Previously: Last year’s profiles. P Tommy Doman Jr. S Rod Moore. CB Ja’Den McBurrows. LB Jaydon Hood. LB Junior Colson. LB Tyler McLaurin. DE Kechaun Bennett. DE TJ Guy. DE/DT Dominick Giudice. DT George Rooks. DT Rayshaun Benny. NG Ikechukwu Iwunnah.

Northborough, MA (via IMG) – 6’4", 290
		247:             3.70*	3*, 88, #601 overall #38 IOL, #80 FL
		Rivals:             4.34*	4*, 5.9, #164 overall #8 OG, #26 FL
		ESPN:             4.01*	4*, 80, #125 SE, #297 Ovr #14 OG, #45 FL
		Composite:             4.03*	4*, .9054, #274 overall #22 IOL, #38 FL
		Other Suitors	ND (decommit), Bama, USC, OSU
		YMRMFSPA	Dave, but right away.
Previously On MGoBlog	Hello post by Ace.
Notes	Twitter.
Film:
Junior Film: More: Rivals camp.

We begin the offensive class with a guy who should be an easy scout, if there wasn’t so much disagreement.

Crippen started playing offensive line when he transferred to Milton Academy as a freshman. He moved to IMG as a sophomore, started at guard amidst the forest of blue chips, committed to Notre Dame the following March, then moved to center for his junior and senior seasons. He remained committed to the Irish for a year before decommitting and quickly flipping to Michigan.

There’s quite a disparity of takes between those who believe Michigan pried a top target out of the clutches of a former rival, and those who believe Touchdown Jesus rejected Crippen as unworthy of His golden dome. IMG themselves seemed to side with Michigan, naming Crippen the MVP of an OL that included 2021 5-star JC Latham and 2022 top-100 prospects Tyler Booker and Aliou Bah. Crippen’s teammates twice elected him captain of that star-laden football academy’s squad, which was the #1 ranked HS team in the country last year.

For their part, Michigan pursued Crippen like Saban might swoop in any moment. The practice reports from spring (he was an early enrollee) and fall agree he’s already on the two-deep at center. That’s a “if Zinter can’t play center” two-deep, but it also means Crippen has already passed Reece Atteberry (a swingman) from the previous class. Crippen is going to play.

[After THE JUMP: Can he?]

He’s known as a top centering man. The thing about playing center for IMG for two years is everybody knows who that is. It’s rare that recruiting people get to see future centers actually doing center things, because if you’re not IMG or St. Frances or Aquinas you need your FBS-caliber OL at tackle, or at least guard. 247’s Brandon Huffman called Crippen “a natural center” who gets into his stance quickly after the snap, but the plaudits were a bit muted:

Decently flexible, at times looks like he's bending at the waist but then shows more knee bend. Looks for contact and where he can deliver a punch.

Sam got East Coast 247 scout Brian Dohn on the horn and got back “center things.”

To me, first of all, he's a center. I think when you look at his body type, his length, and everything, he’s a center. You want a guy who's a smart guy. He can stay low and explode. … given his football IQ, his intelligence, and just the physical aspect, I like him most at center.

Both sites noted Michigan was looking at Crippen as their center, even if that meant slowing their approach with Cass Tech Michigan Man Raheem Anderson. EJ Holland:

Michigan has found its center in 2021. The Wolverines made Crippen a priority at the position …. The commitment of Crippen means that Michigan is pretty much done with its pursuit of fellow Rivals250 offensive lineman and Detroit (Mich.) Cass Tech product Raheem Anderson. I reported last week that Michigan had pumped the brakes on Anderson in favor of Crippen, and I’m told the Wolverines are not looking to take both. They also view Anderson strictly as a center.

Holland doesn’t B.S. so I imagine whoever told him that got an earful re: Anderson. It tells you what Michigan thought of Crippen there.

Ace Anbender wrote our Hello post and concluded at the time that Crippen was indeed the middleman.

I like his chances of becoming a multi-year starter at center. The three players mentioned above may all be better used at guard, particularly if Crippen is as advanced at snapping and reading blocks as advertised.

Maven’s Brandon Brown’s comp was “just a very good center”:

Ted Karras, Miami Dolphins — Karras wasn't a big-time recruit coming out of high school but he turned into a four-year starter at Illinois and was then drafted by the New England Patriots in the sixth round because he's just solid at everything. He's not an elite athlete, he's not overly long and he's not the strongest guy on the field, but he really doesn't have a deficiency. That's Crippen.

His cohort Eric Rutter called up former Michigan swingman Reuben Riley, who called Crippen a “grinder” and comped him to Ben Bredeson(?). Center-wise, Riley complimented Crippen for his college-level shotgun snaps…

They are sharp and clean; not the lofty arch snaps you see from many high school centers. He's also technically sound with his feet and hands. He's very strong and explosive into blocks in the run game and really has a mean streak and the motor to finish blocks.

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The brain is good. His local (Massachusetts) paper noted Crippen was a quarterback until he transferred to Milton Academy. Half a high school career later, ND thought they were getting "an advanced player for his age."

Prister saw stuff on that sophomore tape that someone somewhere is still trying to teach to Kyle Kalis:

Crippen has great vision as a zone blocker, using a term normally associated with running backs and wide receivers. Vision for an offensive lineman? I don’t know if I’ve ever written that, but Crippen has a great sense, feel and, yes, vision after he’s successfully blocked or sealed off one defender. He instinctively slides to the next man to block. He frequently does the work of more than one offensive lineman on a play.

Touch the Banner was mostly negative on this one but did see good zone work:

He shows a decent motor and willingness to get to the second level and then remain engaged. He also does a good job of combo blocking and redirecting to locate his secondary block.

Crippen started at guard as a sophomore, running a college-level offense with the last crop of 4- and 5-star IMG OL. OC Josiah Sears said he picked it up over the course of the season "because he's a really intelligent guy." EJ Holland emphasized Michigan “really likes what Crippen brings to the table from a technical and IQ standpoint.” Sam Webb reported Crippen was charging up the depth chart in spring:

He has impressed out of the gate with his strength. He proved to be the furthest along of the new OLs has put himself squarely in the two-deep discussion. He played guard in the first half for the Maize team and received high marks.

The pass pro is good. This is the easiest part of Crippen's game to scout because everybody in Michigandom can find JJ McCarthy highlights:

Rivals’s Southeast recruiting analyst Rob Cassidy thinks Crippen has the feet and protection savvy to play tackle but not the strength or length.

“I think he’s better in pass protection right now. He needs to put on more muscle to be a great downhill blocker. Crippen is able to showcase his light feet in pass protection though, and I think that’s his strong suit.”

Blue & Gold Illustrated's Bryan Driskell thought Crippen might've grown into a tackle by now:

His technique and pass blocking potential could allow him to play tackle, assuming he continues to grow and add length.

And evident when Maize n Brew’s Jonathan Simmons watched the St. Francis game.

In the pass game, Crippen’s punch timing and hand placement really stood out. He is really good at neutralizing pass rushers with his long arms and staying in front of them with nimble feet.

Reuben Riley:

He possesses power in his punch in pass pro and moves well in space. He doesn’t have much wasted motion.

Then there's this All-American candidate profile from Maven that called him “not the most natural pass protector, but gritty, physical nature compensates,” which makes you wonder if they were talking about the same player or guessing at general OL stuff. The only negative review from the paid sites was Irish Illustrated’s Tim Prister saying Crippen isn't a tackle:

Crippen needs to be consistent moving his feet as a pass blocker, which is part of the reason he’s a guard and not a tackle. He could be a bit vulnerable on the next level to pass-rush speed, as are most interior offensive linemen. But his pass-blocking set-up is fundamentally sound. He’ll just have to continually work on getting his pads in position to absorb pass rushers by moving his feet.

But he’s a center.

The hands are good. Prister dug the hands:

Crippen reengages with a defensive lineman after his initial block. … It’s a significant weapon. Where Crippen separates himself is his ability to get his hands back in the defensive lineman’s “kitchen” within a split second after the defensive lineman has disengaged. In hand-to-hand combat, Crippen is going to win a majority of the time.

He was hardly alone:

• Dohn: He's got quick hands. His hand placement is good. He gets them inside quick.
• Huffman: “Uses his hands well and keeps his defender engaged.”
• Jonathan Simmons (MnB): takes a good first step and puts his hands right on the defender’s chest and inside shoulder. He then uses the defender’s momentum against him and washes him down the field and away from the play.

The down blocks are good. The ND Rivals site Blue&Gold noted Crippen’s “quickness on down blocks is impressive.” MnB’s Simmons also said “Crippen is at his best when asked to down block.” This is faint praise; downblocking means you start with an advantage and have to maintain it. I tried to do the same thing with (2022 PSU commit) RB Kaytron Allen that I did with McCarthy to scout the run-blocking, but Allen's highlight reels are rather short.

I watched the game against Miami Northwestern, which had a couple of three-stars at DT. Quick takes: He's kind of a pinball, but in a good way. I see some of the basis for the negatives we'll get to in the next section. Crippen has an excellent sense of the space he's in and how the play is developing. He had no trouble against these DTs, but his backup got wrecked by them when Crippen got hurt for a series. He turned upfield once (at 38:30) but that was his only negative. The excellent news: No protection breakdowns. Even the overload blitz that got to McCarthy in the 1st Q had a hat for everyone--the RB just blew it. Crippen's pull at 2:12:26 is delicious and a good example of why I think people are split on Crippen's run-blocking. He catches the linebacker and for a moment Crippen is stopped and too upright. Then he regains his footing, and the LB is disappeared. He seems to do stuff like that a lot; from a scouting perspective, you're half-way through your naughty note when you tap space bar again and then have to say "but then he fixed it and took the defender for a long ride." (Also: intent to deceive at 1:11:36).

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So did Michigan steal one or Notre Dame drop him? When Crippen committed to the Irish in March 2019 he was still getting 5-star treatment. Bama did the thing where they have Bill Belichick there to shake your hand when Crippen visited Tuscaloosa. The story told by the recruiters was that Crippen jumped too early at Notre Dame, perhaps pushed by his OC at IMG, and always had a foot out of the door. Michigan never took his Irish commitment seriously, and Crippen continued to talk to Michigan after the pledge. Notre Dame was going to have to work hard if they wanted to keep him. The ND side of things is once Crippen was going to be a center, they figured they have plenty of great guards they can move down, and he wasn’t as high on their board. Both can be true; Michigan needed a close-to-ready center in this class, and Notre Dame was evaluating Crippen as a guard.

247 is the site that takes the most precise scalpel to their rankings, so it’s notable that they dropped Crippen from a 90 (4-star) and just outside their top-247 to an 88 (high-ish 3-star) in their 4/15/2020 re-rank. We have to go back a ways to figure out what happened. Taking in a practice a few weeks before the 2019 began John Garcia Jr. called the junior “the top offensive line prospect on the roster at this stage.” This is Kevin Sinclair after watching the season opener.

He’s aggressive, he’s conditioned, and he appears to be tough. But what I saw was a young center who has work to do in attacking linemen in space, staying locked onto his opponent, and finishing blocks. Too often I saw sloppy footwork. But at the same time, I’d also see Crippen occasionally flash outstanding impact, knocking down big-bodied defenders with surprising physicality. This is a three-star center with work to do and the attitude and mindset to get after that work. That’s where he stands with me from a talent perspective. To be clear, I don’t doubt he’ll complete that work. His drive and effort are in the right places.

By Crippen’s junior year people started to look at his strength as “good for his age” to “okay, let’s keep going please.” 247's John Garcia Jr. at their fall scrimmage in August 2019:

The Notre Dame commitment looks to have made a considerable stride in the weight room as he continues to fill out his frame. There is good pop at the point of contact and one of his defensive counterparts echoed as much to 247Sports after the scrimmage.

Brandon Huffman wrote the 247 profile around the time of the Michigan commitment. That had a big chunk of negatives and negatives couched in positives:

Decently flexible, at times looks like he's bending at the waist but then shows more knee bend. Looks for contact and where he can deliver a punch. Occasionally lunges so we'll need to work on that and keep his balance while also keeping his feet chopping. Projects as multi-year Power 5 starter.

His comp is to UCLA’s Scott Quessenberry, a heady “barrel-chested center” who got on the field as a guard for the Bruins as a true freshman before taking over center for three years. Quessenberry was never a drive blocker, and was “average” in everything else. He was drafted in the 5th round and has been a depth interior guy for the Chargers hence.

That takes us up to the drop to an 88. One senior season later Brian Dohn was talking to Sam Webb about Michigan’s early signing class:

He's got to stay on blocks a little bit more. I would like to see him just continue to add flexibility and be confident and patient with his blocking. There are times where he'll lean forward and kind of reach and get off balance a little bit. When he stays low, when he sinks his hips and he fires off, you could see it with IMG, he can be a powerful guy in the middle. You increase the athleticism, you'll be able to make him pull and really be able to use them in different ways if Michigan chooses to do that. …

And he has the strength that when he's engaged, he'll stay on the block. It's just again, like I mentioned with a couple of other guys… just more consistency from him. Get him into Michigan strength and conditioning program. Add to his flexibility, and I think he has a chance to really take off.

On the other site, Rivals kept him a top-150ish player. Rivals national recruiting analyst Mike Farrell seemed to be the guy most excited about Crippen. When it was time to tweak Ohio State and Michigan fans with an article about those schools being #1 and #2 in OL recruiting for the class as of July, it was Crippen’s camp performance they used to pull us in. This is just standard recruiting gravity:

ESPN+ appeared to have a scouting report(!) behind the paywall, but when I went through the rigmarole to finally get that login issue fixed I was greeted with this:

Whew: 1 hour of support with ESPN+ people to get that. Anyway that lets us know their top-300 rating is from late 2020. It’s virtually unchanged from where he was when he committed in March 2020 so we can say only 247 changed their thinking on Crippen after the ND decommit/Michigan commitment.

That’s not to say that other sites had nothing negative to say about Crippen. MnB’s Jonathan Simmons saw the same issues that 247 did against top competition (St. Frances):

He struggled some against the multiple four-star defensive tackles that they have on their roster. Many of these struggles stemmed from Crippen’s footwork. When Crippen snaps the ball, he often jumps his feet backwards on run plays instead of taking steps forward. By doing this, he loses the power of his lower base and cedes ground to the defensive lineman … Crippen also needs to work on keeping his feet driving when he makes contact with defenders. He’ll often rely on using his upper body strength to lock out defenders, but to move people places he has to keep his feet chopping and his base square underneath him.

Rivals’s Southeast recruiting analyst Rob Cassidy thought the reverse; he said Crippen has feet to play tackle but not the strength or length.

“I think he’s been well-coached everywhere he’s been, even before he got to IMG Academy. It’s clear he’s technically sound, though he has to get a little stronger in the upper body. I don’t think he’s ready to go to the Big Ten and play just yet, seeing as how he could add 20 more pounds of muscle and get stronger. He knows what he’s doing though, and has light feet for his size at 270 pounds and moves pretty well.

Crippen showed up to Michigan 20 pounds heavier, FWIW. Reuben Riley had issues with Crippen’s base:

Crippen must maintain his base during run blocks. Defensive linemen and linebackers are good at shedding blocks and “dish-ragging” you if you don’t keep a base while driving them off the ball and finishing blocks. He could be more effective with the timing of his punch in pass pro too. He doesn't want to get into a habit of leaning or letting defensive linemen into his body. Versus the bullrush in pass pro, he must sink hips, re-dip hands and work to stop the rush with power and leverage.

IMG’s OC is a big Notre Dame fan, and often gets a little excited when one of his kids are going to South Bend. But compare the above to what he told Rivals’ ND Mike Singer when Crippen committed to the Irish.

He's awesome. He's one of the strongest kids we have in the weight room. We've seen his body morph with how thick he's gotten in the months he's been here. He's strong. He can run in space if we try throw screens on the perimeter. He does everything well.

That now sounds like it had a “for a sophomore” caveat, and goes back to what ND was seeing versus what Michigan liked. Touch the Banner still saw lots of technical issues in the Junior film:

I see some athletic and technical deficiencies. There are too many times where he pops straight up out of his stance, especially when releasing to the second level immediately. That results in his feet getting too narrow and his getting off balance. He does not do a good job of keeping his shoulders square to give the runner a two-way go, and he gives up too much ground in pass protection. I’m not sure that he has the consistent ability to stay low and drive block 300-pounders out of the hole at the next level. He lunges too much with his upper body rather than keeping a low center of gravity.

Overall, Crippen is an average prospect, regardless of his rating. He has potential to grow into a decent player if he really commits himself to improvement, but there’s a lot to fix, and he doesn’t show either the athleticism or physical dominance to really get me excited. When watching him I was reminded of former Michigan lineman Patrick Kugler, who struggled mightily while wearing a winged helmet.

Etc. Likes being in the cold.

Why Dave, but right away? You know Dave, right? Dave was a fixture of Michigan’s offensive lines in the 2000s. He was a slightly undersized, slightly under-athleticized, slightly underrated, big-brained neck-less academic who enjoyed hunting and went by various family names like “David Brandt” or “Dave Pearson” or “Dave Petruziello” or if he was feeling particularly nasty that day, “David Baas” or maybe even reach a dude and gerrrt under him as “David Molk.” Occasionally Dave would get a bit too high like a “David Moosman” or stop moving his feet and lunge like a “David Dawson.” But he mostly kept that under control and grew out if it to become a solid Michigan internal lineman. You know: Dave! Good ol’ Dave.

Good ol’ Dave was a center unless Other Dave was already at center. You could trust Dave to get them in the right line calls, double the right person, and get a block-down executed so Other Other Dave could pull around and do Dave things. The IMG thing though means Greg can be an Average Dave much sooner. Dave Pearson, who is our median Dave, was 240 and a defensive lineman as a recruit; Crippen should be up to speed by next year.

Guru Reliability: High. Three years as a starter for IMG, two very information-wanting fanbases generated two rounds of commitment assessments separated by almost exactly a year. Even if they disagree, they’re ranking differently: Rivals tends to approach things from a “how ready is he?” vantage point while 247 tries to guess a guy’s NFL value. Still, somebody’s going to be wrong here.

Variance: High-minus. There’s a significant difference between a top-600 and a top-200 prospect. The former is a Ben Braden; the latter is where Michael Onwenu, David Baas, Steve Hutchinson, and Harold Goodwin were ranked.

Ceiling: Moderate. Michigan fans would be the first to recognize how important a center who knows where everybody belongs is to a functional offensive line. There’s a lot of good enough to Crippen. That said everyone agrees he’s no Cesar Ruiz-level freak. David Brandt is the Top Dave we’re reaching for I think. The progression since his sophomore year of high school has been mostly mental, which means there might be a physical cap well below impact player.

General Excitement Level: Moderate-plus. He looks like a three-year starter. He also looks like a guy locked into center because not being that would expose some of his limitations, and Michigan looks locked into Crippen because they lost four years of Zach Carpenter’s eligibility to Indiana over the offseason. This is, admittedly, super duper low for one of just a handful of freshmen with a legit shot of being on the two-deep right now. Michigan clearly thinks they got a star.

Projection: It’s not unusual for an IMG center prospect (Cesar Ruiz) to be ready early, but even Ruiz—who was a much greater physical specimen—spent a year at guard before he was ready to make the line calls, even if that meant leaving Patrick Kugler on the field instead of Mike Onwenu. Michigan can’t really afford to wait unless they can pull off a position switch to center for Zinter to get their best five on the line. In that scenario, Crippen can redshirt this year, back up Zinter next year, and take over in 2023 relatively ready to do so. If Vastardis sticks at center, we might be looking at Crippen as his backup this year, scattered snaps where they can find them to get Crippen some on-field experience, and a plus/minus year of starting as a sophomore that suggests he wasn’t quite ready to come out of the oven. I think Crippen’s 3rd, 4th, and Denard-willing, 5th years should go fine. I love a good hard-nosed smart guy at center. Maybe we can get him to change his name to Dave.