnie Corley (MSU lean), WR Austin Mack (OSU), WR Donald Stewart (Stanford lean), OT Will Fries (PSU), OG Josh Sills (W. Va), DE Erick Fowler (LSU), DE Khalid Kareem (Bama), LB Jaquan Yulee (Bama), LB Camilo Eifler (Wash lean), LB Lamar Winston (Oregon lean), CB David Long (West coast schools), S Andrew Pryts (PSU lean)
OFFENSE (18 players, 6 UM is a "leader")
Pos | Name | State | Starz | Ntl Rnk | Pos Rnk | Leader | # Pred |
RB | Rakeem Boyd | TX | 3 | 406 | 23 | N/A | |
FB | N/A | ||||||
WR | Jack Jones | CA | 4 | 60 | 2 | USC 73% / UCLA 18% | 7 |
WR | Ahmir Mitchell | NJ | 4 | 79 | 6 | UM 83% /OSU+Rutgers 6% | 12 |
WR | Dylan Crawford | CA | 4 | 80 | 9 | USC 50% / ASU 25% | 8 |
WR | Brad Hawkins | NJ | 4 | 202 | 38 | UM 68% / South Car 23% | 22 |
WR | Tre Nixon | FL | 4 | 231 | 43 | ND 75% / Duke 25% | 4 |
WR | Desmond Fitzpatrick | MI | 3 | 302 | 51 | UM 79% - Louisville commit | 28 |
WR | Chase Claypool | Can | 3 | 330 | 55 | ND 58% / Oregon 42% | 12 |
WR | Grant Holloway | VA | 3 | 422 | 70 | 100% VaTech | 1 |
WR | Donald Stewart | NJ | 3 | 925 | 138 | 69% Stanford / 31% UM | 13 |
WR | Korey Banks | GA | 3 | 993 | 95 | UM 100% | 4 |
TE | Naseir Upshur | PA | 4 | 139 | 4 | UM 72% / Miami 17% | 18 |
TE | Michael Irvin Jr | FL | 3 | 615 | 27 | Miami 100% | 26 |
OT | Jean Delance | TX | 4 | 100 | 12 | Texas A&M 67% / OU 20% | 15 |
OT | Landon Dickerson | NC | 4 | 74 | 10 | VaTech 80% / South Car 20% | 5 |
OT | Alex Akingbulu | CA | 3 | 454 | 41 | UCLA 100% | 3 |
OG | Terrance Davis | MD | 4 | 77 | 2 | UM 76% / Maryland 24% | 17 |
OG | Johncarlo Valentin | PA | 3 | 324 | 12 | VaTech 67% / Temple 33% | 3 |
DEFENSE (24 players, 3 UM is a "leader" + 1 PK)
Pos | Name | State | Starz | Ntl Rnk | Pos Rnk | Leader | # Pred |
DE | Xavier Kelly | KS | 4 | 102 | 8 | Nebraska 50% / MSU+OU 17% | 6 |
DE | Bryson Young | CA | 4 | 277 | 21 | USC 100% | 2 |
DE | Connor Murphy | AZ | 3 | 290 | 22 | UM 50% / ASU + Oregon 25% | 4 |
DE | Jimmie Taylor | NC | 3 | 709 | 45 | 100% NC | 2 |
DE | Terrell Lucas | FL | 3 | 1194 | 67 | 100% UM | 6 |
DE | Marlon Davidson | AL | 5 | 22 | 3 | 100% Auburn | 19 |
DE | Isaiah Chambers | TX | 4 | 88 | 6 | 43% TCU / 43% A&M | 14 |
DE | Daniel Joseph | IL | 4 | 263 | 14 | UM 50% / MSU 50% | 2 |
DT | Rashan Gary | NJ | 5 | 1 | 1 | Alabama 44% / UM 41% | 34 |
DT | Chris Daniels | TX | 4 | 146 | 15 | TCU 50% , Texas A&M 30% | 10 |
DT | Keyshon Camp | FL | 4 | 170 | 18 | Miami 50% / FSU 50% | 2 |
LB | Dontavious Jackson | TX | 4 | 120 | 4 | Texas 50% / Bama 21% | 14 |
LB | Erroll Thompson | AL | 3 | 521 | 17 | 88% Miss State | 8 |
LB | Caleb Kelly | CA | 5 | 18 | 2 | Oklahoma 89% / UM 11% | 19 |
LB | Jeffrey McCulloch | TX | 4 | 103 | 10 | Texas 91% / OU 9% | 11 |
LB | Devin Bush Jr | FL | 4 | 226 | 9 | FSU 77% / UM 23% | 22 |
LB | Jonathan Jones | FL | 4 | 409 | 30 | UM 100% | 23 |
LB | Jonathan Smith | NC | 3 | 642 | 25 | 100% NC | 4 |
CB / S | Lamar Jackson | CA | 4 | 90 | 5 | 100% USC | 1 |
CB | Wayne Davis | VA | 3 | 319 | 29 | OSU 56% / VA Tech 44% | 9 |
CB | Lavert Hill | MI | 4 | 179 | 17 | MSU 53% / UM 42% - PSU commit | 16 |
CB | Jared Mayden | TX | 4 | 134 | 11 | Oregon 39% / OSU 17% | 23 |
CB | Tony Butler | OH | 3 | 619 | 57 | 80% UM / 20% OSU- Pitt commit | 10 |
S | C.J. Pollard | CA | 4 | 240 | 10 | 100% USC | 10 |
ATH | Devin White | LA | 4 | 87 | 7 | 87% LSU | 20 |
K | Quinn Nordin | MI | 3 | 1199 | 1 | 92% UM / 8% PSU | 12 |
*Bolded dudes who UM is a crystall ballz leader, i.e. >50/50.
I have the crystal ballz leader and # of predictions on the far right of the table. The # of predictions is helpful as a 75%/25% split among 4 people is not as useful as that same split among 20 people.
The part where I overanalyze:
- Obviously tons of changes since version 3.0. The offense seems pretty much set aside from holding 1 line position for Davis, 1 TE lean with Upshur, and settling the WR derby. OSU seems to be running out of room for WRs but Meyer could certainly continue to work WR Mitchell just out of spite. UM seems to making good progress with WR Hawkins. So finishing out the offense with those 4 players above would be ideal and at that point you just are working to not lose offensive commits via flips until Feb.
- The defensive prospect list (ex LBs) was sparse a month ago and while spots are filling up fast this is where almost all of UM's "WTF" (i.e. "Trust Harbaugh"!) offers have gone. UM did not have many prospects favoring them on the defense last month - esp in the secondary - and aside from DE Ron Johnson picked up a slew of 0-3 star mafia types. That may just be the reality of what players are currently interested in UM in this cycle, as aside from the LB group and Rashan Gary not a lot of top 300 type prospects seem headed this way.
- If CB Hill flips it seems like it will be MSU not UM at this point. Butler has called a OSU offer his dream school but crystal balls still like the UM flip. While some on message boards seem excited about DE Xavier Kelly, UM has lost some crystal balls (currently none) while MSU and Oklahoma picked up some for him. Bama has entered the fray for LB Dontavious Jackson so prospects dim there immediately. LB Jones has been a "lean" for months and was on campus for 5 days recently and LB Bush is starting to see some nice activity away from legacy FSU to Michigan.
- Our 2 guys seemingly most at risk are FB/LB Reese - who apparently wants to play LB and has been guaranteed that at Louisville while at UM its "an option to begin you with" and Evans who seems to be waiting on a ND offer. And a lot of these lower rated defensive players may be "at risk" in the opposite direction if Harbaugh follows his Stanford pattern of moving on to higher prospects later in the recruiting cycle. That said, at this moment there are just not a ton of "higher" rated defensive prospects interested in UM - esp in the secondary - to replace the current crop with, even if Harbaugh has that intention.
- As stated last time around, very high chance UM is shut out of OH completely this year unless Butler flips. He is the only OH guy in the entire list above and obviously not a plan A for Meyer.
- If UM lands all 4 offensive players in bullet point 1, PK Nordin, 1 LB (Bush or Jones), and 1 DT (we need one, if not Gary) it would put this class at 27. Assume 2 decommits and you get back to #Fab25.
WOTS is that Desmond Fitzpatrick is no longer an option.
Makes sense with the rapid ascent of Mitchell and Hawkins and bulging class size.
96 or Magnus, would M go after Robert Washington again (or another RB if one of our RBs ends up going somewhere else)? I really liked Washington and it seems he picked up a lot of good offers since he announced for Cuse.
I don't really know. The coaching staff was supposedly working him hard up until the commitment. He had those good offers before he committed to Syracuse, though.
His choice, or the coaching staff's?
Hawkins is deciding soon and Mitchell is looking more likely as of late. Fitzpatrick still isn't solid to Louisville. He just got an offer from Minny and scheduled a visit there. Maybe we'll be an option for him down the road depending on what the NJ recruits do.
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
See what happens when you quit drinking and go to bed?
If you want playing time at DE you are picking UM over MSU. Not only do they have the two top 100 prospects this class they have a load of other redshirted DE prospects in the 2014s and 2015s as well. Part of the reason we need a hell of an OL class - the DL prospects at OSU, MSU, and PSU are quite impressive hauls the past few years even if only 50% pan out.
I have no idea what Kelly will do. I am only speaking to the ballz. The "msg board" chat has been much more positive in his direction - as if we are a lean or equal to Neb as co-favorites. So until I looked today I thought we'd be improving there - instead we lost some ballz. No idea who ends up right - just presenting the data.
I feel as though we don't know enough about the recruitment of Kelly or Joseph to know where they are leaning to.
Mitchell, Hawkins, Upshur, Davis, Gary, Bush, and Jackson would put us at 26/27 and then Sam said Caleb Kelly is favoring Michigan and UCLA at the top. We can't go over 28 so hopefully we don't have to turn any high profile guys away.
There's no way we're going to get all the LBs on that list and hold onto the ones already committed. There's already at least one posible greyshirt in the class too.
Me thinks we may see a few of them as things shake out and the class bloats a little bit. I think if someone high profile wants in then they will be in, and the staff will find a way to make it worse. What ever happened to the David Reese decommit rumors?
Realistically shut out. Most of the top 10 are OSU, ND or uncommited with heavy lean to OSU. MSU has pulled a good haul at QB, secondary, and WR there in the next tier. The tier after that is basically guys like Butler who Kentucky, Northwestern, and Pitt are fighting over.
DeWeaver is the one guy you could argue was a top 15 guy who we could have had -pretty much the rest we have had little to no chance for reasons stated in many other threads. We are competing with 1 of the top 2 coaches in the NCAA just off a NC in a state where OSU has beaten UM 10 of 12 and most 16-17 year olds dont remember UM as much more than a cool helmet. And then another Big 10 team most 16-17 year olds now see as (unfort) a 'power' with back to back top 5 finishes, 2 big bowl wins, and a staff ingrained in Ohio for decades, incl OSU's highly successful former DC.
So we have a lot of work to do to get back in Ohio in any meaningful way. It would be extremely stupid to not work that fertile ground. Just because you work FL and TX and CA doesnt mean you ignore OH. This year with the late start of this staff and not having an ace OH recruiter (Harbaugh tried to get Marrow from Kentucky who is an OH guy) you turn your focus elsewhere and hopefully with better on the field work and more time to win mindshare you do better in 17.
like there was much news of Harbaugh pursing many kids there. That may have been partly due to Urban having them locked up. Let's face it, you have the National Championship coach who has been pursing the Ohio kids for 3 years or more. It's tough to make inroads in a short period of time. I think that had much more to do with it than Michigan's past record because Harbaugh seems to be doing fine other places despite Michigan's past record.
I think there will be more interest from Michigan and from kids in Michigan next year.
It doesn't make sense that the defensive players care more about Michigan's past records than the defensive players. I think the lack of interest by key players may be coming more from Michigan looking for certain things and recruiting for whatever traits they want. I don't think Harbaugh gives a damn about how the recruiting services view guys or what Michigan's rank is.
I've been following Michigan football since the '80s.
It is stunning that we could very well have a top 10 class without a single recruit from Ohio. Stunning. I would have never thought it could ever happen.
I don't want to see it on an ongoing basis, we can not ignore Ohio, but I'd love to see it just this year. It would be the ultimate Harbaugh troll to Ohio State fans who are always whining that we get all of our good players from Ohio.
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
I do put much of my longer stuff in diary but I think far less people read diaries than this main board. I know I ignored the diary area probably my first 2 years here. But yes I generally go there for anything this long but I make the exception for this one item so it goes to a wider audience.
As an aside I will be breaking down the life and times of Dustin Diamond and how his life intertwined with Harbaugh in diary section next week. Look for it people...
You should post it in both places. The post is worthy of it.
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
Effin rutgers bagmen.....
Honestly I never heard of him until I did this today. Not that concerned with Wrs as I was a month ago with the movement of Mitchell and Hawkins.
I am concerned with this secondary class - its a whole host of guys who lack something (often speed) and looks on paper like a bunch of guys Purdue would be recruiting. I think Magnus has written we seem to be recruiting boundary corner after boundary corner and lack speed in a lot of these guys. It feels like a bunch of guys Hoke would recruit (size over speed) I know the Big 10 is not the Pac 12 in terms of passing attacks but if we are going to be competing with OSU type skill players I'd rather be taking fliers on raw fast guys - like we did at LB. Jackson and Zorich have seemed to be MIA in recruiting - right now our entire secondary haul are under the radar camp guys and even some of those camp guys have expressed shock they got offered. But we are not really in on any top 300 types either so someone needs to pull their weight better in recruiting and its not the guys on offense.
Zordich and Jackson don't just recruit the secondary, and they aren't the only ones recruiting the secondary. Zordich has been the primary recruiter on Ahmir Mitchell for example.
but you've been fretting way too much about the recruiting by the assistants. Not just today. None of us know exactly how their responsibilities are divided.
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
Well he went from 100% OU to some Michigan and Fresno camp was just for him basically. Seems to talk up Michigan and if he is open to going to OU from CA there shouldnt be an issue traveling to Michigan either.
Going to be very interesting how many LBs we take. In a class of 30 we should take 4-5 as we have to rebuild the entire unit but obviously we are not going that high. Not sure we have any path to taking all 3 of Bush, Kelly, Jones unless someone like Harding is "guided" away. But we didnt have any LBs in last year's class so we need 2 classes worth of LBs. I want all 5 OL (the 4 we have plus Davis) but that many sort of takes away from some needs on D. As does the kicker (we have a scholarship used on a kicker just last year)
Confirmed top 2016 target @bradhawkins9 will decide next week; #Michigan the heavy fav (FREE): http://t.co/Pqfe9NLxIg pic.twitter.com/rK1HVrmSL3
— Steve Lorenz (@TremendousUM) June 27, 2015
Scout is reporting the decision will be Friday.Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
+ Hawkins
+ Mitchell
+ Upshur
+ Gary
+ Jones / Bush Jr.
+ Nordin
- Reese (L'ville with Fitzpatrick)
-----------------------------------------------
If we lose another (Harding? One of the commits from SEC territory?) I think we'll have room for Davis, a DE or another DB.