Even before Gattis arrived Michigan began recruiting receivers with speed on top of speed. While some of those guys are a solid 6-feet as well, since Nico Collins opted out there’s been a significant dearth of Michigan receivers who can sit in a zone or leap over a face. The Nico kind. The Toomer kind. The Funchess kind. The kind that used to have Brian scrounging for names other than Marquise Walker when coming up with recruiting comps. You know: Huge.

Michigan State’s had a few of those fade merchants, and for many months they were convinced they led for another, Eastpointe’s Tay’shawn Trent, an in-state four-star who, like recent Michigan 5* commit Will Johnson, came up through metro-Detroit’s Sound Mind Sound Body program and Max Ex travel team. After missing out on East Lansing’s Andrel Anthony last cycle, Trent, the highest-ranked offensive player in Michigan, was a high-priority, full-staff effort at a major position of need for Mel Tucker's young MSU program.

Michigan hiring Ron Bellamy changed everything, though as Trent explains, big Willie style’s all in it too:

“I chose to go to Michigan. I call it ‘The Bellamy Effect.’ Coach Bellamy is a cool dude, coached in-state at West Bloomfield. I had a strong relationship with coach Gattis and Sherrone Moore.

“I just want to play at Michigan, plus my guy Will [Johnson] is going there. Playing on offense, scoring and then seeing my boy Will lock up another receiver, that would be awesome.

Let's spin.

GURU RATINGS

Rivals	ESPN	247	247 Comp
4*, 5.8, NR Ovr, #33 WR, #5 MI	4*, 82, #206 Ovr #26 WR, #4 MI, #21 MW	3*, 88, NR Ovr, #63 WR, #14 MI	4*, .9037, #281 Ovr, #40 WR, #7 MI
4.11*	4.23*	3.97*	4.04*

Bottom row is my conversion of the above to a 5-star scale. Links are to profiles.

The question here is whether he really is one of those kinds of guys, or is he perhaps more of an Erick All, Tim Massaquoi, Nick Eubanks, Notre Dame kind of flex WR/TE tweener. Rivals and 24/7 list him at 6’4” versus 6’3” for ESPN. The weights are 205 (Rivals) or 210 (24/7 and ESPN), which is what you'd expect a guy his height to be AFTER a weight program. Those are also camp weights from last summer; there are reports he's actually 215 now.

On average he’s ranked about exactly with Devin Funchess and Cristian Dixon. But there’s a wider disparity here than I think the numbers show. A top-200 player like ESPN sees is on par with current WR Cornelius Johnson (4.24 in my numbers), or Hemingway (4.20) or Bellamy himself (4.27). The range 24/7 has him is more like LaTerryal Savoy (3.96), or Jaron Dukes (3.88).

So, is he a Nico Collins or a Greg Matthews? Recruiting rankings are weird and how they move often means as much or more as the final numbers, but in general the difference between the top-250 four-star WRs, and the just-outside-of four-star WRs, is whether they can create separation from any defensive back too big to body. In other words, can a Brandon Watson erase this guy? We’ll have to ask the scouts.

[After the JUMP: Ciga-Cigar right from Cuba Cu-bah]

SCOUTING

It’s Rivals turn in the rotation to kick off. Midwest analyst Josh Helmholdt sees a guy who can get downfield fast enough for the catch radius to be a major problem, though perhaps not at receiver:

Trent has shown the suddenness and athleticism to be successful on the outside in college, but his frame could easily play at 235-240 in college without sacrificing quickness or agility. So, I do see his highest upside being as a flex tight end, but if he continues to stay mindful of his speed there is no reason Trent cannot be a big, outside wide receiver for the Wolverines in the mold of Devin Funchess.

And Helmholdt’s comp for a tight end (video) was basically Funchess at tight end. Link is mine:

I do think long term he fits better in that flex tight end type of a position. I mean look at what Alabama has done with Jahleel Billingsley, another Midwest guy who kinda was that tweener between an outside receiver and a flex tight end. I think he can still kick outside, especially in the red zone, but I really like his potential to create those mismatches with tight ends and safeties.

EJ Holland saw Trent at several camps and sees the biggest upside at outside linebacker (video). He notes Trent is probably up to 215, and that his athleticism stands out the most, the kind of guy you take as an athlete and once he’s done growing you see where he fits. According to Holland, that athletic upside was what really had Bellamy banging the table for this guy.

For his part, Tay’shawn gives a description of himself that takes me back to Tai Streets:

“I am a possession receiver, but if people see my film I can be a little jiggy and get some more yards after the catch.”

He also sees himself growing into a different, and much better known Alabama player:

"If I'm comparing myself to a receiver, I would say Julio Jones," Trent said. "He's a strong receiver with good hands. He's physical off the line, and he's not slow. If you underestimate his speed, it's going to be there when you don't expect it."

He gave a Kentucky site what Kentucky was saying to him:

"They like how I high-point the ball, how I run my routes. They like the speed on me and my strong hands. And they like how I block as a receiver," Trent said.

and acknowledged to a Spartan Mag guy that he’s got an area for improvement,

“Speed is the big thing for me, and changing speeds,” Trent. “My route running is real good, and so is how aggressive I am with the ball. I don’t drop the ball at all, and I run good routes, so if I get my speed down, I’ll be kind of unstoppable.”

But wasn’t shy about the thing that separates him from most receiver targets.

“You don’t even have to tell me to block,” said Trent said. “I love blocking.”

That article also notes Trent runs the 400-meter—“Just stride out. Long legs, little wind,” cardio is infinite.

The downer site is 24/7, which focused on the physicality. Allen Trieu’s base eval is right out of possession central casting:

Big, physical receiver prospect. Verified at over 6-foot-3 and over 210 pounds. Is not just big, but knows how to use his size and strength to his advantage. High points the ball well and out-bodies and out-muscles defensive backs for position. Does an excellent job of getting up in the air but also being aware of his feet along sidelines and backs of end zones. Generally good body control. Not a speed demon, but does show ability after the catch. At the least, will be a big time red-zone weapon and a guy who can play outside or go to the slot because he is fearless in traffic. If he can keep making strides with explosion and top end, then his upside is even higher. Safely a Power Five contributor/starter.

Trieu did leave the door open however for those strides($):

While top-end speed is a question I get on him, he can make plays after the catch. His body control and physicality help with that. I also believe he is someone who can keep making speed gains as he has started to focus more on training for that in the last year or so.

…and thought Trent’s route running had come a long way on the 7v7 circuit.

Sam Webb is already there, comparing Trent’s acceleration off the line of scrimmage to on the latest TMI pod:

“I know Michigan got somewhat bigger last year with Christian Dixon and Andrel Anthony, but this is a whole other level. This is like Nico Collins big when you talk about Tay'shawn Trent. And I don't think that's an poor comparison when you consider the thing that I always liked most about Nico was he was a 6-3/6-4 a guy who you talk about explosion out in and out of breaks and how fluid he was at that size. Big fellas tend to lumber or be gangly. You want a big guy that can move like he 6-1 and I feel like with Tay'shawn Trent, you get a guy like that. A 6-4 guy that moves on the field at receiver like he's a 6-1 guy.”

Lorenz called him the “most intriguing prospect in the state” because of potential, and said Trent and Wylie E. Groves’s Jaden Mangham were the guys he believed would end the process ranked higher than they are now.

Trent wasn’t one of the big names in Detroit recruiting for most of his high school career; he didn’t play football in 9th grade and had to work his way up the depth chart later his sophomore year, via Sam Webb:

“I really didn't play that much (early in the year) because we had a receiver named Davion Watkins who is going to Youngstown State right now,” Trent explained. “I was really like the fourth option, but when I got the ball, I made the best (of it). Then towards the end of the season they started putting the ball in my hands more. They trusted me and I made the best of it.”

Eastpointe’s coach Al Demps knew what he had from the 7v7 scrimmages but said Trent found another gear his junior year:

He really took off in the Warren Woods Tower game. He had a pick six, a receiving touchdown, and from there, he really grew. He also did a really good job defensively for us . You don’t see the defensive side always because he’s so good on offense, but he played outside linebacker and did things you don’t coach. He did very well on that side of the ball as well.

By the end of last season Trent was getting the Braylon treatment, with Edwardsian results:

Teams double- and triple-teamed him, and he still found a way to make plays.

Demps was blunt about the fact that Trent easily could have transferred to a bigger program, but stuck around instead to help deliver Eastpointe a championship. Coach is also the umpteenth person to mention how much he likes Trent’s family, who all made it into the commitment video. Not that it means much but it was always a pleasure running into the Winovich or Butt or Peoples-Jones or Onwenu tribes as they migrated to the stadium, and it sounds like we can count on an army of Trent jerseys being part of the fabric of football Saturdays for awhile.

The MSU 24/7 guys were really hype about him at receiver until things really started to trend Michigan, at which point they began emphasizing the linebacker and tight endness.

OFFERS

Michigan State, Kentucky, and West Virginia were his main suitors, and Penn State, Syracuse, and Louisville were trying before Michigan shut the door with the hiring of Ron Bellamy. Trent says he wasn’t on a lot of radars until late last spring, when he got his highlight reel out there. MSU led at one point, which if you haven’t had enough Spartyfreude in the last 24 hours, RCMB correspondent ThiccStauskas can get you caught up on the changing tenor of their two new 24/7 people. All agree Bellamy was crucial($), maintaining contact with Trent throughout his career, and making Trent one of his first first calls after getting hired at Michigan. He told the Detroit News it was already over two months ago:

"I knew I was going to Michigan in January, the relationship really spiked up when Coach Bellamy got there and things just skyrocketed from there," Trent said. "I always knew of him, that he played at Michigan, really got to know him when I got cool with Dillon (West Bloomfield defensive back/running back Tatum), and out of nowhere he came right at me (when Bellamy got an assistant job in late January) and things just felt right."

HIGH SCHOOL

Eastpointe still gets called “East Detroit” a lot because they changed their name in 1992 so people would associate them with the Pointes instead of the, uh, roit. It’s also a terrible misnomer: Grosse Pointe has the lakefront and Eastpointe is just to the west of that so Eastpointe is west of Grosse Pointe. While we’re doing Metro-Detroit geography, Southfield is north of Detroit, Northville is west of Detroit, Belleville is neither pretty nor French, and “South Detroit” is in Canada. Also Eastpointe was called Halfway until 1924.

I didn’t do a great job of explaining why Grosse Pointe South isn’t in the same division as North in the last one: the Macomb Area Conference has 36 schools and uses a six-tier relegation system that goes, from top to bottom, Red-White-Blue-Gold-Silver-Bronze. South moved up to Red last year. Eastpointe was Red when they started this in the late ‘80s, but has been silver or gold this decade. In all that relegation they hadn’t won a conference title in 35 years until Trent led them to a Gold Conference championship in 2020.

As with Will Johnson, Tay’shawn Trent’s as much a student of Sound Mind, Sound Body and the Max Ex 7v7 team as his high school. Trent traveled to camps all over the country with Max Ex, and rose to 4-star status in the process, though nobody seems to have published more than previews of those camps.

STATS

As a junior he caught 32 passes for 548 yards and 11 touchdowns, and as a sophomore he had 20 receptions for 498 yards and 11 touchdowns. I’ll let you throw those numbers into your preferred number cruncher so you too can gape at the rate his catches become touchdowns.

FAKE 40 TIME

The Detroit news reports a 40 time of 4.59, along with a 36-inch vertical. Trent routinely makes comments about how he’s working on his speed, and since he’s only been in football for a couple of years and started training with Max Ex a year ago it’s plausible he gets that down. I’m guessing that means he’s a 4.59 because nobody reports a 4.6 forty if they want to play receiver, so two FAKES out of five.

VIDEO

Junior Film:

Sophomore highlights and individual games are available on his Hudl page.

ETC

Tay’shawn is from Detroit and was born around 2004… he’s gotta be named for Prince, right?

Michigan offer origin story:

“I thought it was a prank,” Trent said with a laugh. “I didn’t expect to get Michigan. My coach told me to call Coach (Josh) Gattis. I did, and he told me I had an offer from Michigan. I told my momma, and she was screaming. She said I was lying. I said ‘I’m on the phone with them right now!’”

PREDICTION BASED ON FLIMSY EVIDENCE

Sometimes you don’t really need the little chryon to point out which player you’re watching. Halfway through his highlights the Shamrocks’ offense becomes a trips spread with a guy the same height as the offensive linemen isolated on the tallest kid the other Gold Division school could scrounge up. Then they play 500 in the endzone, Trent wins, and someone half his size comes up to do an air hip-five as his parents pass out in fright. I about lost it when the injured kid tried this.

A lack of elite offers does give one pause, but this recruitment didn’t give them much time to evaluate. It does provide evidence that those schools see Trent as a TE/WR/LB tweener you get on campus then figure out, not a can’t-miss outside superstar. Michigan had extra cause to pursue him heavily because of the Detroit connection. Floor is Cam Gordon.

As for the ceiling, yeah, if you watched Devin Funchess in high school, particularly when Harrison was beating up on Oakland County suburbs with him and Burbridge, this is close. That highlight video contains a screen Trent broke against Grosse Pointe North (no not THAT Grosse Pointe South) last year which could have been directly from the Funchess tapes. He also got robbed of a great one-handed TD catch when the refs ruled him out of bounds, so he’ll fit right in. Neither of these plays led off the reel from that game, however, because,

Tay’Shawn Trent (No. 15 in white) blocking as a wide receiver tonight: pic.twitter.com/pS0zaYdiOJ

— Austin Fox (@AustinFox42) October 3, 2020

Gold highlights can’t really tell you if his speed is going to translate to college, but the athleticism is absolutely there. Given the dearth of his type of receiver on the roster, Trent will get certainly get his shot at wide receiver, and they’ll go from there. Since he’s on the Max Ex team we’ll get more 40 times and closer evaluations, and how his rankings progress will be a clue whether Michigan has found another Nico Collins-level freak or just a freak. I should note “linebacker” would be a kind of hybrid space player that’s becoming more common as a pure tight end eraser.

UPSHOT FOR THE REST OF THE CLASS

Trent is close with 4* 2022 ATH Dillon Tatum out of West Bloomfield, and probably erases any lingering doubt whether Tatum will choose Michigan or State. That kind of sweep in Michigan after taking Rayshaun Benny and Andrel Anthony out of State’s clutches last year is really bad news for Mel Tucker. The trend with southeast Michigan recruiting seems to be swinging back towards the heady days of the late Lloyd years, when every LaMarr Woodley or Brandon Graham was Michigan’s to lose.

Will Johnson and Tay’shawn Trent are half of a quad of elite athletes on the SMSB Max Ex team, the third being elite 2023 QB Dante Moore out of Detroit King and fourth 2022 TE Antonio Gates Jr., who might be a tough pull being an MSU legacy. Trent is also good friends with MSU WR commit Tyrell Henry, who fell off Michigan’s board over the process but could be an option if they strike out on their other top receiver targets.

Michigan is still in heavy pursuit of Gattis’s Illinois faves Kaleb Brown and Tyler Morris, and would love to pull in OR 4* (and former Michigander) Darrius Clemons, who’s another Trent-like outside guy. 

Na-na, na, na, na-na-na.