Is Michigan Oversigning? No.
my favorite part of this conversation is people looking at Brad Hawkins and Brad Hawkins in consecutive recruiting classes and identifying them as separate people
Michigan's large recruiting classes the last couple years occasionally see grenades lobbed at Harbaugh and accusations that Michigan has "sold its soul" leveled. These accusations are dumb, whether they come from 'Bama hilljacks in my twitter mentions or Stewart Mandel.
The problem with oversigning is not that any year in particular has a lot of kids in one recruiting class but that certain schools used to go well over 85 on Signing Day and had to cut 8-10 kids by fall. (This was usually just Alabama.) The hue and cry about the practice was at least partially successful in reining it in, as Power 5 conferences initiated restrictions on the practice. The Big Ten allows it, but it allows just three and supposedly you have to explain where the scholarship is coming from. Michigan operates in that environment.
And in any case, the amount of attrition needed for Michigan to get under 85 despite back-to-back large classes is well within the bounds of normal. Michigan's roster is comprised of their last five recruiting classes:
2013. 27 recruits, with those remaining all redshirt seniors. There are 5: Patrick Kugler, Henry Poggi, Mike McCray, Maurice Hurst, and Khalid Hill. They have two fifth-year senior transfers, John O'Korn and Ty Isaac. Michigan also expects to bring back sixth year senior Drake Johnson.
2014. 17 recruits. One, Blake O'Neill, was a grad transfer with one year of eligibility. A second, Jabrill Peppers, was three-and-out to the NFL draft. That leaves 15 kids who could be on this year's team. 12 are.
2015. 14 recruits. All could be on this year's team. 12 are.
2016. 27 recruits who actually signed and/or enrolled. Dytarious Johnson and Brad Hawkins ended up going to prep school, with Hawkins joining the 2017 class. Ahmir Mitchell and Devin Asiasi transferred. The other 25 are on the roster.
2017. 30 recruits. Possible one or two might end up in the same boat as Hawkins.
8 + 15 + 14 + 27 + 30 is 94, meaning that Michigan had to lose nine players naturally over the course of the last four recruiting classes to avoid oversigning. Michigan's lost seven. You can be the judge of how natural they are:
- Brady Pallante took a medical hardship scholarship.
- Michael Ferns transferred to WVU after one year under Brady Hoke.
- Freddy Canteen had injury issues and recently announced a grad transfer to Notre Dame.
- Andrew David transferred to TCU to play baseball.
- Brian Cole ran afoul of team rules, ended up at a JUCO, and will play at Mississippi State this fall.
- Ahmir Mitchell transferred to Rutgers after one semester.
- Devin Asiasi, depressingly, transferred after a highly promising freshman year.
That is far from an unreasonable amount of natural attrition for an 85-man football roster, especially because the latter three were highly ranked guys who lasted at most one year. Highly touted guys don't get run off that quickly.
That leaves two spots left, one of which is known and should be announced in the near future. I'm not sure of the second, but the worst case scenario is that Michigan does not bring back a fifth year senior who has a degree in hand and can use his final year of eligibility elsewhere. More likely is someone lighting out for greener pastures voluntarily.
If that's "selling your soul," we're going to have to invent some new lingo for Baylor. Michigan is only oversigning if you consider the practice of offering redshirted seniors a firm handshake instead of a fifth year to be oversigning. That's something literally every school in the country does annually, and is bad-faith pearl-clutching by anyone who would attempt to use that as a slam against Harbaugh.
We've got 400,000+
make it in the class due to grade issues. I hope those get worked out in a positive way.
Well, you know what they say down South:
"If you ain't whining, you ain't trying."
We shouldn't be surprised in this day of the internet that you don't really need to research anything to write a story. The sheer volume of "journalism" dictates now that people don't check sources, build a story, etc. People throw shit at the wall and see what sticks. And the readers don't necessarily care about facts. It is a big problem that exists and leads to sensationalist reporting without facts. And it also causes people to not believe some of the things that are true.
First, I strongly dislike the term "grad transfer" or any suggestion that guys leaving after four years are considered transfers. Those kids did not transfer; they went somewhere else for grad school. Practically everyone who attends grad school does so at a different institution. This is not news and there is nothing even remotely sketchy about a kid leaving after he got a degree.
Second, Stewart Mandel is a well-documented Michigan/Harbaugh hater. He has been called out for it on his own podcast with Bruce Feldman, and more or less admitted it (while trying to save face). It is a shame because I otherwise enjoyed the podcast, but couldn't bear it anymore after several of his uninformed "hot takes" on Michigan/Harbaugh.
I agree that there's nothing sketchy about a grad transfer, but I disagree with your point that the term is no good. In this case, a transfer is happening because the student athlete needs a release to "transfer" to another football program and have eligibliity. If they wanted to just go to grad school at a different institution, they could do that to and go anywhere, but would not necessarily be football eligible without the "transfer".
Now, if your argument was that they should not need a release from their undergrad program in order to be eligible for a football team at their graduate institution, I would fully agree.
This is all about making everyone else look like they are doing the same thing as the SEC and Alabama so the powers that be will have cover for doing nothing about the SEC and Alabama.
But, Pennsyltucky A&M better watch out!
Drake Johnson and someone from the 2015 class?
Mandel's take is premature and lazy. He looked at numbers, saw Michigan signed ~60 kids the last two years, and jumped the gun. Really, the conversation doesn't start for Michigan until next year's class is signed. Will they take 18 kids? Fine. Or will they take 25? Then the numbers start to get dicey, and Mandel's little quips won't be out of bounds.
Very nice description.
Mandel reminds me that I have never had better electronic access - to crap - than ever before.
anyone who claims that Michigan, now under Harbaugh, is starting to resemble other big-boy college football programs who engage in creative roster management is not to look at (1) signing big classes in a given year, nor (2) having a roster of scholarship players > 85 (or whatever the B1G permits as a conference, e.g., 87). Instead one might be critical of Harbaugh's roster management techniques by pointing out that (A) he's pulled scholarships on players right before NSD; and (B) there have been a few guys (Heitzman, Pipkins) who have said that they were forced to leave after they were Seniors. Again, these sorts of things happen at every program, and so aren't unique to Michigan. But I'm not aware of A & B happening at Michigan before Harbaugh took over.
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