Mood [Fuller]

Michigan moved one step closer to a monopoly on the top-ranked in-state 2017 recruits when four-star St. Joseph DE Corey Malone-Hatcher announced his commitment to the Wolverines this afternoon. He chose Michigan over a group of finalists that included such luminaries as Alabama, Michigan State, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Oklahoma, and UCLA.

Michigan's recruitment of Malone-Hatcher dates back to his freshman year, and he's held an offer since his sophomore season. He is Michigan's 13th commit in the 2017 class and the first at defensive end; he's expected to be joined by top-100 WDE Luiji Vilain when Vilain makes his announcement on June 12th.

GURU RATINGS

Malone-Hatcher's rankings are in a close grouping, with 247 more bullish than the field and Rivals as a relative skeptic—CMH is the final four-star in their SDE rankings. His rankings are all the more impressive when accounting for the fact that Malone-Hatcher has missed large portions of the last two seasons due to injury.

All four sites list Malone-Hatcher at 6'3" with weights ranging from 225 (Scout) to 246 (Rivals and 247); he's on the higher end of that range at this point. He's destined to play with his hand in the dirt, most likely as a weakside end who might eventually grow to play on the strongside, though he has spent some of his high school career at linebacker.

SCOUTING

Scout's free evaluation provides a solid overview. Other than Malone-Hatcher's injury issues—most recently, an ankle issue that required surgery last fall—there's little not to like:

Evaluation

Great pass rusher who can dip his shoulders, bend the corner and get around offensive tackle. Agile kid who does a good job with his hands as well. Closes on quarterbacks quickly and has improved on his ability in coverage but can continue to work in that department. Main concern are a couple of injuries the last few years, but when he's been on the field, he's made an impact.

Strengths

• Backside Pursuit
• Pass Rushing Skills
• Techniques and Moves

Areas to Improve

• Injury History

Malone-Hatcher first earned notice from the recruiting sites in the spring of 2014, when he named an underclassman to watch at the RCS Detroit, NFTC Chicago, and Sound Mind Sound Body camps. His performance at Michigan's technique camp that June went a long way towards him earning an offer, and Tim Sullivan could already see improvement in his game over the span of a couple months:

St. Joseph's (Mich.) 2017 Corey Malone-Hatcher is one of the state's top rising sophomores. He's already improved since his April appearance at the Rivals Camp Series in Detroit, and the 6-3, 210-pounder is adding a variety of techniques to his natural abilities.

Video from that camp includes multiple one-on-one wins for CMH against 2016 five-star Notre Dame signee Liam Eichenberg:

Malone-Hatcher hit the camp circuit hard again in 2015, earning praise from Josh Helmholdt for his versatility at the RCS Cleveland camp:

Measuring in at 6-foot-3 and 246 pounds, Malone-Hatcher ended up getting reps at both defensive end and linebacker on Sunday. He did remarkably well running with tight ends and running backs in the one-on-one session and recorded a couple pass breakups. Defensive end still looks like the likely position for him in college, though. Malone-Hatcher showcased a great first step and built speed to the quarterback despite adding 15-20 pounds since his sophomore season ended. He's still mastering the finer points of the position, but the raw physical tools that have attracted coaches were certainly on display.

That May, he posted SPARQ combine numbers that were among the better marks for 2017 defensive linemen:

Will be fun to watch 2017 DL Corey Malone-Hatcher develop into a big-time player.
101.88 Nike Football Rating
6-2.5, 245
4.29 SH.
28.8" VJ

— Todd Huber (@ToddHuberSS) May 4, 2015

Despite battling through injury—a recurring theme—he was the only 2017 prospect among the six defensive standouts at Notre Dame's Irish Invasion camp according to the Irish247 staff:

Saint Joseph (Mich.) High Top247 2017 defensive end Corey Malone-Hatcher played standout outside linebacker during drills and was a blur coming off the edge despite being banged up. With his size and quickness, offensive tackles had a tough time getting a hand on the Midwest standout.

In August, heading into his junior year, 247 moved him into their top 150 overall prospects on the strength of his spring and summer performances. Since then, Malone-Hatcher hasn't had much of a chance to push his way further up the rankings due to the ankle injury, which cut his senior season short after only a few games but made his camp play all the more impressive in retrospect:

"He took a few weeks off to recover [after the initially injury]," his father Orlando Malone said, "but the injury resurfaced at Rivals camp. He was able to play through it, but it impacted his explosiveness. The injury came back even stronger at the NIKE camp in Chicago. The issue kept surfacing whenever he would try to explode off his leg and accelerate.  Even though Corey had good camp showings at Michigan and Notre Dame, he still had to shut down early due to pain.  After that, we cancelled camp visits to MSU, Alabama, and Ohio State to get him healthy.

"Once we got into the season, Corey was playing five positions (WR, TE, FB/H-Back, DE, and LB) including special teams. He was having a great year on both sides of the ball as his athleticism still showed through. In his last game, Corey exited and didn't return. This time we decided to consult a specialist about the injury."

 

That foot specialist told Orlando that his son had been essentially playing on one leg since March.

ESPN's evaluation, which appears to have been updated for his junior year—there's also a prior underclassman eval—praises his "good-to-excellent size," strength that hasn't fully translated to his play yet, and overall physical attributes while noting the need for technique improvement; they're waiting on him to settle on a position:

Malone-Hatcher moves around and plays multiple positions for his team. He needs to settle in and find his best fit and develop in that area, which we feel is on the defensive line. Plays linebacker and while he has more limitations in that role, can still certainly offer some versatility in how utilized within the front-seven. There is room to improve and that should come as he narrows down his positional focus, but good versatile, active defender with some upside.

There's a lot of hedging throughout that report, but the underclassman eval had a more positive bent ("Regardless of where he lines up is a very good defensive prospect") and they rank him within their top 300.

OFFERS

Malone-Hatcher holds offers from Alabama, Cincinnati, Columbia, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisville, Michigan State, Minnesota, Mississippi State, Nebraska, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, Penn State, Tennessee, UCLA, Virginia Tech, and Wisconsin. A very impressive list, especially considering his injury history.

HIGH SCHOOL

According to the Rivals database, which dates back to 2002, Malone-Hatcher will be the first Power 5 signee to come out of St. Joseph High School. The only other prospect from the school to even be ranked by Rivals is three-star 2015 Western Michigan signee Wesley French.

STATS

I couldn't find complete stats for him.

FAKE 40 TIME

Malone-Hatcher has a combine-verified 40 time of 5.10 seconds, which gets zero FAKEs out of five.

VIDEO

Junior highlights:

Training and camp highlights from 2015:

Sophomore highlights and single-game reels can be found on his Hudl page.

PREDICTION BASED ON FLIMSY EVIDENCE

With both starting defensive ends (Wormley and Charlton) set to depart after the 2016 season, Malone-Hatcher could get the opportunity to play as a freshman—as of now, none of the other DEs on the roster have proven themselves on the field. It's more likely CMH will take a redshirt year before competing with Lawrence Marshall, Chase Winovich, Reuben Jones, Ron Johnson, Carlo Kemp, and Shelton Johnson for a place on the two-deep.

UPSHOT FOR THE REST OF THE CLASS

Malone-Hatcher is the first of what should be four defensive ends to join the class, and we have a very good idea who the second will be: Michigan is far and away the favorite for Luiji Vilain, and they're also in great position for three-star OH SDE James Hudson.

As for how in-state recruiting is shaking out, I'll leave this here:

Not bad, I guess.

Michigan is up to 13 commits in a class that should reach the upper 20s. Positions of need going forward include wide receiver, offensive line, defensive tackle, cornerback, and safety. Here's the class as it currently stands: