Big Ten Recruiting Update: Rutgers! Purdue!
Texas A&M's loss was Ohio State's gain.
It's time for our monthly check-in on Big Ten recruiting. While Ohio State and Michigan held steady at the top of the rankings, there's been plenty of movement below them. Here's where the rankings stood at the end of May:
1. Ohio State
2. Michigan
3. Iowa
4. Northwestern
5. Maryland
6. Nebraska
7. Wisconsin
8. Penn State
9. Rutgers
10. Michigan State
11. Minnesota
12. Illinois
13. Indiana
14. Purdue
Here's how they rank now, courtesy of 247:
Yes, Rutgers is on a tear, adding nine commits since the last update.
[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the post.]
I had four tiers last time around, but by now there's three clear tiers: Michigan and OSU at the top, a big pack in the middle, and a group of four lagging well behind the rest.
The Big Two, Still
Ohio State had been in a holding pattern since March after racing out to a huge lead in the national team rankings. They still hold that top spot after gaining two huge commitments in June: five-star CA OG Wyatt Davis and top-ranked dual-threat QB Tate Martell. Martell's May decommitment from Texas A&M caused a Twitter meltdown from their WRs coach, which in turn caused more decommitments from A&M. I'm sure he'll encounter nothing of the sort in Columbus.
The Buckeyes did lose a four-star in OH RB Todd Sibley, but that was expected; they'd already told Sibley he'd have to grayshirt, and after months of taking visits he finally flipped to Pitt.
With five commits since the last update, Michigan has moved up from ninth to fourth overall in the national team rankings, closing the distance a little on OSU. The Buckeyes are still well ahead despite having four fewer commits—the gap between OSU and Michigan is nearly as large as the gap between Michigan and Rutgers. While Michigan might eventually catch OSU based on sheer volume—the Buckeyes project to have a smaller class—it's going to be tough to match their quality; the only OSU commit outside the top 300 overall is the top-ranked kicker in the country.
The Second Tier: Rutgers Makes A Move
No program's class changed more over the last month than Rutgers, which picked up nine commits, including four-star MD OLB Tyshon Fogg. None of their other commits this month rank in the top 800 overall on the 247 Composite, however, and their 19 total commits is tied for second-most nationally (Western Michigan has 22). As other teams fill out their classes, RU is going to slide down from their current perch at #15 nationally.
Iowa slipped from 11th to 17th after spending June filling out the bottom end of the class. The Hawkeyes picked up six commits, all ranked below 850th overall, and lost behemoth three-star DT Juan Harris, who has now committed and decommitted from his home-state school three times.
Continuing the theme, Northwestern picked up three low-to-mid three-star commits and a two-star kicker; they remain one spot behind the Hawkeyes in the national rankings. With 17 early commits, none ranked in the top 350, the Wildcats will move down as other teams round out their classes.
Nebraska slipped in front of Maryland after picking up commitments from three-star prospects OG Broc Bando and DE Robert Porcher IV, the latter of whom held a Michigan offer, though probably not a committable one after the additions of Corey Malone-Hatcher and Luiji Vilain.
Michigan State no longer ranks behind any directional Michigan schools, which was fun while it lasted. They added five three-star commits this month, and while none ranks higher than 625th overall, there's potential for some to leap up the rankings: the lowest-rated of the bunch, FL DE Donovan Winter, added a Michigan offer after the Fort Lauderdale satellite camp. (M subsequently landed Vilain and no longer needed to pursue Winter.)
Maryland added only unranked three-star WR MJ Jarrell since the last update. They're one spot behind MSU at #28 in the national rankings.
If you wanted to split this tier in two, the divide would come between Maryland and Wisconsin, which is ranked #36 overall. The Badgers have been stuck on ten commits since early May. Penn State is in a similar situation; they rank #40 overall and haven't added anyone to the class since the end of April.
The Basement: Boilers Up
The next Big Ten squad is all the way down at #74 in the rankings, but after claiming only one commit in the last update, Purdue will happily take that for now. The Boilermakers have picked up six commits over the last few weeks, headlined by the #25 pro-style QB in the country, Californian Nick Sipe.
Illinois stays at 12th in the conference, mere fractions of a point behind Purdue. Of their six total commits, two of which pledged this month, only two rank among the top 1000 (yes, one thousand) overall prospects. Minnesota ranks a couple points below the Illini after adding three players in June that all rank outside the top 1000.
That leaves Indiana, which doesn't have a commit ranked in the top 700, to bring up the rear.
Who knew results would sell so poorly?
I really think we need to capitalize on the Buckeye's relative weakness this year in order to help even the recruiting battle, because it isn't going to be getting any easier in the coming years.
...Ohio State's recruiting awesomeness isn't going anywhere.
Sure, but nothing succeeds like success. They aren't going to stop being good at recruiting under Urban Meyer, but we are going to have to rise to that level to be able to consistently compete with them. This year is as good as it gets to take the kind of win we need to rise to their level of recruiting.
tl;dr: I hope we beat the buckeyes.
He has to find a coed to have an affair with first and I am sure Mrs. Meyer is keeping quite the close eye on him now.
Maybe the recruits met Dantonio and had to have a conversation with him
And Eggplant.
I think recruits can see how lucky Dantonio has been over the last few years. He's a great coach, dont get me wrong. The Rose Bowl was a good win, but the bowl wins against Baylor and Georgia took complete collapses by the other team to win.
Heck, they almost lost to Purdue and Rutgers this year (I still laugh at the spike on 4th down)
I think Dantonio sold his soul to the devil, but after the Michigan punt he was all out of favors. The Alabama game proved that.
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chip on the shoulder I hate Michigan stuff stopped working on in state recruits shortly after Harbaugh showed up.
Trust me I agree with you, I was just being facetious. Like you mentiioned about his personality, it makes it hard to give credit where credit is due.
I think it also suggests that Dantonio is a relatively clean recruiter. If he's cheating at Ole Miss levels, he's really bad at it.
Promising recruits they can commit whatever crimes they want and get away with it, or he will personally bail them out of jail himself, isn't technically cheating.
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I hate to say this, but all three of those bowl wins are far better and far more satisfying than any bowl win Michigan has had since Carr retired. Yeah, Baylor collapsed a bit. But that happens, and MSU played well to come back. MSU has a resent history as good as any team that isn't Bama or OSU to sell. There's no way it's luck.
Their recruiting issues (they've been getting better, FWIW, and they're still in on top guys like DPJ) are due to something else.
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me thinks Stephen is a Michigan State slappy
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Par for the course for Dantonio and Sparty. It's incredible for all the success that MSU has had in the past 4-5 years, how little Dantonio has been able to parlay that into any kind of recruiting success. Of course, when your "dynasty" is built upon schedules that produced a couple of good wins while feasting upon a generationally bad conference base, this kind of incongruity emerges.
Ohio State needs to lock up these 4-5* guy early because of how small their class is projected to be. If they wiff on a prospect, it's a much bigger deal being a small class. Michigan is going to finish strong since they can afford to wait on some of their elite prospects. In the meantime they can fill the gaps with the 3-4* types.
I see 20 guys on OSU's roster in their last year of eligibility. Throw in some natural attrition and a guy or two going pro early and the class probably ends up with around 25 recruits.
When looking at early recruiting rankings, focus on quality over quantity
Average rating is far more useful at this early point than anything else.
Michigan ranks 4th in 247, but it's thanks in large part to class size (i.e., having 10 3 star recruits already). They'll need to land several 5-stars to get/stay in the top 10.
Yeah, but it seems that hgher ranked recruits tend to drag their recruitments out longer than those who are lower ranked, who may commit to secure their spot.
Michigan is in on many highly ranked players still and I can only think of a couple lower ranked players who are expected to commit (James Hudson is the only one that I can think of). Although, those are the ones that often come out of nowhere.
EDIT: And even then, Hudson is #217 to 247 and #336 composite.
at least insofar as you are talking national titles and the top 10 classes it generally takes to win them. The top 100 guys are the ones that determine the final recruiting rankings. As you said - many/most of those guys decide late.
The rankings 6+ months out from signing day are not very meaningful.
It should find a way to take Mathlete's chart (which starts from a comparison of top ranked guy for each team and moves successively down, leaving the bottom-of-class variance (in quantity) out of the equation.
The comparison should be for the top X guys in each program's class, where X is the smallest class in the conference (removing extreme outliers who just aren't filling out their class when necessar). X would go up as the calendar went along.
That would stop rewarding teams just for having big classes.
This
They're not very meaningful to us yet. But OSU already has serious talent locked down, so their ranking is no mirage. And they're still picking guys up.
Michigan still has work to do. But they are in holding the same profile as they did last season, when a hoard of 3-stars turned into a top-5 class by... well, by "process."
That more accurately reflect how well OSU is doing right now. To end up in the top 5 Michigan would have to "process" some 3-stars, as you put it. Not sure how you capture that in the rankings...
I think it's fair to say that Michigan's recruiting class does not project to end up in the top 5 based on their current commitments.
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A man can dream!
I'm surprised that Indiana does not do better, just on offense alone. That seems like it would be a fun offense to play in.
I get that they are not going to get top 100 recruits, but nobody better than 700th?
Yikes.
I didn't even know there were 700 recruits out there.
Not clear to me what their strategy is.
At Minnesota, Tracy Klaeys got the permanent job in part by hammering the issue of the need to keep recruits in the fold; he isn't recruiting well. Of course, his predecessor didn't recruit all that well, either.
We'll see what happens. I used to get excited about how well Michigan was doing relative to the conference (and Notre Dame) when the old versions of these rankings were posted. For a couple of years OSU was really the only team in our league, and we were frequently ahead.
It didn't translate to the field. Until maybe this year, we'll see.
A school like Minnesota's best chance is recognizing that they will never be Michigan or OSU in recruiting. So their main priority needs to be finding real under the radar kids who perfectly fit their system, with some upside potential and then coach them up as best they can.
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Last year OSU had the number 4 class and Michigan had the number 5 class. OSU has just been winning longer and once Harbaugh is able to beat OSU, hopefully this season, we will compete with them for the top talent. Overall, Harbaugh is doing a great job recruiting and in 3 to 4 years he will have one of the most talented teams in the country.
If M can close on most of its remaining VHT targets, it has the potential to finish with an overall class rating in the 295-300 range assuming a take of 28 total. M will benefit from a combination of quantity and quality. Over the past 10 years that score has been good for the #2 or #3 spot. The more taken, the lower the score on a per capita basis, generally. However, Harbaugh has a sense for locking in fliers early and motivating them to develop their potential before NSD, as well as persistence in pursuing the VHT's down to the wire. Meanwhile OSU is on a pace to set an all time record for class rating - nobody gonna catch'em.
I am desperately awaiting a new post so I can stop seeing a picture of Tate Martell when I open MGoBlog.
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