Recruiting Reset: Sobering Up After Recruit Bender 2019
HELLO I AM HIGH ON RECRUITBALLS
goofballs?
YES THOSE BUT RELATED TO MANY RECRUITS IN A SHORT PERIOD OF TIME
have you considered not being on goofballs
DO YOU MEAN RECRUITBALLS
can you please stop saying that
SOBER UP YOU MEAN
yes, like Star Trek alcohol
Now that you have rejected my true self here I am. Better?
Yes. Were you going to ask something?
[After the JUMP: this post becomes marginally less silly]
WOO LFG
Indeed. In the past week Michigan has added 9 recruits and a "Tru Wilson on a wrestling scholarship" kind of guy.
I thought that if you were on athletic scholarship and playing football you were on a football scholarship?
Gaige Garcia, the player in question, can be on a wrestling scholarship that counts against wrestling until and unless he sees the field for football. We're filing him as a PWO with an asterisk. He'll likely be on campus for a couple years before Michigan has to determine whether they're going to spend a slot on him.
And the other nine guys? Woo? LFG?
Michigan's class shot up from 23rd to 5th, albeit briefly. So, woo. OSU has moved back ahead of Michigan. As for the class as it stands I'll give it 8 woos out of 10.
Michigan does not have much on the top end. There are no Dax Hill plug-and-play five stars and little prospect anyone other than MI DE Braiden McGregor will shoot up towards the top of the board. (McGregor is currently held back by a poor Rivals ranking while the other two sites have him in the top 40.) I'm a bit worried about DT, where Michigan is apparently taking the Greg Frey approach by recruiting a bunch of SDE types and giving them lots of ham, and cornerback, where they need numbers and only have MI CB Andre Seldon, who projects as a great nickel but is very generously listed at 5'9". It's not a class that's got a lot of whiz-bang to it.
What it does have is a ton of depth. These days the composite gives four stars to anyone down to the early 300s. We usually refer to recruits from about 250th to ~500th as 3.5* guys. Virtually everyone in the class who isn't a top 250 type is in that range. The only guys who aren't are Garcia, VA TE Matthew Hibner, MD OL Micah Mazzccua, and TX TE Nick Patterson. Patterson seems to be trending towards a decommit and Hibner is the kind of high-academic under-the-radar TE that Harbaugh finds better than anyone in the country. Last year's class had 7-8 generic three stars, give or take #507 Charles Thomas.
Meanwhile most of the targets still on the board are also in that 100-500 range. It's tough to get hopped up on goofballs—
RECRUITBALLS
—shut up—when you don't have the guy you ripped away from Nick Saban's filthy paws. But as a transition class between the Dax/Hinton/Charbonnet-led 2019s and 2021's JJ McCarthy And The 400 Absolute Units, it fills out the roster next to the whiz-bang types with a bunch of dudes Michigan beat out ND/OSU/PSU for.
Michigan's going to drop back a bit as teams behind them add guys but on a per recruit basis only 6-8 teams are doing better than Michigan, depending on whether you count Garcia in the tally or not.
So what now? How many spots does Michigan have left?
Uh, well, you see:
- Michigan has two open slots.
- There are eight scholarship seniors, not counting Chris Evans
- DPJ and Collins are probably gone to the NFL.
- Cesar Ruiz may also be an early entry candidate.
That leaves, uh, about –6 slots in the class?
Negative six.
Attrition is a fact of life in college football so you can probably plan on the loser of the post-Patterson QB battle to bolt. Unless Quinn Nordin wrests his job back from Jake Moody he'd probably opt to be a grad transfer. And surely anyone at safety whose job has already been handed to Dax Hill will end up thinking about finding a place to play.
So then you're at –2 and you're almost certainly going to lose another couple guys naturally.
But sounds like we're done then.
Uh, nope? Michigan has 100% of the crystal balls for NJ S RJ Moten and MD DT Kris Jenkins Jr, both of whom have set announcements. They also have all the balls for UT DT Van Fillinger, AZ WR Brenden Rice, and CT DE Kenny Mestidor. They're also in for ON TE Theo Johnson, MI S Makari Page, MD LB Mitchell Melton, HI WR Roman Wilson, and OK OL Andrew Raym. And they should be looking for a corner.
So you're looking at class of around 25, again.
(CO OT Andrew Gentry is going to take a Mormon mission over the next two years and should be regarded as a 2022 recruit.)
This is going to be a squeeze.
You'd think so but Michigan hasn't entered spring practice significantly over the scholarship limit under Harbaugh. There was a year or two where a fifth year guy could have gotten squeezed out if there was no attrition. There always has been. What does look like a thing that is happening is that there are a number of second or third year players who aren't look like they'll be in a spot to challenge for playing time soon or ever, and there will be some conversations to that effect before December.
Thanks for the recap. It might be a good addition during these summer weeks to post a more in depth position-by-position recap and resurrect the table showing all of the commits for this class with name, position, size, stars, rank, etc.
I share the concert about DT, especially as we head into 2019 knowing that is one of the scariest parts of the current depth chart. It is also a position with a high hit-or-miss rate and one where you need a lot of bodies.
This is my biggest concern as well. Every year in the past I feel like we did not have to worry about the Dline. But this past year Gary was gone half the season and Winovich got hurt at the end, our line did not give me confidence like the past. And we have no one that we can place 100% trust on this year either. On top of that it doesn't seem like we are in on any top 5 Dline guy for next year. Can only hope someone develops into that monster we have every year.
Also your other ideas for articles are great idea to have in the downtime. Can help the optimism for the upcoming season, cause I am excited for this offense and to see what the Hills can do on the field.
I believe CA CB Darion Green Warren should be added to the list of potential additions to the class. Recently said in an interview that Michigan is his #1 for the time being. Top 200 player, would be a nice addition plus he would be an early enrollee.
DGW would be a huge get at CB.
I really like Roman Wilson’s film at WR.
https://www.hudl.com/video/3/8380172/5c04cc44a01899137c536195
6ft 180lb sub 4.4. He runs solid routes and breaks at top speed. He is such a smooth athlete. He reminds of Mario Manningham.
Wilson seems like a guy who could end up being a top 100 prospect by the time ratings close, verified 4.37 40 and like you said, he's smooth.
even if we're going to a 404 tite as per seth's suggestion, our recruiting seems weird b/c: (1) we aren't recruiting an obvious NT; and (2) we're still going after a ton of thin WDEs, when that position would be a little different and require fewer numbers. i don't get it either.
We need our Mazi Smith and Chris Hinton in this class!
This will be unhelpful in drawing a conclusion, but seems like either of two things. Thing 1: 3 man line, they could love Jeter, Hinton, and Smith at NT and are comfortable taking Jenkins as a guy who's ready after a redshirt. Thing 2: 4 man line, but one where everybody plays all positions, and contribute equally in pass rush and run support. At least NT, 3T, and 5T, with a WDE position remaining. The latter might make sense after seeing NT/3T last year and the lack of pass rush causing a lot of issues for the D.
A few things here:
1) I don't think Seth was actually so much suggesting Michigan may run a bunch of Tite Front, as much as he was pointing to a general trend that is being used in college football to combat some of the things that Michigan struggled with at the end of the year. While Mattison is most likely sticking with his 4-3 Under D at OSU (but substituting Jake Ryan SAM for Jabrill Peppers SAM), the Tite front is more a spread answer I could see from him; it's solid at its core, gap sound, do your job, get to the next play in normal down and distance situations. It's not really a Brown answer to anything.
2) I don't think Brown is going to start running a bunch of Tite front. The Tite front is fine, it has it's strengths, but they really don't fit into what Brown does. It lacks the ability to really apply pressure. Your coverage is pretty well tipped pre-snap. It would be an expensive thing for Brown to install given the existing playbook that wouldn't really give Michigan a lot of bang for its buck, given the B1G makeup.
3) Brown has rarely used a space eating NT. It's not really a priority in his defense. Even at BC, his NT barely broke 300 lbs, and more often than not were in the 280-290 range.
4) Brown doesn't really 2-gap, he doesn't really eat space. His D is reliant on penetration and havoc, twists and stunts (which the Tite front doesn't really allow for outside late, post-pass pro declared stunts). He isn't going to make heavy use of them because they don't fit his base D.
5) That doesn't mean Michigan isn't going to run more 3-man fronts. Brown has run a 3-4 base in previous years. He has a pretty extensive 3-3 and 3-2 package, but it isn't Tite front. It's a one-gapping, penetrating, heavy blitz and line game package. For that, you don't need a NT.
6) Guys naturally grown. If you want guys to get to 290 and they come in at 250, it isn't a ton to ask them to be 280 by their RS So year and grow into 290 over the rest of the time. It's a natural progression for a ton of these kids, and a lot easier than keeping guys in shape or having to cut down a lot of weight and totally reshape their body. It's easier to get a guy that will maintain his athleticism and be a player for you than it is to find a guy already DT size that will maintain that athleticism. Sure, if you can get those guys, get them. But they are rarer and tougher to pull in, so if you aren't getting those few guys, you're better off going the "get SDE and move them inside" route. In the last two cycles they've got upwards to 5 guys that can play the two interior DL spots, it's not as bad as it's made out to be.
7) The biggest problem I've had with the way Michigan has handled these types is that they've started them at DE (even WDE) and gradually moved them inside. This is an effort to give them a shot outside combined with being the size to get away with it early. What it does is put them behind the curve in getting acclimated to playing on the interior. Give up a year or two of their progression and get them ready technically to play inside. To do this, they probably need to focus a bit more on retention rather than having those lower on the depth chart transfer out.
8) All that said, I'd like them to have at least one true DT prospect per class. You may not always make full use of them, but they can become important and they allow you to do other things, and taking one per class (like QB) always make sense, because they don't all pan out.
Great response to that poster, thanks. Ryan Day had only one requirement from his new D coordinator - stay with a 4 man line as the base.
Yeah with regards to 6, at first I was thinking Jenkins and Fillinger would be too small to play inside, but they are actually the same size as Kemp and Jeter in highschool. So maybe the coaches are deciding they like what they've gotten from those 2 guys and were disappointed in Mone's career, which was a guy that came in over 300 lbs. It just appears that for whatever reason Michigan didn't get in on any of the top DT prospects this year.
It's not that they didn't get "in" on anybody it's that the guys they targeted ( Cole Brevard, Jayson Jones, Jacolbe Cowen, etc.) just happened to like other schools more.
Not the best place to ask this and I'm not sure if you've written about it elsewhere, but what is your take on Mattison getting the OSU DC job? His defenses were good but not great at Michigan, though he didn't have the athletes that OSU has now. Will his defense be top 10 with the athletes OSU has? Do you think he adapts from working with Brown and gets more aggressive?
A lot of Michigan writers have said it was an uninspiring hire but would be interested to see the Xs and Os analysis of the hire.
It's a solid hire. I don't think they'll be top 10 year one, but the one thing that Mattison is great at is developing fundamentals and getting guys to play sound and fast. With OSU athletes, that should be enough to make them a top 20 unit, IMO.
Overall, it's a very high floor, medium ceiling type hire. He won't make top 5 defenses I don't think, but if their offense is as good as it can be, that probably won't matter a ton.
As far as aggressiveness, Mattison wasn't really that passive. I don't think he's every going to go as far as Brown does, but I don't think he was overly passive either (he was especially aggressive on 3rd/4th and short situations). I think the biggest adaptation he'll make is how he uses their "Viper" player to add more variety to the defense. Outside of that, I think it's going to be what he used to do mixed a bit with some of the pattern match stuff (Rip/Liz, Cover 3) Hafley is bringing with him from San Fran
Regarding a true DT... I think that Jenkins is that guy. His father was a monster in the middle.
Attrition from the 2017 class, lack of redshirts from the 2016 class, and a small and relatively weak 2018 class all together mean 2020 is gonna be a rough year in terms of the roster. Insanely young, and I'd expect a lot of these 2020 freshmen to see the field. Let's hope the QB is insanely good.
I believe they also view Malcolm Greene as a corner. As for 1Tech, they took a shot at Cole Brevard, Jones from Alabama and Cowen. The gene pool gets pretty thin talent wise after those guys. The staff doesn't have any problem filling spots with 5Tech/3Tech guys. They don't want plodders, big run stuffer types. In Brown's D they want guys that can move and penetrate, disrupt.
add henry gray to the corner list.
That's a good one. If you go to his 247 page, there's a video of an interview with him from someone from the Michigan Insider. He mentions his interest in Michigan and says that he's leaning towards them a bit. Though he was talking to a Michigan reporter so big caveat there.
Of all the names listed above and in the comments, I see Michigan landing Moten, Jenkins, Rice, Mestidor, Johnson, Wilson, Green-Warren, and Greene. That makes 8 more kids and if Patterson's de-commitment does occur, that would bring the total class size to 27
I agree in general but I would hope that Raym or Gentry is the #1 priority on the board. Is see Denver Warren's name pop up every once in a while...with Michigan still holding the most committed crystal balls. Warren would be an NT to meet the expressed concern there. Is he an option again? The kid can play.
I'd be surprised if Warren committed again. I don't think his decommittment was his choice.
Mitchell Melton seems to be trending towards OSU now. Been a run of CBs that way including Wiltfong but I've seen nothing written about it on Michigan boards.
Michigan seems to have made a major move over the recruiting weekend, but he seems to be leaning towards OSU once he came back home and thought it over.
I really hope we get Roman Wilson
Happy Birthday!
Nice breakdown.
It feels like a better buffer class than 2018, which has some solid starters but no major top line talent and a long tail deep into the 2*/low 3* group. And some of those guys down there worked out (Ronnie Bell and Jake Moody are already key contributors), but this feels like a depth class that actually has a good chance at upper class playmakers.
Also, I never worry about oversigning because guys can read the tea leaves and, frankly, UM sometimes has to scramble for guys even with full classes.
Awfully early to judge the 2018 class. You might turn out to be right, but redshirts don't mean players won't be major contributors down the line.
I get there aren’t any super top end guys but when you’re still a top ten class even on a per recruit basis Idk I tend to think the talent level is still pretty good.
As far as CB and DT, I agree I’m not thrilled they don’t have any top players but I do tend to trust this staff who have consistently put guys in the NFL from those spots.
The head scratchers as far as recruiting goes have been the Oline the first couple years (drevno’s fault, fixed) and 2018 when we took like 300 lanky DBs (could work I guess but feels like at least a couple will be processed, maybe an overreaction to slot fades). 2018 could also probably be explained away by that weird period where we didn’t have a recruiting coordinator.
Feels like we’re going to be taking big classes most years and letting the cream rise to the top. The advantage is a higher level of talent because you get more lottery tickets, but the downside is you may have years with less senior experience. Overall, I’ll take this over a situation like MSU where the talent is consistently below the competition. I think with an improved offensive system, that’s the recipe for being in contention for B1G titles year in and year out.
Also what is JJ and the 400 absolute units?
The 5 man DB class will sort itself out. Out of the group, Myles Sims has already left and Vincent Gray is the first backup at corner after Hill and Thomas. I expect Gemon to make a move next year to be a primary backup. Not sure about Faustin and German since both were supposed to be safeties, but I have a hard time believing that either can make an impact with the safety group we're bringing in between 2019/2020. Maybe they can switch to CB and provide depth there.
"I get there aren’t any super top end guys but when you’re still a top ten class even on a per recruit basis Idk I tend to think the talent level is still pretty good."
Well of course it's pretty good. But the talent rankings aren't linear (the difference between the team ranked 1st and 10th being the same as that ranked 11th and 20th). They are much more exponential. Top 8-10 recruiting roughly begets the results Michigan is getting on the field. It's a large jump to get from there to say the Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State area.
Michigan can win the B1G with the level of talent they are recruiting. Just look at anyone who’s won it not named OSU in the title game era.
I agree there’s a gap between M and the truly elite of CFB recruiting but that jump (if it ever happens, which if may not) will happen if/when M gets over the hump against OSU and competes in the playoff.
It kinda seems like we're getting away from recruits with hyphenated last names......
who says JH is too stubborn to change with the times?
What seems so odd is how we've had the top cbs in the country going on third year now..and seem to have little coming in. Am hoping it's a silent thing.
FWIW on Hibner, he's a prime example of the tendency of Virginia Tech to be very good with evaluations (they were his first FBS offer, at a time when Howard was his only college option) and very poor with landing the kids that they actually want. They had also talked a bit to him about OLB, so not necessarily a TE evaluation on their part.
I'd say there's a very good chance he moves way up the boards, possibly even to four-star status, if he's healthy his senior year.
Thanks, Tim. What's your impression of Fuente? It's hard to follow a legend.
Was out of town, and missed the meme. Would someone please tell me what "LFG" means? I promise to do better in the future.
OK, NFM, I found it, it is a reference from TFB. But then again, what about LFGB, would that also work here?
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