2016 OG Thiyo Lukusa commits to Michigan State
Traverse City (MI) West offensive guard Thiyo Lukusa committed to Michigan State last night. This is not notable so much for the fact that it's MSU, but because Lukusa was an in-state guy who was once very close to committing to Michigan. Supposedly, Harbaugh's staff was not particularly hard after Lukusa and didn't contact him for a while after they were hired. Lukusa's a 247 Composite 3-star and #346 overall.
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Consistent winner and plays for championships
It's sucks/truth hurts
Looks like he has a lot of bad weight on him. I would rather have a leaner kid coming out of hs if given the choice.
I agree. Our best linemen in recent years have been lean guys. It's easier to take an athlete and put on weight than it is to take a fat guy and make him athletic. Look at Taylor Lewan, Jake Long, Patrick Omameh, etc., and that's one reason why I liked Jake Fisher (former M commit who played at Oregon). There are some big guys who turn out fine, but my preference would be to go for lean guys and bulk them up.
Magnus likes Lean Guys.
Noted.
/s
Thanks for the insight Magnus!
Success on the field usually translates to recruiting success too. Let's get through a couple of seasons of Harbaugh before we go all doom and gloom.
I don't see any doom and gloom...
But there is this annoying feeling that we're actually going to have to win again to get the recruits (ALL the recruits) like we used to.
Oh well, it will be nice to win again
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Harbaugh obviously has a great eye for talent.
Could Dantonios eye be just as good or is he just lucky?? I mean they do have a walk-on OT that's now an All-American and possibly a first round pick. So they are doing something right.
Kid has a pretty impressive offer list, Akransas, Georgia, Nebraska, Ohio, and honestly the most surprising to me Wisconsin. Wisconsin has one of the best OL's every year in conference. I'd take any OL that Wisconsin wants.
Conklin wasn't a walk-on, he was a greyshirt.
Either way, he wasn't a 3, 4 or 5 star recruit. Yet, hes the best OL on either team right now.
Wish he would have accepted the preferred walk on spot we offered.
Is he just the exception to the rule with Dantonio's OL evaluation? Is that typical? It seems like they also have guys flame out too.
Personally, I think Dantonio has shown his evaluation talent most with DBs and other defense spots. On offense it has been regular hit and miss. They have only had one really good offensive season in his tenure (last year). There next best year AFAIK was when they had to ride Ringer for every touch because there wasn't much else to the offense.
I guess I would feel differently if this was a defensive recruit.
Is he just the exception to the rule with Dantonio's OL evaluation? Is that typical? It seems like they also have guys flame out too.
Personally, I think Dantonio has shown his evaluation talent most with DBs and other defense spots. On offense it has been regular hit and miss. They have only had one really good offensive season in his tenure (last year). There next best year AFAIK was when they had to ride Ringer for every touch because there wasn't much else to the offense.
I guess I would feel differently if this was a defensive recruit.
I don't know Jack Conklin's life story, but I guess I don't find his transformation all that amazing. I didn't know about Conklin when he was coming out of high school, so I can't say that I saw his development coming. However, I'm not sure how he wasn't recruited more coming out of high school. My guess is that he, his family, and/or his coach did not do a great job of showing him off. Watching these highlights, it boggles the mind why people didn't come in with offers - he's long, lean, aggressive, and athletic. The only thing missing was technique. So it's good for MSU that they coached him up, but I think this could have happened anywhere that had good offensive line coaching (unfortunately, that didn't include the University of Michigan for the past four years). I think Greg Frey could have taken Conklin and made him a stud in Rodriguez's system, too.
He was 6'2" 225 as a SO. He was like 6'4" 245 at the end of his JR year. Now he's 6'6".
I agree that I think there is something else to the story, but even at the end of his JR year he was quite undersized as an interior player. I do think he had some MAC offers, but the greyshirt offer from MSU was by far his best Power 5 offer (Illinois and Zook didn't offer, even after Conklin sent them video of him water skiing; un pastiempo favorito de Ron Zook).
Gotcha. Interesting. I figured there had to be something quirky about his recruitment, development, etc. for that situation to occur. Even so, there are less talented linemen within the state who got better offers. For example, I like Conklin's film better than David Moorman, Lukusa, etc. Those late growth spurts can throw a wrench into recruiting sometimes.
Absolutely agree.
Like you said, I don't think Conklin's HS coaching staff did him many favors (I think Conklin's dad kind of confirmed this, but I'm not sure where; think the Conklin's basically drove their own recruitment).
Apparently Thiyo doesn't think Wisco's OL is all that great. Regardless, Wisco offered over a tear ago (just like Michigan) and just like Michigan their is no indication that interest continued after last season.
He may be great. I just wonder.... if Hoke wanted him to look around more and Harbaugh didn't go after him much or at all, AND Wisco did the same.... what does that mean? Plus, he is he jumping to grab an MSU offer before he loses out on all the local/good schools?
EDIT: I just looked it up and his rankings have been dropping for a while since last year. Hmmm...
I hope he does well for himself. He is clearly a D-1 athlete. I wish I could have been
Not worried about MSU because I've accepted they are going to continue being really good. The only thing about all of this that is a little disconcerting is that they now have several recruits that had an offer from us and we have no recruits that have an offer from them. I cannot remember this ever happening before. While I know DeWeaver and Lukasa probably weren't priorities for our staff, I think Chambers, Layne, and Vance were.
Sparty is never going to get top 10 classes, but they no longer are going to rely on top 35 classes either. It looks like they're going to start consistently getting top 20 classes though and that's a big step up for them talent wise. So I expect them to be around 10 wins a year going forward, maybe 11 or 12 on a banner year, and maybe 8 or 9 on a down year. We cannot expect them to regress, and you know what? That's just fine, we have the staff in place to catch and pass them IMO. Harbaugh can get us back to winning 10+ games every season and competing for titles, I do think it's going to take a few years though and am not expecting a lot this season.
I'm really not disconcerted by the fact that we have no recruits who were offered by MSU. For one thing, that will most likely change by the time the cycle is over. And for another, we have some guys who have better offers than MSU, like Swenson (Alabama, Ohio State), Falcon (Ohio State), Peters (LSU), and Davis (Florida, LSU).
We don't yet know how well Harbaugh is going to recruit, we expect great things, but they haven't materialized yet. And maybe Harbaugh will pursue lower ranked guys that play with a passion more than Hoke did and we won't have those highly ranked classes. We simply don't know yet. I do know that I am not alone when I expected Harbaugh to come out on fire on the recruiting trail, he's the most recognizable name in coaching and we have a great brand.
So right now I think we're all a little bit nervous about recruiting. And it's been a pretty crappy week for our football program so maybe we're all a little weary.
It seems like every American football player under the age of 20 that has four or more stars attached to his name on basically any list has an offer from Michigan... I wouldn't bet on them filling out their classes with 'lower ranked guys'
I'm not sure why people would be that nervous about recruiting. Harbaugh's only been on the job 5 months and hasn't even coached a game yet. If you're a 16/17 yr old kid, most of the time you've been watching college football, UM has been medicore. I think we're all expecting big things from Harbaugh but it isn't going to happen overnight. The best recruiting tool for UM is to start winning again.
It is a bit revisionist now to say that. When hired a great many on this board expected 5 stars across the country at every position to fling themselves at the chance to play for a highly successful NFL coach. It hasn't happened. Even at QB we got denied by our plan A - and that was the 1 position people were adament we'd have 3-4 five stars dying to be coached by Harbaugh.
While my expectations were not quite that high I am pretty shocked there is not more high level offensive talent headed to AA - esp Wrs and TEs wanting to be here and play in this system. We got a nice local kid and some 3 starish guys from out of state at the skill positions. Most of the Wrs seriously interested in us are ranked 500-1000 range.
It tells me recent success on the college field means more than a "name" per se and Harbaugh has a specific spiel that is not going to resonate with some portion of the youth of America. The portion that Hoke really appealed to ironically.
Now to offset that I expect player development to be better but I would still like to have seen at least Hoke level recruiting to be combined with the new development. So far it hasn't happened.
Not in a panic by any means but the lack of guys from OH interested in UM is pretty amazing (been a UM goldmine for decades), and the lack of high level defensive recruits who have expressed interest is a bit disconcerting - especially with all the playing time you can promise a 2016 defensive recruit. That is more of a Durkin thing but Jim is still the closer.
one of the big factors with a recruit is the relationship he has with the men who will be his coaches in college. Most of these seniors to be have been in contact with schools for 2-3 years and have a fairly well established relationship with a lot of coaches. Now, some of UM's coaches who came from the college ranks might have some relationships with players, but those who came from the NFL, including Harbaugh, were starting out at square 1 with recruits.
There's still 9 months to go before signing day. I'll be surprised if in 9 months Harbaugh hasn't reeled in a few big time recruits.
Whats even more odd is that we might not sign a single recruit from ohio this year... when was the last time that happened?
heck, they're probably not even buying our jerseys in ohio anymore!
Can we get a post about the players that we do want? It seems like every time someone commits to MSU or OSU we say "Harbaugh didn't want him. Who does he want?
Well, a lot of the guys Harbaugh wants are in Texas, Florida, California, Georgia, etc. So they're not quite on our radar so much.
Good luck to him!!
I feel like the pressue is on UM. If there is not high level success by year 2 you can feel the angst that is going to be coming into the fanbase. Watching one of your rivals win the NC with either the best or 2nd best HC in the NCAA (who could be there for 20 yrs more) after already owning the series the past dozen years.... while the other have success not seen since the 1960s while you f*** around with a bunch of 5-8 win seasons gives a bad feeling and the pressure is on to turn this around and not wait.
If MSU falls back to a 9 win team instead of 11+ annually they are still in better shape than they have been for most of their past 50 years. For UM , 9 wins should be a bad year.
But right now its a role reversal and the pressure is on UM to at least get back to MSU's level - forget OSU for now. Not seeing a competitive team for 2 years in a row v MSU (with 2 weeks to prepare) is sickening.
We aren't as strong in OH as we used to be, we are no longer able to land the occasional elite skill player from outside the Midwest like A-Train, and now MI is becoming more competitive. The old avenues to success have narrowed.
Sometimes downturns are temporary, but sometimes the landscape fundamentally changes. It has for Tennessee, a school in a somewhat similar environment (lots of rivals, not a lot of local talent). U-M has screwed around so long with so many objectives that have nothing to do with winning (undermining RR, hiring Hoke, Hoke keeping underperforming assistants) that they've allowed what was quietly a delicate formula for success to come completely apart.
The pressure is totally on us.
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basetball. Wasn't too impressed on the football field. Kinda slow and not too nimble on the feet. He was a force on the basketball court only because he was twice the size of many of the players. But he didn't have much hustle on the court and was always panting hard. Good luck to him, though.
Agree, we have a master talent evaluator as our coach.
I'm strill a little shaken by the loss of Countess, plus I am anxious about these other transfers that are being rumored and the name I am hearing from the UM grads I work with is shocking.
What name might that be?
You know, when you offer over 200 players, the vast majority of them are going to commit elsewhere. #mathed
It seems like the miss rate at OL was high with Coach Hoke.
I'd rather Harbaugh wait for the OL guys he wants.
No, its all good.
Sam said we were the leaders for King, hes just throwing smoke out there. He will be ours.
Hill is staying with PSU and Corley will be committing to us soon as well.
I do think they land Robertson though. No need to worry about the rest, we are in great shape with all of them.