2010 Recruiting: Early Entry & Total Scholarships

Submitted by StephenRKass on

In an earlier post regarding numbers for 2010, sev. of you mentioned that three of the early entry recruits could count against 2009. If the current Board stands, the following would be early entry:

Gardner
Hopkins
Robinson
Pace
Robinson

This would reduce our current count to 16, technically allowing up to 9 more to sign, assuming all currently committed for 2010 keep their commitment. That sounds awesome, and would allow for the needed focus on defense. Here are some of the possible recruits. I'd be curious who we either don't want, don't need, or don't see possibly joining the team.

1. Clay/Clements RB(could only see adding one . . . right?)
2. Henderson/Wilson OL(only one, & Henderson very unlikely.)
3. Floyd, DT (very unlikely?)
4. Furman, LB
5. Olaniyan, LB
6. Christian, CB
7. Knight, CB
8. Grimes, CB
9. Riley, S
10. Flowers, S

If, miraculously, all signed, we'd be so well set. Unfortunately, that won't happen. On the above list, I feel positive about Olaniyan and Christian (latter via Tom V.) Who else on the list is a very strong/high prospect (in terms of having a strong likelihood of ending up here.)

Are there other very strong candidates I've missed?

I believe Tom opined that we would lose someone from the WR commits. With 5, that's prob. ok.

In a way, I hate to focus on recruiting, but it seems it will take a couple of years to stock the cupboard, so we have depth, and folks in the program who know the drill and can step in without a huge talent dropoff.

Lastly, in my prev. post, someone raised the question of the total number of scholarships to give (vs. the ability to bring in 25 recruits in the 2010 recruiting class.) Can someone explain this more fully.

me

October 5th, 2009 at 4:26 PM ^

There are two scholarship count limits. 85 on a roster and 25 per year ( with some exceptions like counting back). Because you can only have up to 85 on a roster at a time you can only offer that many scholarships. For example, I believe this year we have 63 scholarships returning next year meaning we currently have 22 to hand out. The only way to get to 25 in this class is for more people on the team to leave or 5th years not to come back.

me

October 5th, 2009 at 7:41 PM ^

Here's the complete list, I think, or at least from what I can tell off of the roster, with whether I think they're offered a fifth year or not:

Jonas Mouton: Yes

Nick Sheridan: probably not (graduate assistant?)

David Cone: no way

Bryan Wright: Interesting one. How confident are they in Hagerup and/or Gibbons?

Mark Moundros: I think they offer him. Or maybe they offer him walk-on spot? Not sure here.

Obi Ezeh: Yes

Steve Schilling: Yes

John Ferrera: I think so. Always need depth on OL and he has starting experience, but maybe he doesn't come back since he's not likely to start.

Perry Dorrestein: See Ferrera

Greg Banks: I think you bring back any DL, but does he want it since PT may not be there?

Adam Patterson: See Banks

These are just my guesses and not based on any information. But under the above scenario that would free up 2 additional spots (Cone, Sheridan) with a potential third in Wright and some others.

Robbie Moore

October 5th, 2009 at 4:30 PM ^

We only really know what is on the surface. There will be decommits. There are prospects who have not talked about Michigan who will in the next month or two. And then there is the Snake Oil factor, so much in evidence in the 30 days RichRod had to recruit after being hired.

SonoAzzurro

October 5th, 2009 at 7:17 PM ^

As much as it was fun to talk about it at the beginning of RR's tenure, I don't think this is a substantiated theory anymore, and it's getting a little old.

When RR was first hired, that changed the situation for a lot of recruits. Just as some left because they didn't fit into the system he was bringing with him, some gained interest at Michigan just because of that fact. So, there might have been recruits that liked RR but didn't like West Virginia as a destination, or maybe others that liked Michigan as a destination, but didn't like the style of football we played at the time. As a result, if I am not mistaken, we lost one recruit to Iowa, and got Shaw and Roundtree away from PSU and Purdue, respectively.

Last year RR lost 4 recruits that had committed. I am only counting here the ones he wanted to get, and I'm not including Barnes and Peace. He managed to "steal" only Stokes from Tennessee, but that was largely due to the coaching change going on at UT. So, so much for Snake Oil.

Having said that, when it comes to recruiting, I have no doubt that RR leaves no stone unturned, and keeps going till the last bell. I wouldn't be surprised if any other prospects join us after decommitting from some other team, but that won't be due to Snake Oil.

SarcasmoBY

October 6th, 2009 at 4:15 PM ^

I think another CB you can add to the list is Dior Mathis, although I'm not sure he's as highly rated as Christian or if he'd come if CC commits. Either way, in my humble opinion you take as many decent CB prospects as you can. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that Warren sticks around another year, and that we pull in a couple of LB commits.