Previously: Last year’s profiles, K Adam Samaha, K James Turner (Tr), S Brandyn Hillman, CB DJ Waller, CB Cameron Calhoun, CB Jyaire Hill, HSP/LB Jason Hewlett, LB Hayden Moore, LB Semaj Bridgeman, LB Ernest Hausmann (Tr), OLB Breeon Ishmail, DE Aymeric Koumba, DE Enow Etta, DE Josaiah Stewart (Tr), DT Brooks Bahr, DT Cameron Brandt, DT Trey Pierce, OT Evan Link, OT Myles Hinton (Tr), OT LaDarius Henderson (Tr)

Southfield (West Bloomfield), MI – 6'3"/305
		247: 6'3/300                           3.97*	4*, 90, NR overall #26 IOL, #5 MI
		On3: 6'3/290                           3.68*	3*, 88, NR overall #56 IOL, #10 MI
		Rivals: 6'3/281                           4.07*	4*, 5.8, #241 overall #15 OG, #5 MI
		ESPN: 6'3/280                           4.33*	4*, 82, #169 ovr #8 OG, #3 MI, #12 MW
		Composite               4.07*/4.03*	4*, #286/#310 Ovr #14/#19 IOL, #4 MI
		MGoAverage                           3.98*	3.5*, #412/794 Ovr #47/82 OGs since '90
		YMRMFSPA	Raheem Anderson
Other Suitors	Neb, BC, Mizzou
Previously On MGoBlog	Hello by Alex Drain
Notes	Teammate: Semaj Morgan. "Humble Beast."
Film:
Senior Highlights:Junior Highlights:Hudl. EJ's clips. UA 1-on-1s (more) and Day1(1:26) RCS Indy. Future50. Interview. EJ's take.

Four years ago, Brian's writeup of a similar high school prospect cautioned recruiting reporters to never *ever* give an offensive lineman a "high floor."

But he's the kind of OL that makes people forget he's an OL, that most weaselly of positions to project. I feel like the guy watching a horror movie screaming "don't go in that shed full of meat hooks!" at Steve Lorenz:

"Rumler is maybe the most 'sure thing' prospect in Michigan's class, regardless of position."

Don't go in the shed!

"Highest floor in the class, no doubt. Offensive line projections can be kind of a crapshoot, but I think he's a multi-year starter."

Patrick Kugler's in the shed, Steve.

Since 2021, Rumler has been a Kent State backup, and On3's EJ Holland has become the latest youngish recruiting reporter to venture into the shed.

I’ve seen Herring live on a number of occasions, and I don’t believe there should have been a debate on whether or not to take him. Yes, I get Herring’s ceiling is limited. But he has an extremely high floor at a position that can be tough to evaluate.

Oh no it's happening again.

…you don't really see the super high NFL potential or high ceiling, and I think that's what On3 is looking for. But sort of like Mason Graham last cycle I just don't really care you know?

If it was just EJ disagreeing with everybody that might be one thing, but in this case it's EJ and everyone versus the people who do the rankings at On3. Here's 247's Midwest analyst and veteran of many OL recruitments Allen Trieu:

has just been extremely reliable every step of the way. I've never gone to a game or a camp where anybody said, ‘well, it wasn't Amir's best day.’ And he's been to a lot of them. His performance was always exactly the same. And he's gone to the best of the best Under Armor Future 50 events and (competed) against the best in the country. He's going to be a really good player at Michigan.

Rivals lead scout Adam Friedman:

Herring is one of the most consistent offensive linemen on either team and he has a chance to play a lot at Michigan.

…and national recruiting analyst Clint Cosgrove:

Amir Herring could carve out an early role in the Michigan offense. Herring was the only freshman to start on the offensive line during Michigan's spring game, and he could be an injury away from making an impact as a true freshman this fall.

Even our own Alex Drain:

He may have some limitations, but a relatively safe and projectable OL is not the worst thing to have in the class, especially when you need bodies.

At least he used relatively.

[After THE JUMP: Let's talk me into the shed.] 

---------------------------

Already Developed/Consistent/High Floor

Spot the kid who should still be in high school. [Barron]

The reason everybody (except the quiet On3 people) are confident that Herring knows what he's doing out there is he's been starting for four years at the best program in Michigan, going against guys like Rayshaun Benny and Justin Rogers. As of spring he was still getting the best of Benny.

#56 in Blue at RG

He was also a regular top performer on the camp circuits, and progressed all the way to multiple all-star weekends. Trieu named him Alpha Dog at Ohio 247 UA Regional because Herring didn't lose a rep. At the Future 50, Cooper Petagna praised his barrel chest and intelligence, and said he had "all the makings of a very good prospect at the next level," with an invite to the All-America game. When Herring arrived for the UA-AA weekend Brian Dohn immediately thought that's a Michigan guy, while Rivals' Adam Gorney gave the Michigan guy his Lunch Pail Award, because "the Michigan signee just wins reps."

The Michigan guy then enrolled at Michigan, went through some bowl practices, left for the Poly Bowl, where Blair Angulo gave him an honorable mention (6th), then came back for Michigan's spring ball, where Zack Zinter said "he'll be a great offensive lineman one day.”

Trieu called him "smart and very technically sound with excellent all around intangibles." Brice Marich refers to Herring as "the definition of consistency" and the most technically developed lineman of the cycle. Brandon Brown called him "solid at just about everything that a lineman should be solid at."

He rarely overextends, almost never gets out of position and rarely gets beat by either speed or power.

Rivals' Josh Helmholdt and Lucas Reimink, and Maize and Brew's Seth Berry, all praised Herring's hand placement and strength. Holland said that part of his game is already so well developed the Spartans are already Sparting about it:

He was matched up a few times against Michigan State against edge commit Jalen Thompson and did really well … Cass Tech was complaining a lot about in regards to potential holding calls, but he just did a really good job using inside hands, using really good technique—his hands are inside, and he's underneath and his feet are moving, and that's why he doesn't get called. That's the thing about Herring: you don't necessarily see the ceiling because he's so maxed out right now from a technical perspective.

That's not to say everybody thinks he's a finished product. Touch the Banner, who rated Herring a 73/100, liked the body positioning, active feet, heavy punch, and hand placement, but…

There are times when Herring gets overextended, when his base narrows and he gets off balance. He also occasionally lowers his head when making contact, and that causes some targeting issues.

Reimink thought his pass footwork "marginal":

He doesn’t take full kick slide steps like he should, instead using choppy footwork which defenders will be able to take advantage of at the next level. He needs to lengthen his kick slide out in order to gain more backward ground and get a proper pass set to protect the pocket.

Does Not Have Elite Measurements

The measuring tape is Herring's primary nemesis. Everybody had something to say about it before the "but":

• Trieu: "His measureables are not elite, but"
• Brandon Brown: "He's not the longest offensive lineman prospect at 6-3, but"
• EJ Holland: "is a bit on the shorter side and doesn’t have great arm length, but"
• Adam Friedman: "Herring doesn’t check a lot of the boxes when scouts look at physical traits but"
• Adam Gorney: "is not going to win any beauty contests for offensive linemen. He doesn’t have the ideal size to dominate at the position yet, but"

Touch the Banner had no buts.

There’s also the issue of his size; while he’s listed at 6’3″, he looks like he might even be a shade shorter than that. That will limit his positional flexibility.

…except the one:

He reminds me a little bit of former Michigan lineman Nolan Rumler, who was bigger and stronger but had some of the same playing traits. I thought Rumler would break through because of his strength, but he hit the transfer portal instead. Herring could be a down-the-line replacement at center, but unless he hits a growth spurt, I think even playing guard could prove to be tough considering his lack of length.

But!

The little lineman with imperfect measurements is built low to the ground and packs a punch. Clint Brewster mentioned Herring had 240 pancake blocks over his four years of high school. Dohn thought we we of all people would appreciate that.

Knowing how Michigan wants road graders who can punish defensive front sevens, Amir Herring seems to fit that mold perfectly. … He is stout and strong in the lower body, and he can sink his hips to win leverage battles. His power really showed in run game drills when he fired off at the snap and drove the defender back.

The lower body strength pops up after a lot of buts, or other bits of praise, like this of Trieu's:

Plays with good balance and keeps his feet underneath him—also strong in the lower body.

For Zach Libby it was "a great first step" and likes how his weight is centered in pass pro. TTB admitted "Herring is built low to the ground and can maintain good leverage" despite launching from a tackle's two-point stance. WB head coach Tyrice Grice promises "Amir is going to lock on guys and drive them out of there." Lucas Reimink appreciated the "good anchor" as well as the intelligence in making line adjustments, but really thought the body needed Ben (Herbert) and (nutritionist) Abigail (O'Connor) to do some work.

Amir is already a big, hulking presence for an OC/OG recruit, but he will need to change his type of weight once he enters a college S&C program.

That's probably not what Reimink meant when he said "One of the first thighs that stands out on film with Amir Herring is how he plays with a nasty streak," since he mentioned playing to the whistle, and all the pancakes Herring found along the way:

In the run game is where Amir Herring really shines. He plays with a mean streak that is abundantly clear when run blocking, and he is a very physical OG/OC recruit with good physical strength at the POA. He can constantly be counted on to move people at the POA when the team runs behind him as a lead blocker. He can create rushing lanes on either Zone or Man blocks by moving his defender off the ball with just brute strength, but he also shows good footwork to put himself in good positions to lock onto his assignment with proper leverage.

Holland saw a "a true road grader." Trieu Saw a WB game early last season when Herring "was driving his man well out of the play." Around then Trieu added an NFL comp, Lamont Gaillard, the unathletic, rat bastard DT convert who had the gall to dig under Alabama's best defensive line ever. Gaillard's NFL draft profile called the three-year starter "tougher than old brisket," with a "sloppy build" and "dirt-dog mentality" who would play with a ton of emotion but not much athleticism but worked fine in a power run scheme.

Several people noted the nickname "humble beast." Then there's Blindsidepro.com, an as-yet dubious new service that wants to look at linemen, and only got as far as Herring's junior year. Still, for anyone who's edited an NCAA videogame roster, they paint a picture.

Surprisingly Agile?

Here's where there's some disagreement. EJ Holland was one to claim Herring's feet were heavy when he committed in July 2022, but EJ came back and converted to Team Agile:

What really impressed me about Herring is he wasn't just blocking the man in front of him. He was getting out in space showing some good athleticism, improved athleticism from what I saw a year ago. Very good feet getting to the next level taking on linebackers taking safeties, and blocking them to the whistle. This is a guy that was getting out in space and moving like a dancing bear.

Maize and Brew's Seth Berry also thought senior Herring was showing off his agility by getting to LBs in zone and executing his pulls.

This contrasts with Reimink, who thought Herring "needs to work on is just his overall lateral quickness and agility."

When forced to protect a lot of space in Pass Pro against quicker DT’s/NT’s at the next level, he will need to be able to adjust to pass rush moves, counter moves, and blitz pickups that his current level of lateral quickness simply isn’t capable of handling at a high level.

He too praised the pulling technique, but the "marginal lateral quickness" was going to be insufficient for the Big Ten.

Michigan Brained

Part of Alex's point about taking Herring when they did (IE before they realized transfers would equal freshmen in this OL class) was "the intangibles should tip the scales." So let's. Holland calls Herring a "glue guy" and mentions he aspires to go into sports medicine. Of all the WB kids that he and Bellamy have sent to Michigan, I don't think I've heard Grice gush this much.

As a person, he’s one of those kids who you love dearly. He could be a friends of yours. If you had a son, and you wanted to model him into someone, that someone is Amir. That’s the type of kid he is. He’s very humble and very respectful. As a player, he’s a tough and nasty son-of-a-gun on the football field.

and..

“He’s everything to this program,” Grice said. “He embodies the program in terms of character, in terms of his work ethic. He’s going to be badly missed, but we’re looking forward to seeing him on Saturdays.”

This is also what tipped the scales for Jim Harbaugh, who credited Herring as this class's JJ Mccarthy/Will Johnson Recruiter of the Year.

Super hard worker, he’s been all-state twice. As I said, loves Michigan. Has been here a lot during recruitment, has been to a lot of games. Another really great student. Wants to go into medicine. I love the offensive linemen that are — I call them street-smart and book-smart. They’re savvy about the game but they’re also just smart, and they’re book smart, too. As a quarterback and a running back, that makes you feel really good that they’re gonna know their assignments and be able to go out and execute. All three are really savvy for football and really gifted in the classroom.

Mom promises he'll give 150%, which would theoretically crush the modern sports record of 123.2% set by David Eckstein while legging out a triple against Cincinnati in 2005, not to mention Charles Woodson's Michigan record of 118.6%.

Rankings Fall

Going back to Cornell Wheeler/Makari Paige cycle, articles on WB recruits have saved at least a sentence for the lineman starting since he was a freshman. People also assumed the four-year starter was a future Wolverine. They also assumed he would keep growing. However Herring's measurements at the end of his junior school year seemed to have peaked around 6'3", and recruiting momentum skidded, with Clemson and PSU quietly backing away. A question of when would he be Michigan's first lineman in the class shifted to whether Sherrone Moore's slow-play might lose Herring to Nebraska. Moore wasn't going to let that happen; it also came off like Michigan needed the nudge to be serious.

The deltas of recruiting rankings are often more meaningful than the where they end. Herring's movement requires a deeper look.

Before his senior year he was a pretty standard early ranking/doesn't-fall-far-enough type. That was backed up by the measurements, Michigan's slow-play, and BC and Nebraska suddenly looking like possible destinations. On3 dropped him into the middling 3-star bucket and left him there. 247 let him trickle down the 4-star ranks. Rivals dropped him, as well. The sites also changed his designation from tackle to guard/IOL, who tend to get rated lower.

The difference was those elite all star games. Rivals shot him back up at the end based on his performance at UA, even as they dripped caveats about his ceiling.

May Move to Center?

Because, like most high school linemen, Herring was at tackle in high school, everyone had to mention he's projected to move to guard or center in college. The latter seems like it came about later in the process.

really learning as much as I can and finding my niche on the field whether it’s at guard or center. Coach Moore says he sees me as a guard/center hybrid and I can do both.

He was practicing at guard when he was on hand for bowl practices, and starting for the blue team at guard in the spring game, but also repped some center.

Etc. Cousins with program alum Lawrence and 2024 Southfield QB Isaiah Marshall. Track (discus, max 76-5 in May 2021). Has his own website.

Why Raheem Anderson? Look, Rumler's out, and YMRMFSPA is supposed to be a comparison to a guy who worked out at Michigan. Anderson, a 2021 recruit out of Cass Tech, is only in the process of working out, but I think we all saw his spring game performance, not to mention a lot of favorable works about Anderson this spring when there's absolutely no reason to be hyping down-depth chart linemen right now.

And the rest of this comparison is solid, except Herring started four years at tackle for West Bloomfield instead of four years at center for Cass Tech. They're program dudes who love Michigan, don't have the best measureables, might have been lower on Michigan's target list because of that, but too good at what they do and too Michigan for Michigan to pass them up. Anderson's recruiting profile was all "This guy knows how to play football, great kid, will never play in the NFL because his arms stop at the elbow, love how he anchors, super high floor, could start for a lot of schools immediately, gonna be head coach one day."

Since then Anderson moved back to center, passed Greg Crippen, his IMG classmate that Michigan openly liked more when they were recruiting the pair, and started shoving around Michigan's second team DL to the point where we can no longer ignore it. The last guy to come through the program (and start) who was like that was David Brandt, the center of the famous 2000 line. I used Brandt as Anderson's comp, if you want to use that again.

Guru Reliability: Exacting. Many camps, big school versus top competition in the very best of states (but not at football), backed up by doing the same in multiple national All-American game/practice settings.

Variance: Medium-low. Low for an offensive lineman, but still offensive lineman. I'm not going in the shed.

Ceiling: Medium. You can get a pretty good four-year player out of a guy like Herring, at which point the NFL's lack of interest becomes our gain. He doesn't have the agility to be Molk nor the size and build to grow into an Olu/Ruiz type of player.

Flight Risk Level: Low. He wants to be a doctor and he was so in love with Michigan that it only took a couple of weeks for Michigan to close when they decided they had/wanted to. The concern is Michigan's bringing in a pretty strong class behind him, but linemen take awhile to develop—if he gets passed by Jake Guarnara, when's that happening, 2025 at the earliest? Zero personality or off-field red flags.

General Excitement Level: Moderate-plus. Baseline 5; +1 for started at WB for four years, +1 for went to and impressed people at UA game, +1 for did the same with Polynesian Bowl, –1 for everyone hates the frame, –1 for Moore didn't make him a priority until he kinda had to, +1 for intelligent *on the field*, –1 for concerns about lateral agility.

Projection:

Riley Reiff made it work. [via BHGP]

Last summer I went to a Michigan football camp. Most of the prospects there with their coaches and helmets were never going to get an FBS offer, let alone a Michigan one, but Michigan players, coaches, and staff chatted them up. During breaks little groups would form around a Hart or Elston or TJ Guy wearing signature Michigan warmups. Except there was one circle leading itself. On the mats just inside the new training facility sat Amir Herring, in sweatpants, holding court.

The context of his recruitment is important. People forget Michigan's OL recruiting felt like a struggle a year ago. They could get a mashing RT like Evan Link because they valued that type more than other schools, and they had an in with Nathan Efobi because he was super close with the Ojabos. But top prospect Kadyn Proctor flew up out of their range, Massachusettsman Samson Okunlola seemed intent on being a national/NIL type, Ohioans like Luke Montgomery and Josh Padilla uncontroversially went to Ohio State, and Utah managed to hold onto Spencer Fano and Caleb Lomu. I'm forgetting some names, but the point is Michigan clearly had other linemen ahead of Herring on the board, and clearly pulled the trigger on Herring when they had to.

Watching him answer questions about the rollers and pre-med, it was hard to imagine this guy going anywhere else. Also these are not absolutes: Michigan values measurements so they won't go to the mattresses over 4-stars like Herring and Raheem Anderson; that hardly means they'll turn down prospects like this when they're perfect for the team and watch Dr. Sap videos in their free time. Neither does Rumler's example mean much—a lot of people would not be starting over Trevor Keegan, Olu Oluwatimi, Zak Zinter, and Gio El-Hadi.

I think center is a very good idea, since Herring's measurements will matter less there, he seems to have the head for it, and Michigan hasn't recruited one since the Anderson/Crippen class, which means when those two are out of eligibility in 2026, Herring will be a RS junior, and his main competition a RS sophomore. There's also an opportunity to bridge us to the 2024 class at guard, considering there's only Connor Jones in the class ahead of him. You really cannot predict anything about offensive linemen, but…BUT! I will admit that a Herring is more like two bullets than one, and since there are gaps to either side of this one, there's a better than usual chance of *this* lineman seeing the field.