Recruiting Overview, Post-Spring
Numbers
no reason [Eric Upchurch]
Sam Webb reports that Michigan is going to take another very large class this year, with numbers I'm not sure are in fact possible: 28 on the low end and 32(!) on the high end. Michigan took 28 last year*, backdating seven. That should mean that they can only backdate four from this year's class, giving a hard LOI cap of 29. Schools are figuring out ways around that LOI cap—that's what "blueshirting" is—but those are inconvenient.
Meanwhile I'm not sure about getting to the larger number without cutting certain spots on the roster to the bone. Michigan has 18 slots open right now and it's not too hard to get to 23 via a combination of early NFL draft entry, unrenewed fifth years, and the injury situation with Freddy Canteen. Five more departures to hit 28 is not unreasonable, but the roster will skew very young next season so there are going to be fewer players who are ready to move on in search of playing time.
It'll be interesting. The takeaway is yes, expect another large class.
*[I'm not counting Dytarious Johnson for purposes of this conversation. If he does enroll that obviously occupies another scholarship slot.]
Quarterback
Michigan is probably done with #1 QB Dylan McCaffrey in the fold but they could take a second, especially if that second had upside at another position. GA QB Jelani Woods, a 6'7" dual threat guy, is the only name on the board that fits this description at this instant. 90% they are done.
Projection: done.
Running back
With Kurt Taylor, AJ Dillon, and O'Maury Samuels committed Michigan is done unless a nationally elite name wants to join up. In that case they'd have to make a hard decision. Taylor does fit the profile of the guys that they more or less forcibly decommitted in the previous class, but dude is so enthusiastic about Michigan and the PR would be so bad that even if they wanted to—and I'm not saying they do—they would probably have to keep him.
FWIW, a strapping athlete like Dillon could easily be a Don Brown linebacker. The other two guys are locked in at tailback.
Projection: done.
[After THE JUMP: positions that are not full.]
Wide receiver
Five-star MI WR Donovan Peoples-Jones is and will remain the top target, probably until Signing Day. Sam Webb related that NJ ATH Markquese Bell was on commit watch for a second there; he probably fits in at wide receiver.
Michigan might not take more than two depending on how many of the six guys they took last year stick at WR. If Bell is a safety to the staff or they move Hawkins and/or Mitchell, additional WR targets are currently pretty fuzzy. AL WR Nico Collins would have been the easy next name on the list before he did not make a scheduled spring game visit. If he does come up again (he was on campus for the OSU game last year) then you may resume mild optimisim.
CA WRs Joseph Lewis and Tyjon Lindsey are possibilities; CT WR Tarik Black is widely thought to be an Alabama lean, but the Tide might not have room for him. If that is the case Michigan is in the thick of that recruitment. NJ WR Bo Melton and MI WR KJ Hamler are both slot types coming in a year after Michigan brought in two or three guys who can play in the slot; Michigan might end up going after one or the other heavily. Obviously, track visits to see who Michigan is serious about and vice versa.
With DPJ out there for most of the cycle it's likely Michigan keeps their board open here.
Projection: Bell commits before his football season. DPJ keeps everyone on their toes. Michigan is probably the favorite, but in a "40% versus the field at 60%" kind of way. They add a third WR who is not mentioned above.
Tight End
Michigan has a commitment from instater and legacy Carter Dunaway. They are in search of a second. Right now the top name is Texas soft commitment Major Tennison. Tennison came up for the spring game and told Lorenz he was scheduling a second unofficial over the summer. The worry here is that prying a football player named "Major Tennison" away from Texas will destabilize the space-time continuum, but Harbaugh don't care.
The rest of the tight end board is comprised of guys who have expressed interest but have not made it to campus. CA TE Josh Falo, CA TE Jimmy Jaggers, and OH TE Matt Dotson are amongst those names. Dotson has a visit set up next weekend.
Tennison seems relatively likely to flip given the multiple unofficials; if he doesn't then the second TE in the class is more likely to be someone we're not talking about than someone listed above.
Projection: They flip Tennison either this summer or when Texas has an iffy season again.
Offensive Line
Ruiz(#52) has been around a lot
Michigan has a commit from instater JaRaymond Hall. They need more dudes, and plenty of them, after a disappointing finish to the OL class last year. There are plenty of good candidates on the interior, with national #1 and #2 centers Cesar Ruiz and Brett Neilon coming off of productive spring game visits. Ruiz has a top three of M, Bama, and UNC; he's been on campus a ton and is probably more likely than not to end up in the class. Neilon would be up there as well save a ton of USC connections in his family. Top-100 IMG guard Robert Hainsey also visited for the spring game. M has a good shot at him with MSU and PSU the primary competition at the moment.
At tackle FL OL Tedarrell Slaton and NY OL Isaiah Wilson are the highest-profile targets. Michigan was named the leader by both a few months back; both have backed off public proclamations of leaders since. I recently put in a ballz for Slaton to Michigan on the MGo247Account; that was an indirect result of putting together this post. All of the Slaton articles I could find from Florida-based schools thought their school wasn't actually of too much interest to Slaton and mentioned Michigan as a contender.
Wilson is thought to be a heavy Michigan lead aside from one alarming report from Rivals's Adam Friedman, who also offered up alarming and widely repudiated intel on Drew Singleton. Wilson's gone radio silent since his Michigan visit in February. He's got a visit to Bama coming up next weekend.
Other guys Michigan is on the radar for include five-star CA OL Wyatt Davis (M is in a top 15),
Projection: They add Ruiz, one of Neilon/Hainsey, one of Wilson/Slaton, and get a fifth guy who is definitely a tackle.
Defensive Line
Like OL, Michigan is set to take a bunch of guys here since they will lose at least four players. MI DT Phil Paea jumped onboard at the spring game; he could be an interior OL as well. Instate DE Corey Malone-Hatcher has seemingly been on the verge of a commit for months now; Michigan is likely the choice in the end.
Things get uncertain once venturing outside the pleasant peninsula. NJ DT Fred Hansard visited for the spring game, and for a second it was looking very good for him. Then he scrapped his plan to decide on his birthday and said he no longer had a top list. I'm not sure what's going on with him but it appears that certain schools (M, OSU) have a different opinion of his talent level than the recruiting sites.
If Hansard and Michigan aren't a fit it's then on to a bunch of Polynesian dudes out west. Michigan brought in Tony Tuioti to recruit the state of Polynesia, as it were, and Michigan is in hot pursuit of a number of guys. The most prominent right now are UT DT Jay Tufele and OR DT Marlon Tuipulotu. Both are in the talk-no-visit category right now.
At DE, Michigan made the top fifteen for MD DE Chase Young. They're up there with VA DE Luiji Vilain, a transfer out of Canada for whom Michigan is about as close as it gets to home. They're pursuing five-star IMG DE Joshua Kaindoh; right now that doesn't look to be going amazingly but there's a lot of time for Michigan to pull him back in, especially if M and PSU have the seasons it looks like they will have.
Projection: Malone-Hatcher and then ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Linebacker
![-b494bb71aeec03e7[1]](https://mgoblog.com/sites/mgoblog.com/files/-b494bb71aeec03e7[1]_0.jpg "-b494bb71aeec03e7[1]")
Singleton is the top target at LB
Still pretty simple. MI LB Josh Ross is a commit and NJ LB Drew Singleton is widely expected to become one sooner or later. Uncommitted recruits who come on The Michigan Insider generally end up signing with Michigan, and Singleton has a relationship with not only a dozen Michigan players but his future LB coach.
If Michigan does go to 28, linebacker is a candidate for an extra spot. IMG LB Jordan Anthony, who came up with Ruiz and Hainsey, is a candidate to be the third. Michigan also made the top five for a couple of Alabamans, Will Ignont and Sterling Jones, but both guys are very likely to end up staying south. That's the story for most of the rest of the board right now—all talk, no visit.
Projection: Ross, Singleton, and one other. 30% likely it's Anthony, 70% a guy were aren't talking about.
Secondary
CN CB Benjamin St Juste is joined by AL S J'Marick Woods at a spot that Michigan will be loading up on. They lose five DBs to graduation and most expect Jabrill Peppers to be a sixth departure.
The most likely adds appear to be a couple of in-state players. Michigan held off a commit from AL S AJ Harris because they are waiting on Cass S Jaylen Kelly-Powell. Kelly-Powell's dad just told TMI that he may be moving up his timeline, which would be good for Michigan. De La Salle ATH Allen Stritzinger is now definitely a DB recruit for Michigan, and that's reportedly where he wants to play anyway. If Michigan does grab those two guys the next step would be to swing for the fences with the last couple slots.
MI CB Ambry Thomas will be a part of that. Thomas has talked about leaving the state a lot; Michigan remains after him. He intends to take his recruitment through officials. Other corners on the radar include CA CB Jaylon Redd, TX CB Kary Vincent, FL CB CJ Cotman, and GA CB Deejay Dallas. VA S Jonathan Sutherland, a teammate of Vilain, is also a Canadian transfer who lists Michigan highly.
Projection: Michigan adds Kelly-Powell and Stritzinger. They go after a third corner heavily; your guess is as good as mine.
Specialists
Michigan might take a punter.
This instant's ridiculous class projection you should absolutely ignore
You can start giving this mild credence as Michigan's board is coming into shape. "Low" is still a meaningless placeholder, more or less, and "moderate" is a guy who is less than 50% to be in the class but still has a decent chance to get there.
FWIW, "Approximate stars" is a projection. Samuels and Paea and particular are seeing their rankings lag their camp performance (Samuels) and offers (Paea); I expect both will get bumps by summer.
| State | Position | Player | Approx. Stars | Confidence Level |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CO | QB | Dylan McCaffrey | 5 | Commit |
| GA | RB | Kurt Taylor | 3 | Commit |
| NM | RB | O'Maury Samuels | 4 | Commit |
| MA | RB | AJ Dillon | 4 | Commit |
| FL | FB | Chase Lasater | 3 | Commit |
| MI | WR | Donovan Peoples-Jones | 5 | Moderate |
| NJ | WR | Markquese Bell | 4 | High |
| MI | TE | Carter Dunaway | 3 | Commit |
| TX | TE | Major Tennison | 3 | Moderate |
| MI | OL | JaRaymond Hall | 4 | Commit |
| NY | OL | Isaiah Wilson | 5 | High |
| FL | OL | Tedarrell Slaton | 4.5 | Moderate |
| FL | OL | Cesar Ruiz | 4 | High |
| CA | OL | Brett Neilon | 4 | Moderate |
| OR | DT | Marlon Tuipulotu | 4 | Low |
| MI | DT | Phil Paea | 4 | Commit |
| UT | DT | Jay Tufele | 4.5 | Low |
| MI | DE | Corey Malone-Hatcher | 4 | High |
| VA | DE | Luiji Vilain | 4 | Moderate |
| FL | DE | Josh Kaindoh | 5 | Low |
| NJ | LB | Drew Singleton | 4.5 | Very High |
| MI | LB | Josh Ross | 4 | Commit |
| FL | LB | Anthony Jordan | 4 | Low |
| CN | CB | Benjamin St Juste | 3 | Commit |
| MI | CB | Allen Stritzinger | 4 | Moderate |
| FL | CB | CJ Cotman | 4 | Low |
| MI | S | Jaylen Kelly-Powell | 4 | Very High |
| AL | S | J'Marick Woods | 3.5 | Commit |
I believe Nico Collins did visit, but he was unable to make it for the spring game because of flight issues. He came up on Saturday, though, or at least that was the story.
Nope went to Gerogia instead.
Gotcha. Thanks.
Also, Jimmy Jaggers has visited Michigan previously. I think he's visited twice, actually.
Sam Webb thinks we have a pretty good shot at DT/SDE Deontre Thomas... Want!
http://www.hudl.com/athlete/3163289/highlights/324628387
WOTS is that we might slow-play him a bit...
Thanks for the info. He looks pretty good to the untrained eye but it's very comforting to know that these days we can say, " trust the coaches" and feel good about it.
just watched the highlights on pretty much all of our DT recruits. If they think we have a legit shot at one of the Polynesian guys I understand why we might slow play him. But his film is pretty good and I wouldn't complain if we took him.
Hansard doesn't look all that athletic, i'm guessing that's why the coaches are taking a pass on him. Just hope we don't get shut out at DT outside of Paea, we are going to be pretty thin at that position.
I want Major Tennison, Jimmy Jaggers, Luiji Vilain, and Deejay Dallas, just for all-name team reasons.
Jimmy Jaggers would surely be out there snaggin' daggers from one of the QBs...
Obligatory....
FYI - Rivals had in a recent article that Strizinger is being slow played for lack of a better term.
fill the roster with his guys as soon as possible. But, I'm sure it's more complicated than that. Whatever the numbers end up being, IMO the offensive line is the most important position group for this class followed by the defensive backfield. Michigan absolutely must find some good tackles and our center of the future.
The 85 scholarships cap seems antiquated. It forces coaches to "process" kids that aren't contributing to open up their valuable scholarhsip slot. A more reasonable solution would be to allow all schools to sign 25 kids every recrutiing cycle. This would give schools incentive to keep everyone on their roster but also allow for coaches to correct their recruiting mistakes without sacrificing a players future on the roster. Moreover, with the addidition of conference championship games and the college football playoff, it's more important than ever to give programs the luxury of having more than 85 scholarship players at a time.
I'm sure Mark Emmert will get right on this...lol.
There's also the factor to consider that tuition has to be paid for those 25 players each year. If you allow 25 players per class, now the football programs are responsible for the tuition of up to 125 players at any given team, rather than 85. That might not be an issue for a program like Michigan - with lots of revenue - but smaller programs can't necessarily afford to carry ~125 scholarship players.
They all have maximum limits too. Schools would mostly cut other men's sports to balance out the extra football scholarships. There's no way that anyone knows how many scholarships this proposal would lead to. It's designed to lessen attrition so we can't make assumptions based on current turnover. One thing is certain, it would vary from school to school and year to year. It's hard to see Title IX compliance made by guesses with little to support them. Then you're introducing an incentive to keep the numbers down. Isn't that the problem this proposal is supposed to address?
Title IX is the big roadblock here. 15-20 additional football scholarships require an additional 15-20 scholarships for women's sports. (Or an in-kind increase in spending on women's sports).
Actually, this might even be more beneficial for the smaller schools, as most sports at smaller schools don't hit their scholarship limits. If they can generate donor interest for improving their football team, they don't have the overhead of starting a new women's sport to compensate. While larger schools are already fully funding their entire women's teams. As an example, I ran cross country at Valparaiso University, and the coach basically had a fixed amount of money he could spend on scholarships equal to 5 full-rides for both teams. Anyone who knows anything about CC knows that each team scores their first 5 athletes, and a varsity squad is comprised of 7 athletes. Most NCAA teams have significantly more members though (Michigan's men's team has 26 and their women's team has 33 according to the roster). The NCAA scholarship limit is 12.6.
Looking at some results...http://www.mgoblue.com/sports/m-xc/recaps/100315aaa.html...yeah, they have all 12 scholarships claimed. (They have 12 guys running 8 km in under 26 minutes. Back in my day at Valpo, we had 1...sometimes 2.)
Have you seen the arms race going on in college athletics? A few extra million dollars is nothing to most of these athletic departments. The Power 5 operate almost seperately from the rest of Division 1 anyways.
You're missing the point. Again, it may be tenable for Power 5 teams, but we've already seen some teams consider shutting down their programs in recent years. Even LSU is running into financial difficulties because of a lack of state funds.
Right. And the question isn't, "What's good for teams" here so much as "what smaller schools will vote for." The Power 5 has more flexibility now, but I think lower-end schools would block this sort of thing. So it's academic anyway.
That's not accurate anymore...YET
The NCAA Division I board of directors on Thursday voted 16-2 to allow the schools in the top five conferences to write many of their own rules. The autonomy measures -- which the power conferences had all but demanded -- will permit those leagues to decide on things such as cost-of-attendance stipends and insurance benefits for players, staff sizes, recruiting rules and mandatory hours spent on individual sports.
Other new rules the biggest conferences could enact include loosened restrictions involving contact between players and agents, letting players pursue outside paid career opportunities and covering expenses for players' families to attend postseason games. Areas that will not fall under the autonomy umbrella include postseason tournaments, transfer policies, scholarship limits, signing day and rules governing on-field play.
Leagues outside the Power Five can opt to adopt the same rules. Of course, many schools won't be able to afford measures like cost-of-attendance stipends. That could create an even larger competitive imbalance between schools in the power conferences and those in leagues like the Sun Belt, MAC or even in the FCS.
Some conference commissioners and others from the Power Five had made veiled threats about splitting off into a separate division if autonomy failed. This should quiet that talk.
Scholarship limits used to be much higher. Cutting them to 85 has created more parity.That's good for the non-elite programs. Of course, parity is a relative term in CFB, where there's never been much.
No, I'm not.
In your response to stephenjrking, the article even states that the Power 5 conferences cannot change things like scholarship limits.
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
Power 5 autonomy is designed to make things like this happen. The bigger issue is Title IX.
Power 5 autonomy does not mean they have the ability to change scholarship limits. Of course, the rules could change in the future - just like any rule ever - but right now that's not an option. Also, I do not believe the things Power 5 schools are allowed to do now would be as costly as adding up to 40 scholarships.
Hence why Brian used the word "designed." The whole point of Power 5 autonomy is to make decisions on things like this. If the Power 5 schools want this to happen they can make it happen.
This conversation is a bit circular. The Power 5 conferences can do things if they're allowed to do them, but right now they're not, but if things change, then they can, but if not, then they can't, unless things change, in which case they can, etc.
I certainly agree that if the NCAA allows Power 5 teams to increase their number of scholarships, then Power 5 teams will be able to increase their number of scholarships.
One would be significantly fewer scholarships overall for football players. Really that change only addresses the Title IX problem in Brian's proposal. There are many other flaws it won't address. Transfers, JuCos, walkons, and the overall idea that you are punished when players go to the NFL early or graduate on time and leave. Do we really need to encourage redshirting by making rules that favor it?
You assume the Power Five conferences are going to agree...you know, on things like satellite camps, spring break practice locations and what not.
Wouldn't Title 9 come into play if you allow the football teams to have more scholarship players?
Why not?
The 2000's just called and wanted their belt phone clip back.
...this has been Brian's stance for a while now.
It's deeply flawed. It ignores Title IX. It makes it much more difficult for players to transfer, for JuCos and for walkons to earn scholarships. It addresses one issue while ignoring or creating several others.
It's more than the money for as many as 40 more football players. The schools will have to come up with approx 40 more scholarships for women's sports to satisfy the equal opportunities part of Title IX. That might not be an issue for schools, like Michigan, that pursue the Director's Cup, since they are already spending generously on "non-revenue sports." However, that list of schools is so short you don't even have to take your shoes off to count it.
scholarships to football and women's sports may well be zero. The vast majority of schools would cut men's sports instead.
I'm interested to see if Harbaugh offers as many "camp kids" as he did last year.
Comments