2016 FB Realistic Recruiting Pool via 247 "Warm Interest" V1.0

Submitted by alum96 on

With the huge number of offers out in the 2016 class (150 and counting) sometimes the names get overwhelming and confusing.  A lot of these 150+ offers will be people who express little to no interest in actually coming here.  So I thought I'd try to structure an imperfect table that narrows it down a bit using 247's "warm interest".  I'll probably update this once a month, and as more guys visit Michigan the list should change and hopefully grow.

The usual caveats apply so no need to harp on them:

  • No one knows the recruit's heart
  • No one knows the bagman's heart
  • Things can change on a dime after a visit
  • Things will change countless times between now and next February
  • Crystal ballz are imperfect
  • "But he just named us his leader, why does 24/7 show Georgia as his leader??!"

You get the point.  The one area this will totally miss is guys who are committed elsewhere but Michigan is making up ground.  24/7 lists them as committed rather than any "temperature".  For that I just go off what guys like Ace have said - so I added Desmond Fitzpatrick (WR) who is currently committed to Louisville but from all accounts is very high on UM.  If you guys who follow recruiting closer know of other committed players where Michigan is trending well enough to be above 25%+ for example in crystal ballz make a comment and I'll adjust the table.

Again, this is just to narrow down the huge list of offers to a reasonable pool of guys that the recruiting folks seem to think UM at least has an outside chance on.  At this point that is 39 players (I removed KJ Costello from list as he seems a Stanford/USC guy), which is much more easy to keep track of. 

[I have the crystal ballz leader and # of predictions on the far right of the table.  The # of predictions is helpful as a 75%/25% split among 4 people is not as useful as that same split among 20 people.]

OFFENSE

Pos Name State Starz Ntl Rnk Pos Rnk Leader # Pred
QB Brandon Peters IN 4 272 10 UM 87% 15
RB Matthew Falcon MI 4 234 13 UM 55% / TN 25% 20
RB Robert Washington NC 4 248 14 OSU 29% / UNC 29% 17
RB Rakeem Boyd TX 3 447 32   N/A
FB N/A            
WR Dylan Crawford CA 4 45 5 USC 71% / ASU 29% 7
WR Ahmir Mitchell NJ 4 88 6 Rutgers 67% / OSU 33% 3
WR Donnie Corley MI 4 110 20 ND 36% / MSU 36% 14
WR Brad Hawkins NJ 4 163 34 South Car 82% 11
WR Tre Nixon FL 4 265 49 NS 75%  / Duke 25% 4
WR Desmond Fitzpatrick MI 3 338 57 UM 70% - Louisville commit 23
TE Devin Asiasi CA 4 91 7 USC 100% 3
TE Naseir Upshur PA 4 150 5 Miami 41% 7
OT Ben Bredeson WI 4 34 6 Wisc 86% / UM 14% 21
OT E.J. Price GA 4 76 10 Auburn 45% / Georgia 36% 11
OT Michael Jordan MI 4 179 18 UM 86% 7
OT Alex Akingbulu CA 3 423 37 UCLA 100% 1
OG Terrance Davis MD 4 170 3 Maryland 80% / FSU 20% 5
OG Jack Wohlabaugh OH 3 565 29 UM 100% 1
OG Michael Onwenu MI 4 211 6 UM 67% / OSU 33% 9

 

DEFENSE

Pos Name State Starz Ntl Rnk Pos Rnk Leader # Pred
DE Xavier Kelly KS 4 322 20 Nebraska 67% / UM 33% 3
DE Erick Fowler TX 4 68 7 Texas 83% / Oklahome 17% 6
DE Connor Murphy AZ 3 342 23 UM 67% / ASU 33% 3
DE Bryson Young CA 3 436 28 USC 100% 2
DE Josh King IL 4 51 4 OSU 54% / UM 15% 13
DE Khalid Kareem MI 4 225 14 MSU 67% / ND 33% 3
DE Isaiah Chambers TX 4 142 10 Texas A&M 77%  13
DT Rashan Gary NJ 5 1 1 Alabama 58% / UM 31% 26
DT Chris Daniels TX 4 176 17 TCU 75%  8
LB Dontavious Jackson TX 4 124 4 Texas 45% 11
LB Jaquan Yulee VA 4 177 6 North Carolina 100% 5
LB Caleb Kelly CA 5 15 3 Oklahoma 100% 15
LB Jonathan Jones FL 4 329 24 UM 75% / LSU 12% 8
LB Curtis Robinson CA 4 111 10 USC 80% / 20% ND 5
LB Camilo Eifler CA 4 196 16 Washington 100% 2
LB Devin Bush Jr FL 4 250 8 FSU 100% 17
CB David Long CA 4 199 20 Washington 67% / USC 33% 6
CB Lamar Jackson CA 4 171 19   N/A
S C.J. Pollard CA 4 313 15 100% USC 9
S Andrew Pryts PA 3 705 48 100% Penn State 7

*Bolded dudes who UM is a crystall ballz leader

This list also helps to see the geography of targets - 2 things stand out.   The heavy emphasis on CA (especially on defense) - there is a lot of risk in that as getting kids to travel 3K miles east is not easy.  Also USC UCLA pose an issue.  Hence a satellite camp in CA is very important for this strategy. 

The other is the very few targets in OH or PA.  It appears UM has not really been working the Midwest much at this time as there are only 5 (!) offers to guys from OH and 6 from PA.  Compared to 27 from TX.

Also of note - we "lead" for very few guys on defense right now.  Many of those targets live far away. Lots of work to do there.

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alum96

March 26th, 2015 at 12:28 PM ^

Harbaugh coached him up.

On another note Aquaman a question.  Can "support staff" of UM (not one of the coaches) contact HS football coaches?

There was a quote in one of Ace's stories early this week that the expanded staff could help build relationships .....but that was confusing as only the coaches can contact players.  So we were wondering why that comment was viable - our theory was the expanded staff can build relationships with staff at HSs (maybe).  On the other hand I cannot imagine HS coaches wanting or having time to hear from 3 Tom, Dick, and Harry's from every major college program.  So if you come back to read this I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Joined: 04/28/2012

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The Mad Hatter

March 26th, 2015 at 11:08 AM ^

I'll be checking back often.  I'm not usually one that gets hung up on star ratings, but I did think it was odd that not a single 5* is on the offense table.

I'm hoping that a surprisingly solid first season (at least to outsiders) under Harbaugh will change the recruiting picture significantly.  We'll never be Alabama (no bag men), but after a couple 10+ win seasons I think we should be recruiting in the top 5 pretty consistently. 

Joined: 02/17/2015

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alum96

March 26th, 2015 at 11:16 AM ^

I am not so worried on offense about starz as Jim is known for development as is Drevno.

On the defense I would like to see high calibar players in here - Stanford's defense sucked the first 3 years until Vic Fangio walked in (who also built San Fran's D) so I am not as sure of "development of mid tier players" until I see evidence of it.  That is going to be on Durkin and staff - not Harbaugh.  Like Urban, Jim is an offensive guy and the DC is very important.  

That said I do think the D position coaches are far better now than the last crew so we won't be having countless players fall short of their ceiling but offense you can scheme to a degree over talent (see Indiana or Oklahoma State or whatever) - defense is difficult to scheme over talent.  You either have some very talented athletes (which good coaching can accelerate their development / diagnosis of plays) out there or you don't.  Especially in an era of spread I want to see a lot more speed in the back 7.  Heck, and the DEs.

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Steve Lorenz

March 26th, 2015 at 12:03 PM ^

Carlin Fils-Aime

Jarrett Guarantano

Shea Patterson

Malik Henry

Antonio Williams

Demetrius Robertson

Tavares Chase

Sam Bruce

Collin Johnson

Jake Hausmann

Willie Allen

Mike Williams (DT)

Janarius Robinson

Joseph Jackson

Dominique Ross 

Darrian Franklin (pretty sure)

-----------

None of these players were re-offered by the new staff, and Ross was never offered by either staff. 

 

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alum96

March 26th, 2015 at 11:48 AM ^

I think Magnus has stated in the past Hoke was generally around 150 and RR nearer to 200.  That might have to do with the fact Hoke closed up his classes very early and by September/October was 90% done. 

I also think 2016 will be different than 2017 as we are still playing from behind a bit so will probably have more offers than normal.  But it could also depend on how quickly a class fills.  But with the emphasis on CA that prior eras did not have you could see 25-30 offers a year from that state alone vs maybe 5-7 in prior regimes so that would expand you by 20 annually right there. 

I would think there are going to be more in this regime with more focus on TX, FL, and CA.

What strikes me strange about the OH/PA dearth of offers is a lot of kids say things like "they were with me early and I appreciate that" so I would have thought we'd have sent a bazooka load of offers out to OH/PA kids by now.  Even if we offered in January we'd be behind other schools by a year on some of these guys.

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the real hail_yes

March 26th, 2015 at 12:05 PM ^

thanks for the context...

I agree that the lack of midwest offers is odd, but its possible they think it will be easier to get them on campus later on than it would be for the more distant recruits.

Regardless, it might be more telling to see how they approach the 2017+ recruits. This cycle is still probably still catching up.

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Magnus

March 26th, 2015 at 11:54 AM ^

I don't have any information on the number of offers at one time or another per year, athough this is probably significantly higher than any year in the last eight or so.

However, my site has offer boards from the past several years with the number of total offers at the top. Michigan offered 192 people in 2010 and 195 in 2011. Obviously, 2011 was the Rodriguez/Hoke combined class.

Since we're already at 175, I'm guessing the 2016 class will destroy that 2011 number.

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Magnus

March 26th, 2015 at 1:31 PM ^

I wouldn't put it beyond some people to use that picture seriously in response to my comment, so I guess I just assumed the worst.

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Steve Lorenz

March 26th, 2015 at 12:07 PM ^

The "temps" are usually set by how our analysts agree on where a certain prospect is leaning, but if a prospect reaches out and wants his page a certain way, we always go with their wishes. 

Good example is Jeffrey McCulloch (http://247sports.com/Player/Jeffrey-McCulloch-47648). Michigan is in his top group with Texas, Bama, LSU and probably A&M among others, but he wanted his page to reflect that he's even with everyone, even though we know they're not. 

It's about as good a basic gauge as you'll get on a prospect's interest. We try to avoid situations where it appears the interest is being embellished. In fact, I'd probably move Curtis Robinson and Isaiah Chambers among others to "cool" at this point. 

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UofM626

March 26th, 2015 at 12:37 PM ^

Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania a little bit harder boys. The Midwest has always made Michigan and always will. I Live here in Cali and it's hard to pull a lot of these kids out to the Midwest as there is just to many comforts of being close to home. Go Blue!!!

Joined: 01/02/2012

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alum96

March 26th, 2015 at 4:36 PM ^

By the time we get there it should be low 20s.  We've had back to back small classes (last year was tiny, not small) - and now we will have a regular sized class and the 2017s will probably be quite large (upper 20s) as things go now.  But of course it depends on post season attrition 10 months from now.  If there is another round of attrition your 2016 and 2017 classes could be more similar in size (mid 20s) as we pull forward some scholarships.

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Mr. Yost

March 26th, 2015 at 7:14 PM ^

This is GREAT. I hope they put it on the front page, I've been begging for this post for 2 years now because it's just gotten too confusing.

Great work - thank you.

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