2022 Athlete Dillon Tatum to Michigan State
September 30th, 2021 at 9:48 AM ^
Even if kids are impressed with Mel Tucker, his tenure at MSU will go one of three ways:
1) poorly = fired
2) mediocre = eventually fired
3) Well to spectacular = hired by SEC team
September 30th, 2021 at 1:24 PM ^
Possible, but MSU paid him a ton and gave him big assistant pool. Also investing in new football facility and new AD is former MSU football player. If he does well he could bolt, but MSU does have potential to keep him around.
Somewhat related, I'm not sure if say I'm Lincoln Riley I'm happy to be joining SEC. It will be much tougher to reach playoffs there than in Big 12 in current format.
If you have a solid P5 job not in SEC with proven record to compete for playoffs I think those jobs will be very valued.
September 30th, 2021 at 5:53 PM ^
If Mel Tucker becomes a hot commodity at MSU, and an upper echelon SEC team calls… he gone. Dude’s a mercenary. Sparty might have increased their commitment to football, but unless they move their campus south they will always be a limited program. But credit to them, they’ve been maximizing their ability here and there the past couple of decades. Imagine if UM came close to maximizing its potential? Anyway
September 30th, 2021 at 10:01 AM ^
Trolls gonna troll, i guess
September 30th, 2021 at 11:33 AM ^
Your a fool. MSU beat a shitty Miami team, and barely escaped Neb. Their roster was revamped is not bad at all. So stop with the compassionate scenario for MSU.
September 30th, 2021 at 12:56 PM ^
They see what Tucker is doing with a mediocre roster and are very impressed.
Wait, so they see themselves as mediocre and want to go to state? I don't get it.
September 30th, 2021 at 9:34 AM ^
Rayshawn Benny says Hi
September 30th, 2021 at 8:08 AM ^
In state recruiting not great
September 30th, 2021 at 10:35 AM ^
In Delaware, Maryland or Virginia?
September 30th, 2021 at 8:10 AM ^
He probably doesn’t want to play school.
September 30th, 2021 at 8:23 AM ^
no relation to Channing Tatum
September 30th, 2021 at 10:18 AM ^
Oh, then do not want.
September 30th, 2021 at 11:19 AM ^
Thank you for clearing that up Jerry.
September 30th, 2021 at 8:54 AM ^
The recruiting in this class is real weird. This was absolutely a guy Michigan wanted 6 months ago and couldn’t seal the deal on at the time, and it feels weird to be turning up our nose with indifference to a 4 star in state kid considering this class is going to wind up finishing close to 20th with vastly more 3 stars than 4 stars. This staff clearly believes in their own scouting over almost anyone else, they don’t have the track record to back that up but hopefully they are right
September 30th, 2021 at 9:05 AM ^
Don't put too much stock in croot rankings this year. Remember that almost nobody played a reall season last year, and camp attendance was slim, if they were even held. Nobody travelled to watch players play. So many kids are unnoticed, so many under-ranked, so many over-ranked... All based on heresy and film from two years ago.
Yeah, I'd rather trust coaches that are interviewing and looking at current film/play for ALL of the players they're trying to bring in.
September 30th, 2021 at 10:15 AM ^
This is something people always say. The reality is the staff is dealing with the same gap in information as the recruiting rankings. Camp attendance was slim, the coaches don't have junior year game film and they couldn't travel either. Maybe the staff will be right, but the history of college football pretty clearly points to caring about recruiting rankings being the right thing to do if your goal is to win a championship
September 30th, 2021 at 9:08 AM ^
I'm evaluating film this morning and Its amazing how some players get ⭐️'s and others don't. Its a lot of good football players out here. We recruit ?'s not ⭐️'s#diamonds>stars 〽️ #goblue
— Courtney Morgan (@PlayerProMorgan) September 29, 2021
Evaluations this year are all over the place due to COVID. So stars likely matter less this year than any year before. You might also want to consider schematic and character fit. It has been clearly reported that Clink did not think as highly of Tatum as the recruiting services. He did not think he was good enough for Kentucky and he did not think he was good enough for Michigan. Bellamy most likely fought for him but Clink ultimately has final say. Players expected to make major rises in the next evaluation period at 247 are Mason Graham, Kenneth Grant, Myles Pollard, and Kevonte Henry. Clink likes long, rangy DBs. Hence why we are currently focused on Amarion Walker.
September 30th, 2021 at 9:54 AM ^
This class will likely end up with two, possibly three 5-star commits. It will certainly not be around 20th overall.
And Hassan Haskins and Ronnie Bell might take issue with your "track record" assertion.
September 30th, 2021 at 10:13 AM ^
Its also currently ranked 15th with 18 guys already in the class and barely ahead of a number of classes behind them with fewer players, the average rating is already 18th just based on the average recruit ranking rather than total points. Maybe they finish strong and can maintain being in the 10-15th range but this won't sniff being a top 10 class even if they get Conerly and Domani.
And you can make all the arguments about this being a covid year but guess what, the same lack of information scouts are dealing with our coaches are dealing with too. They didn't see junior film on these guys and didn't go out to see them in person at camps either. For some reason it hasn't stopped the top recruiting schools like Alabama, Georgia, and OSU having almost nothing but guys ranked highly by recruiting sites, and frankly I trust the scouting of Alabama over our scouting. So yeah, maybe every 3 star Michigan has is an under the radar kid who will fly up after senior season evaluations. But more likely is that this is just a relatively poor recruiting class that was held back by massive staff turnover, and a head coach nobody really believes in anymore. Which is why not having those in state guys be a take or landing them is a head scratcher, because those are the players you lean on to keep the program with a base level of talent in down years
September 30th, 2021 at 10:45 AM ^
Hate to say it, but if history is any guide, a few of the current commits are banker recruits and will likely be told to look elsewhere if the class starts filling up with higher profile guys still on the board and likely to join.
September 30th, 2021 at 11:05 AM ^
Then look at the offer list.
Kenneth Grant had offers from OSU and Wisconsin.
Micah Pollard and Deuce Sprulock had offers from Auburn.
Kevonte Henry and Mason Graham had offers from Oregon and USC.
Myles Pollard had offers from Auburn, Alabama, Oklahoma, Florida, Penn State, Oregon etc.
All guys that should expect a boost in their rating once rankings are finalized. So chill.
September 30th, 2021 at 11:46 AM ^
Sure, that's great. But right now we have 4 guys 4 star or higher and 14 three stars. Even if all of those guys move up and none move down (and some will move down) you are getting to maybe 50/50, which is getting to be a class ranked like 12th. Which is fine, but certainly not good. And that is a rosy scenario
September 30th, 2021 at 12:29 PM ^
Ohh, Maizen, you have an argument for everything! And it's always: 'we suck at recruiting and Alabama doesn't, so we're going to suck forever!'...
September 30th, 2021 at 12:44 PM ^
Having the 12th ranked class with a chance to add three more five star recruits (we have crystal balls for one) would be a great class following a 2-4 season. Now let's take care of business this year to quiet the doubters (because there are many) and maybe we can start building a great 2023 class.
September 30th, 2021 at 1:46 PM ^
We don't have the 12th ranked class, we would have the 12th ranked class if we got those guys and others made move ups (they won't all).Its weird for a fanbase so that is so pessimistic on the performance of the team, which has been solid, is so wildly optimistic about recruiting, which has actually been down.
September 30th, 2021 at 1:55 PM ^
So you just outed yourself??? Wow a committed troll. A fanbase??? Man you never have anything good to say. And when you do, whoo boy. You’re amaizen!
September 30th, 2021 at 3:45 PM ^
If we:
1. Land Nolen, Conerly, Domani (wishful thinking but for the purposes of this exercise)
2. Add players that we are currently crystal balled for
3. Take into consideration Myles Pollard, Kevonte Henry, and Kenneth Grant (the most likely to jump up in ranking) rise to Deone Walker's ranking (Top 300), this class will be at 295.85 in the composite.
Based on last year's ranking, that would be the #3 overall class. Even if we account for some expected players to fall like Denegal and Tay'shawn Trent, I can't imagine that class falling outside of the top 10.
Take out Nolen and Domani and bump up players like Mason Graham, Micah Pollard, and Amorion Walker (currently crystal balled) to four star status and our class would be at 272.67. That would be #9 overall in 2021.
This is not pessimism or optimism. This is calculating data. Optimism would be "I think we will land Nolen, Conerly and Domani!" I never said that. I'm just proving your assertion wrong that our ceiling for this class is top 12 at best. At this point, in my mind, there is just as good of a chance that we end up with the #3 class as we end up with the #20 class (we will likely end up around 10-12 like last year tbh).
September 30th, 2021 at 12:05 PM ^
Plus Willie Henry, Jon Runyan, Josh Uche and Vincent Gray say "wrong".
September 30th, 2021 at 12:25 PM ^
One of those is not like the others...
September 30th, 2021 at 4:28 PM ^
I don't know exactly where this class will end up, but it has a very good shot to end up a lot closer to 10th than 20th, and quite possibly top 10 if a couple things break their way
September 30th, 2021 at 9:32 AM ^
No big loss, there are lots of hungry young guys that can do what he's doing that want to be here. Guys who want to make filet mignon money instead of pizza and french fry money
September 30th, 2021 at 9:38 AM ^
On WTKA this morning, Sam said we stopped recruiting him a little over a month ago. I know lots of people here think Sam’s overly optimistic and unwilling to be critical of the program, but that’s what he said.
September 30th, 2021 at 9:51 AM ^
Well, a month ago he told both MSU and our coaching staff where he was going, so there's that.
September 30th, 2021 at 10:06 AM ^
Maybe he did and maybe he didn’t. Maybe the staff really wanted him and kept recruiting him, and maybe they stopped of their own volition. I don’t know one way or the other (and suspect you don’t either); just passing along what i heard this morning.
September 30th, 2021 at 10:46 AM ^
I hate to pull the "Michigan cooled on an MSU recruit" thing, but... Michigan cooled on Tatum. Clinkscale seemed not to like him as much as Linguist did. Still a good player. Best of luck to him
September 30th, 2021 at 10:53 AM ^
So he didn't "drag out" his committment?
September 30th, 2021 at 11:40 AM ^
Went to the WB v Lake Orion game last week.
First, anyone can see that Tatum is more talented than anyone else on the field, but be made more of an impact on offense running the ball than on D. Mainly because LO did not pass much.
I can see the two schools of thought here. One, talented in state kid with connections to the coaching staff would appear to be a must get from recruiting purpose. Particularly when there is a rival in state school. Kinda of a defensive recruiting more to keep talent away from your rival more than slotting him into a position.
Two, position Clink liked other recruits better. Anyway you slice it, if Clink prefers other recruits, then Tatum made the right choice for his future.