Article highlighting former Michigan LB Jordan Anthony's journey in the transfer portal
Thought it was an interesting look at what happens to players who don't immediately get picked up in the transfer portal. Extra interesting aspect is that the article focuses on Jordan Anthony who entered the transfer portal in December 2019 and didn't find a home for almost a year and a half.
"Anthony never did feel comfortable playing at 245 pounds, the weight Michigan asked him to when manning their middle linebacker position."
He was listed as 220 in his 247 recruiting profile... I wonder if asking him to get up to 245 on a 6'-0" frame was a mistake by the coaching staff.
I wonder how true this is? Bush played at 235, at 5-11. That would have been the heaviest LB Don Brown had at Michigan. I thought they wanted him to play Viper. Kid had a 95 rating on 247. That's as close to can't miss as you can get.
FWIW, the football database at the Bentley Library site lists him as 6-0/245 for the 2019 season.
I'm not doubting the weight, I'm just doubting that Michigan asked him to put that much weight on. It just seems like Don Brown wanted lighter fast LB's. The main reason Wisconsin always dominated the line of scrimmage against us.
yeah, its not a boon for every player that jumps to the portal
Sometimes there are legit reasons to transfer, other situations might require a little more consideration
It's hard to imagine so many guys in the '17 class that were highly touted recruits who never panned out at UM. How does that happen? When is the last time a school had 7 top 200 players (and 3 top 100 players) to transfer from one class?
The wild amount of touted dudes (particularly DL) in the ‘17 class who didn’t pan out are largely why Michigan is where it is today, IMO. The transfers haven’t really had any impact elsewhere.
Credit where it’s due to guys like Nico, DPJ, and Ambry. Hopeful for the 5th year guys to play well, but that class kinda is what it is at this point.
“Every kid who leaves any program thinks they’re going straight to Nebraska or Alabama,” Frost said.
Interesting to put his program on that kind of level.
scott frost=arrogant douchebag
Isn't that a typical Scott Frost line? "We out hit them".
Crap, you beat me to it! BiSB and crew should definitely never let him pass on that comment.
"Every kid thinks he's going to end up with a woman as gorgeous as Kate Upton or Sarah Huckabee Sanders", Frost said.
Interesting article. Amazing how many kids don’t stay at the P5 level. Shows rankings can be misleading and probably many kids have hit their ceiling the senior year of high school and do t continue to develop. Lots of good and bad about the transfer portal and kids do need to do homework before entering
More player freedom is a good thing, but I look forward to more articles like this to act as cautionary tales so that there's a little bit better of a Pro's and Cons analysis. The portal is crazy right now and it would be good to see it calm down a bit.
I always appreciate reminders that our musings and mutterings are based on real human beings, facing some of the same struggles we did in college.
Thanks for posting this. I had been Google searching Anthony every couple months or so to find out what happened to him and I couldn't believe such a highly touted recruit wasn't able to find a landing spot. He was ranked 107th in his class to the 247 composite!
Impressive that he was able to graduate from Michigan in three years, and I'm hoping things work out for him at Troy.
While I understand the drive to continue to play football, I have to question some choices made. The article stresses that he was a Michigan GRADUATE, and he is working as a shopper in a grocery store? Why not leverage the other thing you earned (whats that? a degree?), and start to prepare for the rest of your life regardless of football. We all have choices, and every choice has a consequence. Maybe we as a society need to stop chasing the brass ring.
He must have NFL aspirations. I think it's the only thing that makes sense.
Football obviously carries the risk of injury (brain, many other areas). Troy is a backwater school which won't add much to his CV. (Contrast his destination with those of J'Marick Woods and Stephen Spanellis.) There's an opportunity cost. (He could start working somewhere.) Etc.
OR what most of us who still play recognize, that it's a pleasure to play.
AND what many of who still play recognize, it's especially a pleasure to play while you're still young and in top shape.
That's very interesting- the other side of the portal we don't see; but probably much more common than a guy who leaves a big time school and commits to another right away.
With other programs not being 'allowed' to talk to players before they're in the portal, a kid has to be very careful judging his worth.
Unless you're Justin Fields, and you can get a hardship waiver to go play for one of the top 3 teams in the nation, entering the portal should be considered very carefully. It will be interesting to how MSU fares with all of the transfers that Tucker has brought in.
I was a bit surprised by the 19.3 average number of players who transferred per team per year. That's a crazy amount of turnover and likely leads to situations like this where you get lost in the churn.
Hopefully Anthony is able to be successful at Troy.
The percentage of players not getting a Power 5 spot is significant. Happy that Jordan is going to play but Troy has to be a bit of a let down.
The grass does look greener.