Previously: Last year’s summary. The 2021 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. C Greg Crippen. C/G Raheem Anderson. T Giovanni El-Hadi. T Tristan Bounds. TE Louis Hansen. WR Cristian Dixon. WR Xavier Worthy. WR Andrel Anthony Jr. RB Tavierre Dunlap. RB Donovan Edwards. QB JJ McCarthy.

I guess I’ll keep this now-three-year-old tradition alive as well, since I have stray remaining thoughts after this exercise. Now that I’ve watched all the tape, read every take, and scraped the internet for information in a year that had less of it than ever, I’ve got a few takeaways about the class.

It is another B+ class

I may just be more of a homer than Brian—which comes from inexperience at this—but I rated this class slightly higher than Brian put the 2020 class, despite 247 ranking them on average about 100 spots lower. Mathlete converts our “General Excitement Level” ratings into a 10-point scale that you can effectively halve to get a 5* scale we’re used to. Here are the two classes against each other, and the MGoBlog take versus the industry (247 Composite also converted to 5* scale).

I think in a few cases this was mostly the program itself relying on their evaluations more than they have in the past. They had huge Signing Day victories in December (Donovan Edwards and to a lesser degree keeping Hood & McBurrows) and February (the three DTs). I don’t think losing Xavier Worthy changed things; picking up Daylen Baldwin makes that sort of a Josh Christopher-for-Chaundee Brown situation. Grading by position group:

• QB: A+. Got the cornerstone
• RB: A+. Got their Dude of the Year plus a really underrated proto-Haskins.
• WR: B-. I really like Anthony. Was an A- with Worthy in it. Could go up to a B+ if you include Baldwin.
• TE: B. Love Hansen, wanted at least one more.
• OL: B+. Were handed an excellent situation and came in under the expectation, but El-Hadi is the surest thing, Bounds is the highest of upsides, and two real centers is nothing to sneer at.
• DT: B. Reverse of OL: Situation was dire when they needed a big haul, Nua & friends rescued the class late. Benny the only impact guy.
• DE: B-. Trusted Don Brown.
• LB: A-. Love Colson, like McLaurin more than I thought I would, Hood fits the doom squirrel mode.
• S: C. Moore is pretty good considering they didn’t have a coach, last year had three 4*s. Wanted more.
• CB: D. Nothing against McBurrows. Needed a lot more.
• SP: A. Can Tommy redshirt in Australia?

The end of 2019 and terrible 2020 season were big hurdles to overcome, and keeping this class together while the fans fell into the BPONE took a lot of doing. That alone was one of the greatest upset victories yet for a Harbaugh tenure that hasn’t had many of them. I mean, Harbaugh went through Early Signing Day without a contract! Starting with Gio El-Hadi and J.J. McCarthy and then adding Junior Colson is a big part of the reason there was a class to worry about losing last winter. Only one of these guys did I conclude was a flier, which is not how we felt this class would turn out at the end.

The big miss is at cornerback. While I like the guy they got a lot more than the scouting services did, they needed two more guys who could come in and compete immediately. This was circumstances—they were fighting uphill for most of their top prospects even before you factored in the ease with which opponents could sell instability. Michigan also addressed some of the issues they could affect. Mike Zordich wasn’t able to close on guys like Tyreek Chappell, Ceyair Wright, Prophet Brown, Ishmael Ibrahim, and Omarion Cooper, and was replaced with Mo Linguist and then Steve Clinkscale when it was already too late. They lost Cass Tech’s Kalen King (and his LB brother) to Penn State because Tim Banks has very strong relationships [with the bagmen] in Detroit that Harbaugh angered. Banks is still going to hurt us in Knoxville, but Michigan emphatically mended Detroit connections, and then hired Bellamy, Hart and Clinkscale.

That happened in time to rescue Rayshaun Benny from a life in East Lansing. It will make a big difference in the future.

[After THE JUMP: Superlatives, those who got away.]

The Rest of Those Who Got Away

I discussed cornerbacks already. I also covered recruiting for much of this cycle, and who they didn’t get is worth going over one last time. Let’s break these up by the main reason based on my read of the situation (I'm not an insider):

• Straight-up beat: There are too many “offers” to name but of those that progressed quite deep, S Donovan McMillon (should be a 5-star, wanted to play in the SEC, chose UF) and late-riser S Daymon David (M was in good shape until dream school Oregon offered) shot way up the rankings and went to schools they preferred. Ditto later OL find Remington Strickland, who went to A&M. Notre Dame did an excellent job with CB/S Ryan Barnes and G Rocco Spindler. LSU was always getting T Garrett Dellinger. More annoying OL losses were G/T Caleb Tiernan, whom I wonder if Michigan slow-played while Northwestern moved in, and G/T David Davidkov to Iowa. Tip-of-the-hat to Iowa for pulling that one out based on their record with OL, which is excellent. Not mad about any of these; other schools can earn their recruiting successes too.
• Program uncertainty: That probably cost them G Drew Kendall (BC) and commit/NSD flip OLB Branden Jennings (Maryland), and perhaps Spindler. Sometimes it’s multiple reasons. It was a major reason Michigan couldn’t get in with a hundred other guys they might have wanted to.
• COVID: The weird year might have helped them keep some local/regional prospects, but damaged them on the whole since Michigan has to go outside of the state to keep pace. TE Thomas Fidone (Nebraska), WR Lorenzo Styles (stayed committed ND), and CB Omarion Cooper (stayed committed to FSU) were guys they had a shot at flipping if they could have had them up for official visits, and slim to none without.
• Michigan went cold: First allow me to be clear about the difference between "Michigan didn't want ____" and "Michigan would have had to try harder if they were to get ____," which amounts to the same thing but relative to the player in question and how hard other schools pursued them. LB Jamari Buddin (PSU) was controversial but at the core of that flare-up was Michigan took commitments from Colson and Hood (on top of McLaurin and Casey Phinney), when they could have put more effort into a prospect just as good who was playing 20 minutes down the road. They dropped jump-baller WR Markus Allen when they turned around Andrel Anthony, because they couldn’t take four WRs. Allen ended up at Wisconsin, and Michigan ended up with two. DE Quintin Somerville was your standard early 4.5-star who slipped down the rankings. ILB Casey Phinney (BC) was a Don Brown reach. Former flier commit TE Nick Patterson (Shea's brother) will have wings on his helmet after all...at Princeton. CB Kamonte Grimes was highly ranked at a position of need but not very high on their board for whatever reason; he went to Nebraska. The 350-pound NT Victory Vaka was a no to Brown; he went to BYU. RB Al-Shadee Salaam (Rutgers) and Viper Maurice Freeman (Indiana) weren't pursued with much vigor despite Seth from MGoBlog urging them to.

Those are the guys off the top of my head. I'm sure I missed a bunch more [Edit: I added some].

It will forever be J.J. McCarthy’s

Except where the information was super thin on the ground, I clicked past any headline that looked like another “Where is he going?” article. I still ran across a mention of J.J. McCarthy’s involvement in every guy except the 3*s from out East (Bennett, Bounds, Guy, Giudice, Hansen), Ike Iwunnah (Nua/need), Tavierre Dunlap (Jay Harbaugh special), and Rayshaun Benny (full staff effort). Even Doman, who grew up every bit as Michigan as my kids, couldn’t leave McCarthy out of his reasoning for pledging. Even Donovan Edwards, a full-program operation, took quite a bit of McCarthy’s involvement. Unless this class leaves en masse like the 2010s, McCarthy’s legacy is already secure.

Other Sports School!

I lost track of how many guys in this class played another sport at a very high level. Hansen, Guy, Bounds, Anthony, Dixon, McLaurin, and El-Hadi are basketball palyers. Colson is a soccer player. McCarthy would have been a ranked hockey player. Rooks, Giudice, Iwunnah, and Bennett are wrestlers. Benny didn’t play basketball (that I know of) but one coach watching his highlights thought he did.

Stock up gentlemen

These are the guys I got more enthusiastic about as I scouted them. It’s not the same as “Sleeper”—it’s how much my opinion changed from what I thought I would find when I went in versus when I came out.

• CB Ja’Den McBurrows: I had some hint of this because Sam was banging the drum, but I was surprised how much I would like McBurrows as a guy in a zone defense, and surprised by his size. When I say “Lavert Hill” that’s a comp with meaning.
• WR Andrel Anthony: Unbelievable he was ranked so low. Had an inkling based on interest but after blowing through all the tabs I realized I didn’t have any explanation for the rankings, but I had learned he was a legit point guard. Then I saw the tape and executed a Glenn Robinson III-level windmill dunk on class sleeper.
• LB Tyler McLaurin: Went in thinking we scored a mature good guy with grades. Scouts questioned his speed, but that might not even be an issue. I made up “abstemious” because I was new to doing this and thought I was probably getting homer-ish. After seeing a couple of guys where I didn’t see it, now I think I talked myself into underrating him? Wisconsin’s decision not to offer looms.
• DE/DT TJ Guy: The lack of information and Magnus’s dour report on his bend led me to go in thinking I’d find someone too stiff to be more than a poor man’s Kwity. I came away too gun-shy about the long road to development to fire off the thoughts bubbling up in my brain about Chris Wormley but Fast (or Kwity).

Tavierre Dunlap doesn’t count because I went in expecting a gem hidden in plain sight, and saw exactly that. Louis Hansen is similar but I really couldn’t find enough on him to establish a strong opinion except he catches everything in sight. I was hoping that huge outlier of a Rivals ranking would come with more scouting.

The flipside

When I looked at these guys I didn’t think the tape matched the rankings.

• WR Cristian Dixon: I wanted to believe he just got lost in the circumstances. Afterwards I was mad at ESPN for not reevaluating to better adjust expectations. Greg Mathews is alright; I wouldn’t have him as a four-star. This also may be my middle-aged white man brain speaking, but my eyes rolled right up into it when Dixon started talking in business-ese about the marketing opportunities of his brand.
• C Greg Crippen: The Michigan coaches clearly disagree, and there’s already some spring buzz to prove me wrong. I was expecting to make fun of ND/OSU slappies who said they lost interest; I came out thinking they probably did because Crippen’s value is mostly in him playing center.
• DE/DT George Rooks: This is on me because I pined all year for a 4-star DT and when I finally got to scout the one we were focused on this whole time it was just “Oh, RVB again.” Which is fine. I just really wanted to say “Ryan Glasgow.”

Boom or bust

I couldn’t tell. Often the sites couldn’t either.

• T Tristan Bounds: Straightforward shot at a Jake Long if he can put on weight, but one doesn’t just simply add weight (dot jpg).
• LB Jaydon Hood: Again, perfectly straightforward Don Brown Doom Squirrel. This one could have gone in either the disappointed or underrated categories above at times in my process, but he strung some great games together at the end with Aquinas after getting benched, and that might be why he wasn’t picked off by another program. I don’t know what MacDonald does with that, but I’m not giving up on a Bush-like, especially since we need the dudes and Mac plays them small.
• NG Ikechukwu Iwunnah: Could have gone in the stock-up category because Ike is way more than just a 320-pound nose. He’s also way less ready to play than you’d think a college-sized NT at a major Texas program should be.

I could put TJ Guy in here as well. Also a five-star QB is by definition boom or bust, at least at Michigan.

Sleeper of the year

Andrel Anthony was the too-easy pick even before the spring practice reports started calling him the most dangerous deep threat on the team. Me saying Roy Roundtree But Tall is meaningful, but 247 scouts saying “Deontay Burnett but Tall” is even more so when you consider Burnett is the NFL guy’s shorthand for “If this guy was two inches taller he’d be a 2nd rounder!” Spin-o-rama, slam.

Ja’Den McBurrows would have been the pick if the scouts hadn’t coughed up the ball with the afore mentioned point guard. How you get overlooked at Aquinas is an important question, but the more important one was “What was that Ohio State interest about?” and the answer was “They were more serious than they’re going to say.” They’re not going to say anything about a freshman CB until he’s ready to see the field, but you’d better believe my ear’s to the ground for the moment that happens.

TJ Guy would be a solid pick in a normal year because he’s ranked so damn low for the kind of upside he represents. Guy fell off the sleeper tree and hit every branch on the way down: Northeast school vs very low competition, still growing into his huge frame, boom-or-bust, positional uncertainty, recruited by the old staff for a new defense that most dramatically affects his position(s), late to football, LITERALLY NAMED “GUY”.