Recruiting DE's and OL

I'm going to make a couple of comments here that have no data to back up. Getting early recruits is going to be challenging for RR right now. He's only been on the job for 6.5 months. He has not established a relationship between himself, the recruits and the school. He seems to be getting a decent class pulled together, but it could be better. I'm not going to compare our recruiting to OSU. They should be killing it right now. The Vest has his program hitting on all cylinders (thanks in part to Carr calling it in since 2001) and he has likely had the opportunity to establish a rapport with many of the kids who have committed already. Where as RR is still trying to learn the lyrics to the Victors. My take is that we are doing reasonably well given this backdrop. Do we need help on the lines, yes. At this time, in my opinion, D-line more so than o-line. But I won't start to judge RR and staff until they have at least 12 months behind them on how they can recruit. in 12 months, they will have one season under their belts, the boxes unpacked in their offices, and most of their processes established to allow for efficient recruiting.

There are always decent fluctuations in the initial rankings and where they end up. I am not worried that tUOS a dozen more commits that us. Taking that many kids early closes yourself from late bloomers/injured jrs. The thing that is difficult to get used to is the RR/Barwis effect. We are used to getting a bunch of 4*s and hoping that a few pan out. RR is used to getting a bunch of 3*s and letting Barwis turn them into beasts. RR has already proven that he will recruit better in AA than in Morgantown. We also should trust that our players will get coached up under the new regime.

Michigan will be fine in OL recruiting; we landed Schofield, a very athletic, mobile OL who is #16 OT on Rivals We are in the final group of two very athletic, top 20 OLs Brennan Williams, #13 OT Rivals, #5 OL Best Athlete Zach Martin, #18 OT Rivals, #4 OL Best Athlete I will take 3 top 20 OLs any day DE recruiting, on the other hand....

but is there any concern out there that we don't have enough 4 star DE's...for the 09 class?

I'm not concerned about OL, but the DE situation worries me greatly. Mainly because it's not like this is a one-off situation here- our DE depth chart is thin because for several years now we've been unable to sign quality DEs. And this year's class seems to just be continuing that trend, which will soon transform that position into a catastrophe for U-M (unless of course RichRod converts some LBs to the position, which doesn't seem likely). So, yes, I'm concerned, and I'm not waiting until Signing Day to go off the deep end on this- I've got paper bags at the ready for bouts of hyperventilation

My hope is that with the wide open attacking defense that Shafer's past indicates we will have in Ann Arbor going forward, we will have a lot of kids interested in playing for us. This isn't specific to DE/DL, but in general, I believe that recruits will want to play for a coach that wants to play agressively.

. . . and it seems we have a few that could move positions. A couple of LB's could move down on passing downs until we get those 3 down types. Lower teams do this all the time. Are telling me that Stanford had a bunch of 4 star DE's on their roster last year? Seems they were pretty good in certain games. Shafer loves to blitz and that will take some of the pressure off of the DE's for passing downs. As long as they can hold up against the run, they will be ok.

Josh Boyd is now a Miss. State Bulldog. Another DT off the board. This is really starting to be a problem.