4* Linebacker Visiting this weekend!

Submitted by STAUDACHERBLUE on

Texas A&M 4* Linebacker Commit Leilon Willingham is skipping his scheduled visit this weekend with A&M and headed to Ann Arbor apparently. This came off a friends twitter account and also popped up on the rivals message board from another source.  Anyone have any info?

**Edit** TomVH talked to his coach at the bottom of the thread.

7NK7

January 20th, 2011 at 1:29 PM ^

help to this class if we can land him. big, strong and fast. sounds like a few players the ravens have/had....the mattison effect is beginning to take form

BlueInClearwater

January 20th, 2011 at 1:41 PM ^

He reminds me of Royce Jenkins-Stone watching his highlights and looking at his measurables, except he's got 20 pounds on Royce. Although, Royce could add some weight by the time he graduates given he is a year younger. Both are very athletic and I'd love to see them in maize and blue. Hopefully Willingham has a great visit and flips, we could use him.

BlueAggie

January 20th, 2011 at 1:53 PM ^

This is a very interested development, and a very distressing one for A&M.  Apparently Willingham committed to A&M sight-unseen.  This weekend was supposed to be his first visit to College Station.  If he makes it to Ann Arbor, I suspect the A&M committment isn't worth much.

BlueAggie

January 20th, 2011 at 3:17 PM ^

Most of the big land-grant state schools have a similar set-up, but I disagree on A&M having less life or energy than State (or less than Michigan for that matter).  I grew up very near to East Lansing, spent four years in Ann Arbor and have been in College Station for four and half.  If I had to pick one of those towns to live in, I'd pick Ann Arbor, but my 18 year-old self wouldn't have cared that much.  The sorts of places that undergrads frequent are pretty much the same everywhere.  CS has better burritos, AA has better pizza.  College bars are college bars.

Michigan has a marked edge in architecture over A&M, but how many high school football players really care about that?  A&M puts their players up in a private dorm near the stadium, and I think those are a step up from West Quad in most people's eyes.  (Note: I love the traditional dorms, lived in MoJo for 4 years, but I think most people prefer something with more space/amenities.)

So, in short atmosphere is overrated.  When Michigan goes head-to-head with A&M for recruits, all I hear on TexAgs is "somebody show him the weather report."  I guess they think that because they are nattering ninnies about the cold, everybody else is too.  I just hope mgoblog doesn't take a similar tone of "well, our college is just so much better than everyone else, I don't see why anyone would go anywhere else."  It gets really, really old in a hurry.

Last note: Your argument is that Ann Arbor will blow him away as compared to College Station.  The whole point of my post was that he's never even been to College Station (but has a HS teammate there).

No matter, most the buzz on the A&M boards is that he has more or less cut off contact with A&M.  Looks like a Michigan/Colorado battle to me.

blueblood70

January 20th, 2011 at 4:39 PM ^

i thought hoke might put more of push on defensive linemen since coming in to try and salvage the class. it just seems like this class is made up of a bunch of corners, this 4 star lb would help but are thier any good tackles left ?

SuperMarioManingham

January 20th, 2011 at 5:05 PM ^

 

I'm going to be stupidly happy if we get him, but I would lie to point out that our current class consists of:

4 DB

3 DE

2 LB

1 OL

1 Slot ninja

Sincerely hoping for some Hoke snake oil to grab SDSU's QB commit.