6 reasons Michigan is not recruiting Ohio right now (from the OSU perspective)
Interesting article this morning from one of the Cleveland.com beat writers for Ohio State on why Michigan is largely ignoring Ohio right now for recruiting. This is obviously a major change in our historical pattern as both our recent Heisman winners plus countless other players through the years grew up in Ohio and then went north to play school football. Kinda makes me a bit sad cause from 1992-1994 I was one of the recruiters assigned to Northern Ohio and know first hand just what a hotbed of talent this area represents.
http://www.cleveland.com/osu/index.ssf/2015/11/jim_harbaugh_michigan_no…
November 24th, 2015 at 10:25 AM ^
Michigan isn't "ignoring" Ohio recruits. The recruits in OHIO are either full blown buckeyes not worth the effort of recruiting or simply not at Michigans level.
I don't know why people are losing thier shit over it.
November 24th, 2015 at 10:28 AM ^
Agreed. Give attention to the ones that are BOTH worthy AND available. Doing anything else would be a waste of time... Look at OSUs current defensive 2-deep... how many of those homegrown Ohio boys did Hoke & Co. waste their time with?
November 24th, 2015 at 10:32 AM ^
We have 16 players on the current roster who came from Ohio and 10 of them are starters. You consider that a "waste of time"?
Wow.
November 24th, 2015 at 10:35 AM ^
November 24th, 2015 at 1:02 PM ^
Right and this year could be one with top tier talent more interested than normal than staying in state (national championships can do that). Top tier recruits may also be slightly less numerous this year in Ohio but I don't follow it that closely.
November 24th, 2015 at 10:36 AM ^
Spend time on the ones that are good and that you can get. Waste time on the ones that either aren't as good, are un-getable, or both.
It seems like you are operating under the assumption that time spent elsewhere (the other parts of the country noted... NJ, TX, CA, etc) would result in less gains than northern Ohio.
November 24th, 2015 at 11:10 AM ^
The objective is to win games, not to win games with players from a particular geographical area.
November 24th, 2015 at 10:37 AM ^
November 24th, 2015 at 11:02 AM ^
wanted to go to Michigan IIRC, but his dad said no. As the father of a son I can imagine having a similar reaction if my boy wanted to go play for OSU instead of Michigan.
/no son of mine
November 24th, 2015 at 11:20 AM ^
I can imagine a similar reaction, not because it's OSU per se, but because of how we've seen their recruits getting treated. If Michigan started to treat their recruits in a similar fashion, I'd be hesitant to let my kid play their as well. Thankfully, that hasn't been the case and I don't think it will ever be the case.
November 24th, 2015 at 11:21 AM ^
November 24th, 2015 at 12:30 PM ^
I thought I was right. See posts immediately below this one.
November 24th, 2015 at 11:59 AM ^
November 24th, 2015 at 12:01 PM ^
Are you sure about that? In the Michigan-OSU documentary he said his dad asked him where he wanted to go and he said ''I think Michigan'' and his dad said ''You traitor...I'll tell you where you're going...you're going down I-71 south and playing for the Ohio State Buckeyes''.
November 24th, 2015 at 12:14 PM ^
November 24th, 2015 at 11:22 AM ^
November 24th, 2015 at 10:45 AM ^
It's a waste of time if all of them were already signed to be a Buckeye. Our coaching staff has gone into Alabama and got guys (with the risk of Bama offering and they would be gone). The staff knows how to allocate thier resources. I wouldn't worry about one year where we don't get an Ohio kid. The Buckeyes have been killing us since the class of '15 has been out of diapers. If we could get them or they were worth it, we would be on them. I wouldn't worry about it. It's not a "thing" that people are trying to make it out to be.
November 24th, 2015 at 2:57 PM ^
The players on the current roster were AVAILABLE at the time, meaning they were open to coming to Michigan AND were at the level M wanted.
It seems that this year too many of the upper level players in Ohio are all Buckeye and not really open to talking to Michigan....or they are not at the level M is trying to recruit at for whatever position and there are better options elsewhere.
I highly doubt M is ceding Ohio in terms of recruiting on a long term basis.
November 24th, 2015 at 10:37 AM ^
The majority of OSU's defensive starters are from out-of-state
Joey Bosa - Florida
Tyquan Lewis - North Carolina
Tommy Schutt - Illinois
Raekwon McMillian - Georgia
Eli Apple - New Jersey
Vonn Bell - Georgia
Damon Webb - Michigan
There are some homegrown talent too, but I don't remember Hoke recruiting them very heavily either:
Adolphus Washington - Cincinnati, OH
Darron Lee - New Albany, OH
Josh Perry - Lewis Center, OH
Tyvis Powell - Bedford, OH
November 24th, 2015 at 11:21 AM ^
Don't forget Gareon Conley, ugh.
November 24th, 2015 at 12:16 PM ^
November 24th, 2015 at 11:41 AM ^
November 24th, 2015 at 11:45 AM ^
They were recruiting him and I believe a H.S. teammate for a while.
November 24th, 2015 at 11:36 AM ^
I find it hard to believe that there are few recruits in Ohio that are both worthy and available. There are many.
Meyer himself has somewhat de-emphasized Ohio compared to the past. He gets his core from Ohio, but then he branches out nationally to cherry-pick the rest.
What does this mean? It means that with scholarship limits, Ohio State can't take all the worthy Ohio talent, whether they want to or not.
If we have learned anything about Harbaugh it's that he knows exactly what he wants, conventional wisdom be damned. He is filling in the many gaps he sees, as quickly as he can. He is not worried about some "recruiting strategy".
Our lack of emphasis on Ohio is not a permanent thing. It's just where we are right now.
November 24th, 2015 at 1:26 PM ^
November 24th, 2015 at 10:32 AM ^
Yep, at this stage, the only thing gained byt recruiting Ohio would be to make OSU work a bit harder to keep the players in state but not anywhere near the amount of effort Michigan would expend. Totally not worth th effort at this point. However, hiring the head coach of St. Edwards probably implies they will recruit there in the future. Beating OSU year 1 would go a long ways towards accelerating that.
November 24th, 2015 at 11:15 AM ^
There are some "at Michigan's level" who are not shoo-ins for the Buckeyes. There are 14 Rivals 4-stars in Ohio for 2016, including:
- Boston College-committed LB Ethan Tucky
- Michigan State-committed QB Messiah DeWeaver, WR Justin Layne
- Pitt-committed WR Ruben Flowers
- uncommitted RB George Hill, DE Prince Sammons
November 24th, 2015 at 11:35 AM ^
Wasn't he high on UM while Hoke was here (possibly a verbal comit) but Harbaugh and staff kind of said thanks, but no thanks.
November 24th, 2015 at 11:46 AM ^
November 24th, 2015 at 11:51 AM ^
Sure they are. We currently have commitments from guys like Devin Gil, Josh Metellus, Rashad Weaver, Dytarious Johnson, etc. Does that mean the coaches like Tucky as much as, say, Dytarious Johnson? Maybe not. But take out Tucky, and insert a Rivals 3-star that I didn't list.
The bottom line is that there are guys in Ohio who fit the criteria of a) being able to play at Michigan and b) not being Ohio State locks.
Michigan just isn't pulling them in, offering them, etc. I'm not saying that's bad or good, but it's true.
November 24th, 2015 at 10:26 AM ^
Are they ignoring relationships in Ohio altogether or are they simply declining to offer?
November 24th, 2015 at 10:28 AM ^
According to the article the are doing the latter. They have reasons for doing so but if what he writes is correct we are almost exclusively ignoring recruiting in Ohio right now.
Read the article Senior Dudeness.
November 24th, 2015 at 10:41 AM ^
November 24th, 2015 at 10:42 AM ^
MSU also isnt a national school. They can't recruit Texas, California, Florida like we can.
November 24th, 2015 at 11:43 AM ^
Don't forget New Jersey. Our ability to recruit New Jersey and make pipelines out of places like Paramus Catholic is a deathknell for Penn State. Here is where bringing Rutgers into the Big Ten has helped Michigan and hurt Penn State. Top players from Jersey can now have all their games on tv and they will play two games in four years before their families. Awesome.
November 24th, 2015 at 11:41 AM ^
I just scanned through the Rivals 250, and made some observations.
- In the top 100, there were four from Ohio. All are committed, one to ND, the other three to Ohio State.
- In the top 250, there were nine from Ohio including the four in the top 100. Seven are committed (ND, Ohio State, and Michigan State). Only two are uncommitted. And one of those, Brendan Ferns, is interested in neither Michigan nor Ohio State.
- In at least two cases, Ferns and deWeaver, Michigan wasn't interested.
Generally, I think this is an outlier year for Ohio. I strongly suspect that Michigan will continue to recruit Ohio. It makes sense for Michigan to focus on three things:
- Toledo metro area. This is closer to Detroit and Ann Arbor, and not as solidly OSU.
- Top high schools. We have always gotten players from Cincinnati Elder and Moeller, and should also continue to look at St. Ignatius, St. Edwards, Glenville, and a few others.
- Top players. As said in the article, it is pointless and a waste of resources to waste time on athletes who are set on going to Ohio State. But I get the feeling that often some of the best players aren't necessarily as big on going to OSU as we might thing.
November 24th, 2015 at 3:17 PM ^
I think the Toledo area has some solid football teams, but very few elite prospects. Michigan has gotten production from Chris Wormley, Jack Miller, and Jordan Kovacs, but that's really it in the last decade. I know Dane Sazenbacher and Kenny Hayes went to OSU, Wisconsin has Michael Dieter, and ND has Deshone Kizer, but after that no one really comes to mind.
November 24th, 2015 at 9:00 PM ^
November 24th, 2015 at 10:29 AM ^
November 24th, 2015 at 10:29 AM ^
Meyer actually did the same thing when he started. If you look at his first class in 2013 he only had 4 of the top 10 in Ohio and would have had 3 if Conley hadn't flipped, while MIchigan also had 4 and almost 5. When you start out behind, you need to go with what you know, and the Michigan staff doesn't know Ohio well. 2017 will be the first class where Harbaugh is starting out on an even footing with other teams and we are already seeing visitors from Ohio for the OSU game this week.
November 24th, 2015 at 10:29 AM ^
approach. When we start winning B1G Championships, elite athletes from Ohio will make their way north.
November 24th, 2015 at 10:30 AM ^
Northern Ohio is not the same Northern Ohio as it was in 1992. It has talent but no where near the amount of talent it had 20+ years ago.
Didn't Jim hire St Edward's head football coach to be his director of football operations? Why would he do that if he was planning on ignoring Ohio for recruiting?
Jim entered the recruiting game late last year. Trying to flip recruits in Ohio would be a waste of time right now. I expect far more Ohio offers for the 2017 class because there's 3 years to build a relationship. Common sense stuff.
November 24th, 2015 at 10:33 AM ^
My initial reaction is just a shoulder shrug. The California and Florida offers make sense to me because that's where Harbaugh and Durkin's relationships were previously.
They have Fonotti on the staff, former Cleveland St. Edward head coach, I would think he would have all the info Harbaugh would need for the talent base in Ohio right now.
The arrogance of this article is borderline comical. I just love how they point out that MSU basically beat them due to the number of players they have from Ohio. Or that they insinuate that basically Harbaugh knows it's no use going up against Meyer so he just looks elsewhere.
Maybe the explanation isn't very complicated, and Harbaugh offers kids who he thinks are good football players.
November 24th, 2015 at 10:46 AM ^
after spending years on the west coast. California is Harbaugh's strength. Tough to get them across country. But high school kids will always listen to one of the winningest coaches in the NFL.
November 24th, 2015 at 10:31 AM ^
The only piece of the article I don't agree with is the one sentence that says, Michigan State is consistently competing for National Championships. LOLZ, wut!? They have finished Top 5 the last two seasons, their best final ranking outside of those two seasons, was 7th in 99. The first theory is probably the best, go with the coaches and network you are most comfortable and familiar with. That's just a good premise for pretty much anything.
November 24th, 2015 at 11:41 AM ^
... is what he actually wrote, which is vague, maybe purposely so, and could simply be interpreted as making decent bowl games and having some early season or off season buzz.
The guy's style is annoying and evasive, in a "you fill in the blanks but I didn't actually say that" kind of way, but this is not a blatantly false characterization.
November 24th, 2015 at 10:33 AM ^
That's all that this is. From the Harbaugh camp in Easton (I know it's in PA, but it's only a few miles from the NJ borer) to hiring Partridge to (hopefully) landing Rashan, Michigan has prioritized NJ > Ohio.
November 24th, 2015 at 10:37 AM ^
I think you're exactly right. I think they decided to emphasize creating a pipeline out of Jersey given how fertile the ground is there and the fact that wouldnt have much local opposition (unlike Ohio).
November 24th, 2015 at 11:00 AM ^
November 24th, 2015 at 11:06 AM ^
that we've already extended as many scholarships in Ohio for 2017 (7) as we have for the 2016 class. With all of the offers that Coach Harbaugh gives out I would be willing to venture a guess that number will nearly double before Signing Day 2017. New Jersey will continue to be more of a focus but my guess is that the current staff did not have much in the way of relationships in Ohio previously and that part of the reason Kalis's old coach is on staff is to help develop that as Harbaugh brings Michigan back so that we can compete for the elite kids in Ohio without it being a waste of time. Go blue! Trust Harbaugh!