Hello: Rashad Weaver
Photo via Scout
Fort Lauderdale (FL) Cooper City DE/TE Rashad Weaver announced his commitment to Michigan on Twitter this evening, becoming the 12th member of the 2016 class and the first at either defensive end or tight end. Weaver added his offer after performing in front of the coaches at the South Florida satellite camp, and it didn't take long for him to accept it.
GURU RATINGS
| Scout | Rivals | ESPN | 247 | 247 Comp |
| NR DE | 2* WDE | NR DE | NR SDE | 2*, #108 DT |
So much for not getting embroiled in the same debate we've been having about the value of recruiting stars versus in-person coaching evaluations. Weaver got a cursory two-star rating from Rivals and has yet to be evaluated by the other sites. Jim Harbaugh doesn't care about your opinion on this matter.
The sites are in agreement about Weaver's size, all listing him in the neighborhood of 6'5", 245 pounds. That kind of frame should help him fit as either an SDE or TE.
SCOUTING
Once again, we go to the tape first, because there's practically nothing out there on Weaver. Here are his junior highlights:
And here are his highlights from this spring:
Weaver does a solid job of crashing down the line to clean up runs, and his size/strength combination allows him to hold up well at the point of attack against that level of competition—down the road, he's going to need to utilize his hands more to disengage from blocks. His pass-rushing ability seems limited, though the knack for batting down passes shouldn't go overlooked. We don't get to see him play much tight end at all. He's clearly not a burner, but he could easily get to the size where he's a useful blocker, and if he's got decent hands to add to that then Harbaugh will be pleased.
247's Clint Brewster tweeted his impression of Weaver's film after the commitment was announced:
Weaver is a long DE with size and point-of-attack strength. Makes hustle plays. Can cross the face of OT's and get inside to play the run.
— Clint Brewster (@clintbrew247) June 14, 2015
Weaver discussed how he earned his offer in a post-commitment interview with The Wolverine's Tim Sullivan ($):
"I started camp at the D-end, and went all the way through all the drills and the one-on-ones, winning those," he explained. "Then with like 10 minutes left, they pulled me over to tight end one-on-ones, and I did four routes and caught a couple balls. They told me they like me at both positions and they're recruiting me as just a big athlete. Possibly even both ways at the next level.
"A couple days later I was sitting on the couch, and Coach [Jay] had asked me something. I don't remember what I responded, but he said, 'how would you feel if I told you that you have a full scholarship offer to the University of Michigan?' I told him that I was sitting there smiling like a little kid that just got a whole bunch of candy. He said again when I got off the phone with them that they like me on both sides."
Like Kiante Enis, Chris Evans, Michael Onwenu, and David Reese, Weaver has positional flexibilty and could contribute on either side of the ball at Michigan.
OFFERS
Weaver holds offers from Air Force, Columbia, Cornell, FIU, Illinois, Louisiana Lafayette, South Florida, Syracuse, and Temple.
HIGH SCHOOL
Cooper City isn't a major D-I talent producer. Weaver is just the third major college prospect from the school since 2002, following 2010 Miami (OH) signee Travis Williams and 2013 Tennessee signee Lemond Johnson, according to the Rivals database.
STATS
The only stats I can find for Weaver are from the hardwood instead of the gridiron; he averaged seven points and nine boards for the Cooper City basketball squad in the eight games recorded on MaxPreps last season.
FAKE 40 TIME
ESPN lists a 5.23 40 that looks to be from a SPARQ camp, so it gets zero FAKEs out of five.
[Update: His Hudl page lists a 4.90, which isn't verified by SPARQ, but also doesn't seem too fake. Again, he's not a burner, but he doesn't look like a plodding blocking-only guy, either.
PREDICTION BASED ON FLIMSY EVIDENCE
Your guess is as good as mine. Weaver could end up at strongside end, where he'd compete with incoming freshman Shelton Johnson for a role once the Charlton/Wormley duo graduates following the 2016 season. Or he could play tight end, where he'd figure into the rotation behind Jake Butt, Khalid Hill, Ian Bunting, and Tyrone Wheatley Jr.
Either way, Weaver seems like a lock to redshirt while he develops physically and the coaching staff figures out where he should play—though with Harbaugh, there's certainly a chance he lines up on both sides of the ball.
UPSHOT FOR THE REST OF THE CLASS
Michigan now sits at 12 commits in a class that currently has room for 14. Again, that number will inevitably go up due to unrenewed fifth-years, attrition under a new coach, and the like. Areas of need in the class include offensive line, defensive tackle, weakside end, outside linebacker, and safety.
Good points. I think Harbaugh and his staff - who have had great success building accomplished teams coaching up "middling" eventual 3*s, who are "under the radar" at this stage - know with high confidence the traits that match such a recruit's profile: athletic, smart, competitive, 110%-giving grinders. And when they see that, they obviously don't hesitate to make a serious offer.
I'm sure they could wait until said recruit's ranking eventually passed other's litmus tests, or wait on a higher rated recruit, if ratings were the the end-all for them. Obviously they're not.
Harbaugh knows that coaching and development trump class ranking - to a degree, of course, and he's very confident in his abilities there. Since they are not in a desperate situation, I'd say he's operating within his comfort zone. The guy is hyper-competitive. I don't think he's compromising the success of his program.
Good points. I think Harbaugh and his staff - who have had great success building accomplished teams coaching up "middling" eventual 3*s, who are "under the radar" at this stage - know with high confidence the traits that match such a recruit's profile: athletic, smart, competitive, 110%-giving grinders. And when they see that, they obviously don't hesitate to make a serious offer.
I'm sure they could wait until said recruit's ranking eventually passed other's litmus tests, or wait on a higher rated recruit, if ratings were the the end-all for them. Obviously they're not.
Harbaugh knows that coaching and development trump class ranking - to a degree, of course, and he's very confident in his abilities there. Since they are not in a desperate situation, I'd say he's operating within his comfort zone. The guy is hyper-competitive. I don't think he's compromising the success of his program.
He takes good angles in space, very physical obviously. Plays smart, great body and he's able to make plays. Seems more like a 3-4 end, funnily enough.
and Red Shirting we trust!
"recruiting stars versus in-person coaching evaluations"
Are the coaches prohibited from evaluating highly-ranked players in person? Of course not. This is not the debate.
The debate is the Michigan coaches vs. consensus (rankings and other offers).
I wasn't arguing otherwise.
My dispute is with framing this as a debate of in-person evaluations or starz. It's a false dichotomy.
Michigan hires external recruiting services (independant of the public sites) to discover prospects far and wide. They invited Dytarious Johnson to visit before the camps happened and could have plausibly offered him in person (and maybe they would have, if for whatever reason he couldn't have made the camp or lived in Alaska instead of Alabama.) Not the best example since they had obviously scouted Pratville, but Rodriguez recruited Ryan, Carr found Hart, etc. Michigan knows about sleepers without camps. The camps are just another opportunity/tool.
and also prepared to be wrong--and I hope I am wrong. But in this modern recruiting world of media over-coverage everywhere, I simply can't believe that there are this many kids that have already played their junior year that are still undiscovered--especially in Florida of all places. One or two maybe, but not this many. And without large school offers. I am now worried about the class. Go ahead and neg, i understand and accept.
There aren't. The notion that we are brilliantly stumbling into a bunch of diamonds in the rough like somebody who found a secret lottery is a form of denial. There is some serious dissonance reducing behavior at work in this place right now.
They are not looking for diamonds in the rough with this recent set of players. They are looking for strong carbon that they can develop into industrial diamonds down the road.
None of these recent guys are expected to be a surprise "5-star" and start as a freshman. They'll all be red-shirted and given time to develop and mature physically. They all have athleticism, smarts, and body types that can be developed to fit well into specific position groups.
What is this 'red shirt' you speak of?
Are you certain we have those in Ann Arbor??
which is fine - it's how we got Caris LeVert, Spike, etc.
If you have great coaches (and we hope we do) you can't sweat this stuff as long as you get your fair share of the elite guys. Hopefully between Gentry, Gary and a few others Michigan does.
And Hoke's regime had coaches with experience at Florida, ND, Alabama, Auburn, USC, Cal, Arizona, and Washington.
It happens all the time, especially because it's camp season. For example, an in-state kid named Ade Ogundeji from Walled Lake Central just earned an offer from Oregon. I'm guessing the vast majority of people reading these words had no idea that there's a 2016 prospect within the state of Michigan named Ade Ogundeji, let alone that he was good enough to be offered by the national championship runners-up.
There's another in-state kid named Trishton Jackson who's a high school QB (probably a WR in college) who has lit up a couple camps recently. Iowa just offered, and it looks like Michigan State might take a hard look at him, too, even though they have a pretty good WR class shaping up.
Last year there was a kid named Porter Gustin from Utah who didn't get his first offer until March 2014, and it came from Utah State. Blah blah blah blah blah...he was a 5-star by February 2015 and signed with USC.
So I wouldn't worry about guys coming out of the woodwork right now. It's bound to happen.
a good counter-argument. I'd say these examples are exceptions to the rule, but it's plausible that you are right and it happens a lot more than one would think.
Furthermore, I'd argue its worth distinguishing between a guy who blows up with a stream of offers from multiple schools (development can happen in spurts) vs those that have clearly been well-scouted and well-researched from schools that produced other quality D1 athletes.
Nobody is arguing it doesn't happen. We're arguing that it probably doesn't happen seven (and counting) times to one coach in one class.
If you said "never," you're exactly right.
That's a fair point, but why are camps suddenly the most precise way of evaluating players? Sure, it's in person. It's also for a couple of hours with 300 other players to watch/teach during that time. Is there a particular reason why that method would allow a coach to gain much more insight than watching a season of a kid's film or attending his actual games?
In case you hadn't noticed, a lot of these "camp offers" have taken place a day or two later. That almost certainly means that the coaching staff is doing their due diligence. That means they're checking with the kid's high school coach, watching game film, watching highlights, etc. These offers aren't necessarily coming just because a guy looks good in t-shirt and shorts running around for a couple hours.
It's more like they see a kid they like. And since they like him, they watch film of him (and so on). And then they evaluate him to offer him.
I don't think anyone thinks these guys can't be good players, useful contributors, or even produce a couple of all-american type players. Yet, it can't be denied that these guys are being taken instead of 4-star recruits and/or other 3-star recruits that are available to Michigan later in the recruiting cycle. There is an opportunity cost for any commitment.
It would seem dubious that it just so happens that these camps have all the best hidden jems in the south attending them. In reality, Michigan is saying "this guy has what it takes to be successful for us" and taking a bird in hand. It fits Harbaugh's MO - he's not interested in sitting around and waiting for things to happen.
That approach can be praised or critiqued. Either is reasonable and defensible, just as it is defensible to take local 3-stars who will know and love everything Michigan is about.
I think part of all this is that Harbaugh wants very much for value to come out of these things. If that produces good players it will have worked. The more recruits you take the more likely that is. Also - if the camp tour becomes a well-known vehicle for getting a Michigan offer you will see the volume and quality of attendees increase dramatically. In other words, it's both a short-term and long-term investment that Michigan is likely to reap benefits from.
Michigan is not most schools and typically gets a lot of 4-stars. It's not uncommon for Michigan to land a class of mostly 4 stars or better, so it's more accurate to say the opportunity cost is a 4-star than a 2 or 3 star. Hoke and Rodriguez both got a TON of 4 stars in their first classes. That said...
What makes you think I am not calm? I trust our coaches - I think they've earned it. I have my concerns about this approach but I'm not sweating it. I just don't buy a lot of the arguments being made around here; namely that stars will be updated, camps are where all the gems are, starz don't matter, camps are proven to be a success because we got commits from them, etc. My feeling is - trust the coaches or don't but lets not pretend it's anything more than that or that the approach is unassailable. People are allowed to have their doubts.
"Yet, it can't be denied that these guys are being taken instead of 4-star recruits and/or other 3-star recruits that are available to Michigan later in the recruiting cycle."
I don't necessarily agree, and I also don't see any logic in saying "these 3-star guys are being taken instead of other 3-star guys." Well, yes, but 4-star guys are being taken instead of other 4-star guys, too. (I refer to Johnson/Weaver here as 3-stars because they are likely to be 3-stars by the end of the cycle, simply because they are committed to Michigan.)
For whatever reason(s), elite 5-star defensive ends are not lining up to play at Michigan. Perhaps the top five most likely guys are Khalid Kareem (a top-250 player but not an absolute stud), Ron Johnson, Terrell Lucas, Daniel Joseph, and Connor Murphy. There are some decent prospects in there, but not one of them is Jadeveon Clowney. If Rahshaun Smith were champing at the bit to come to Michigan, I might say they should hold off on offering guys like Weaver, Lucas, etc., but that's not the case.
(Keep in mind that I am not a huge fan of Weaver. But there's still some semblance of logic in the offer.)
But at the same time, I'm guessing any random collection of recruits, regardless of ratings, will not all pan out. If you get on the ground floor with 2 or 3 underrated kids who turn into solid players, and maybe one that turns into a star, then it doesn't really matter where the recruits were listed in mid-June.
A lot of the consternation comes from where kids are ranked now, but in reality a decent amount can change through the year. Hell, during the year Ace posts recruiting roundups where top-250 kids tumble 100 spots in a week or two, while others rise from middling players to national leaders. I don't think anyone expects this to happen to all or even a majority of the lower-rated kids in this class, but this isn't Michigan taking a flier on kids they haven't seen and evaluated.
Just because they spent a few hours with them in person doesn't change the fact that some of these offers are Michigan out on a limb.
Your choice as a fan is to trust them (or not) over the consensus of other coaches (and the recruitniks.)
You may have the facts on your side Magnus, but a serial killer said you're in denial & it doesn't happen, so there's that.
I won't neg you because I know what you are getting at (these feel like reaches with unrealistic expectations of unexpected upside), but as noted below guys can and do rise unexpectedly. Hell, look no further than MSU to see a team that has had some success identifying under-the-radar types from talent-rich areas (Dennard from GA, Bell from Ohio). It can happen, and while I agree assuming every kid turns into a stud is illogical, this class still has a decent number of "guru-approved" recruits and UM is still high on the list of a number of tops recruits.
But at this point, Michigan has had what would be considered a "good" year once in about 8 years. And it's a new staff. Expecting Michigan to be nabbing top-100 recruits all the time isn't realistic. It's why I'm interested in what Harbaugh is doing here; he seems to be using the camps to capture market inefficiencies in recruiting, getting in with kids he can evaluate in person before others see them at bigger camps/blow up during the year. It might not work for everyone, but even if a couple of these kids pan out he'll saved himself from scrambling at the end of the cycle when it is much harder to find true "diamonds."
"Market infefficiencies." God I love MGoBlog!!
History tells us we can. We got them after App State, we got them after 3-8, we got them after the Rodriguez shit-storm, we got them after Hoke struggled. Michigan always draws talent at a level at or above everyone in the Big 10 besides Ohio State (and sometimes PSU). Michigan can and should still recruit a top 25 class, no matter what. I don't think that's arrogant to say given the fanbase, tradition, school, etc. Someday it may stop but Hoke and Rodriguez both did it without doing anything exotic. Carr did it without exerting much effort (at least it seems that way from the outside.) There is zero reason to think harbaugh can't. to me, it seems like he is electing not to - preferring to find the 'hidden gems'
I don't think we'll know until about two or three recruiting classes in.
We are all Michigan fans, so we think Harbaugh is the greatest thing ever and every recruit is going to drop all their existing plans and sign up with Michigan just because Harbaugh is there. But it does not work that way.
Harbaugh and staff are new, Michigan has been down, and most of the current cycle of elite recruits has already made plans.
But if Harbaugh wins some games and it looks like Michigan is on the right trajectory, then the combination of a resurgent Michigan and a rock-star NFL coach in Harbaugh will be hard to ignore on the national stage.
There will be plenty of 4 and 5 stars flocking to Michigan with interest, just like there used to be. It is unavoidable. At that point it will be interesting to see what Harbaugh does.
Does he ignore many of them and instead play 2-star mad scientist, or does he do his thing, but now from a higher base of talent?
I think the latter. Harbaugh is his own man. He likes who he likes, recruiting services be damned. He's not going to make choices just to follow the stars, but he's also not going to make them just to spite the stars either.
He'll continue to do his thing, but it will be from a deeper pool to choose from. Look for top 10 recruiting classes with lots of 4/5 stars, but with occasional 2-star WTF outlyers because he's Harbaugh and he likes who he likes.
Wasn't true for Rodriguez or Hoke and neither is as proven (locally, regionally, nationally) as Harbaugh. They didn't have to wait - why would JH?
No need to worry about a neg, the concern is understandable. That said the coaches are still in on a lot of highly rated players and these were always going to be the camp commits we were going to see. I think there's a strategy to this and I lookforward to seeing how this plays out. If they go all sleeper all the time, I'd be a little concerned, but I don;t see it going that way and am happy they're getting in guys they've had a chance to see perform in person who are apparently good camp competitors. Throw in the fact that the roster is set up to give these guys a chance to redshirt and settle in and I can see this class providing a good foundation.
TL:Dr it's a long way to February, let's give it time and celebrate the guys who want to come here.
Like Ace said, the batting passes thing really shouldn't be overlooked, that's a really valuable skill that isn't the most teachable thing in the world.
At worst this guy looks like a solid special teams contributor.
I came to the conclusion this evening that I am not in reality. None of you people are real. I am in a lucid dreaming machine. I walked into Total Recall and I requested the "Indiana football fan" virtual experience.
I don't care what the star rating is, as long as the coach Harbaugh wants him, that is fine by me.
That being said...
When I saw DJohnson's video, I was really impressed with his athleticism and his closing speed. I think picking up great athletes and coaching them up is the right way to go and he certainly fits that bill.
Looking at the videos above, I don't see any quick bursts or closing speed. I see good vertical, but that is about it. I believe the 5.23 based on the video alone. I mean, if he was an OL prospect, he would be fine, but I have a hard time seeing him as TE or DE.
One aspect of this process that eases my nerves is that Harbaugh was able to COACH these kids for a day. I'm guessing not a lot of head coaches get to do this, and is a quality that certainly doesn't get represented in the recruit's star total.
Yes, he's been able to kick the tires so to speak.
He has a template in his mind of what he is looking for, and he is able to make direct observations as to who can fit it.
Harbaugh is a cocky SOB. He's not making recruiting decisions in June just because he feels desperate and does not think he can do any better. He likes these guys. They fit his template.
Do you really think in June he's thinking "I'm out of time, I can't do better, I better pull the trigger on this lightly-recruited Weaver kid because I have no other choice"?
He knows he has other options, but he wants Weaver on his team.
Watch his basketball tape. He has soft hands and is very skilled around the basket.
Comments