Tuesday Recruitin' Checks For Falling Sky

That's an interesting question.  Its kind of like asking someone if they are proactive or a procrastinator.  Personally, I'm a procrastinator and, for some reason, get a thrill out of last-minute preparation.  However, in the recruiting world, I think I'd much rather have a staff that gets everything hammered down months in advance.  (Assuming that the class ends up strong, of course, which appears to be the case.)

There are 6 spots left, how do you know how we finish

I think people misunderstand what Hoke's recruiting success is all about. The day of 8 recruits was the result of Hoke spending time on 2013 recruits in the summer/fall of 2012. This summer/fall, Hoke will start building the early relationships with 2014 recruits which could lead to another spring of early recruiting success. Not every five star is a Michigan man, no matter how talented. Hoke oozes the Michigan brand. This resonates with some guys, and Hoke seems good at amplyfying that, but if the Michigan brand doesn't resonate with a guy, Hoke's not going to be any more likely to land him than anyone else. 

People should get used to this. Early committs that fill areas of need in the first half of a year, pursuit of a few elite guys in the second half on which we get only a few and work setting up the next early class in the second half of the year, with classes wrapping up with a few last minute Northfleet/Henry type guys. 

if they had started with 5 or 6 3 stars and then finished with the players currently in the class would anyone have an issue with their recruiting?

the #7 ranked class in 2012 is "finishing like a lamb."

Allen is taking things slow because of track season, which is taking up most of his time and focus right now—he's one of the fastest guys in the country and wants to run track in college as well, though football is his first priority. He hadn't begun to narrow down his list before track, and I don't expect he'll do so until he starts taking visits this summer; so far, he's only been able to see schools on the West Coast.

247 recently had a header that implied that Allen had named a top four, but it was deceptive (shocking!).  In the actual article, Allen stated that 4 particular Pac-12 teams "stood out" to him simply because those were the 4 schools he had visited so far.  He went on to say that he expected his planned summer tour of midwestern football powers (including Michigan) to "shake things up."  Conclusion... taking his time with no definite leaders as of yet.

and agree with your point. However, I am not sure that Smith isn't every bit as good a back as Isaac is. In fact, since he committed and I started looking at their highlight reels, I have been of the opinion that Smith looks better to me.

Full disclosure: I am not a football scout nor do I have the evaluative powers of the like of Magnus and others on this board. That was just a novices take on what he saw.

What's the definition of "a great rb"?  That's a serious question.  For instance, when is the last time that Michigan landed a great RB recruit?  Minor, Brown and Perry were all "pretty good" coming out of high school.  Were any of them "great"?  How about Anthony Thomas?  Kelly Baraka was supposed to be great but never played a down.  We may have to go all of the way back to Tryone Wheatley to have a "great" RB recruit.

All of that being said, I'm very happy with the RB's in this class.  In fact, I think that I'd rather have Treadwell than Isaac because WR is a bigger position of need.  The freshman class of Team 134 is in good hands.

of those guys.  That will give us 2 true RB's in this class and one FB (Shallman).  Losing Isaac sucks, but that's recruiting. 

Michigan is in the top four for Wilkins and in Green's top group as well, though he's favoring Clemson. Given that much of Michigan's attention has been on Isaac recently, I think they have a decent shot at landing one of those two if the coaches make a strong push.

I honestly didn't think Michigan was even on his radar. Everything I've seen is Clemson.

it sounds like they still want another rb. and 1 wr and dt, de, and best available

QB's should certainly have more time in the pocket to wait for the defense to break down or find the right target.  That depends also on accuracy of QB and route-running of WR.  So the deep OL should really help with that but I feel like that is less guaranteed (because it relies on QB and WR components heavily as well) than is solid running- which is more assured with a top OL.

If the OL holds strong there should be very few negative runs (and less sacks) and it could almost be like every rush is at least guaranteed 2 or 3 yards making even semi-decent RB very effective.