FOLLOW ME TO FREEEEEEEDOM!

I'm stealing this from a guy who stole it from someone else on the internet with some refinements because… yeah. Brady Hoke is doing work in Ohio. Here's a list of Ohio recruits in Lloyd Carr's last six classes compared to Brady Hoke's first two:

Lloyd Carr, 2002-2007

Kickers. Zoltan Mesko, Bryan Wright.

[Separate category because teams generally have one scholarship max per slot; OSU did not compete for either guy because they weren't in the market those years.]

Three star types: Mark Bihl, Willis Barringer, Mister Simpson.

Three/four star borderline: Pat Massey, Brandon Harrison, Cobrani Mixon

Four star+ types: Shawn Crable, Prescott Burgess, Mario Manningham, Justin Boren.

That's 12 in six classes with four of them consensus four-star types. Only those four had OSU offers. If you want to add Carr's recruiting efforts in his final season that led to the hybrid class you can add two more borderline sorts in Brandon Moore and Elliott Mealer plus a consensus four-star w/ OSU offer in Kevin Koger. That doesn't change the math much.

Brady Hoke, 2012-2013

This is Hoke's first full class and the one Michigan is currently working on.

Three-star types: Willie Henry, Kaleb Ringer, Allen Gant

Three/four star borderline: Jaron Dukes, Deveon Smith, AJ Williams

Four-star types+: Gareon Conley (just needs Rivals to update to be consensus), Ben Gedeon, Mike McCray, Taco Charlton, Dymonte Thomas, Chris Wormley (minus Rivals), Kyle Kalis, Jarrod Wilson, Tom Strobel, Joe Bolden, Jake Butt.

Gedeon, Smith, Thomas, Wormley, Kalis, and Strobel had OSU offers, and Urban Meyer tried to get in on Joe Bolden after he was hired.

Open Season

Michigan's gone from a four-star-plus recruit from Ohio twice every three years to five per year. Tressel implosion and the scholarship restrictions that caused is obviously a major reason for the sea change. Hoke is just as important in that equation, however, and given Meyer's increased focus on "national" recruits that's a trend that should continue into the future. Ohio State's obviously doing well for themselves with this strategy, but in the process they're giving Michigan bonus recruits from Ohio in addition to their usual in-state, regional, and national recruiting.

Oh, right: now we can beat Notre Dame head to head, too.

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[What about Rodriguez? RR added more borderline 3/4 sorts to the hybrid class in Mike Shaw, Taylor Hill, and Roy Roundtree plus sleeper Patrick Omameh.

The next year RR got the two kids out of Liberty (Isaiah Bell, a three star, and Fitzgerald Toussaint, a 4 four star) and Justin Turner, a four star sort with an OSU offer.

In 2010 Michigan recruited a  ton of dudes from Ohio, 11 in all, but all(!) were generic three stars except Jerald Robinson and Jibreel Black, who were borderline. None had OSU offers. Six haven't made it through two years in the program.

That pattern repeated in RR's final class. He picked up Jack Miller, Greg Brown, and Chris Rock, all three-stars. Hoke came in and added Antonio Poole, Frank Clark, Keith Heitzman, and Tamani Carter, also all three stars.

So while RR was a lot better at pulling players out of Ohio, he was a lot worse at getting the players big time programs want, and worse yet at keeping them. His total tally of H2H wins against OSU was one, and that kid never played. A lot of his success-type activity can be attributed to going after guys with crappy offer lists.

FWIW, the hybrid classes weren't included because a scrambling month to pick up the pieces at a new job is not representative of long term recruiting trends.]