Ballz coming in for Aaron Chiles

Especially when you consider the guy he's replacing wasn't a good recruiter, so it's definitely a net-positive.  The coaching/recruiting combo is always a winner in CFB.

Yeah this seems to be a theme, people pointing out the 247 link to Partridges recruiting list. The list is very wrong. Again Partridge is getting credit for Hill/Ruiz/Jones/Thomas just from the top 10 of his list. I’m not sure where this list comes from but I can tell you Moore was lead for 3 of 4 of those and all 3 will tell you personally that Moore was the biggest reason they came to Michigan. The other Partridge was not primary for either and I don’t believe he should get credit for them. It’s also fun that Mustapha is listed for both Jay and Partridge. Again that was a Jay/Moore tag team. You look at Jays list and it includes Edwards/Corum/Charbonnet/Asiasi/Loveland those are big time contributors to Big Ten Champions. 

Like I said, I’m not faulting you for linking to their profiles but I can tell you Partridge gets credit for dudes he barely had a hand in recruiting. He also does not get credit for Peppers and he’s 100% the biggest reason Michigan signed him. So I’ll give him that. But once you remove guys I listed that he wasn’t actually the primary for the list goes like this: Gary(All Big Ten), Solomon(overrated was so-so, transferred), Hinton(All Big Ten solid rotational player left a year too early, probably passed which is why he left), Vilain(never healthy), Singleton(transferred), Anthony(transferred), Walker(transferred), McGrone(not properly developed, again my worry with new recruits, left early was solid Big Ten guy), Sims(transferred), Morant(transferred), Oliver Martin(transferred), Perry(hasn’t seen the field), Josh Ross(underdeveloped, was coming to U of M no matter what), Anthony Solomon(transferred), James Hudson(transferred)

I’m going to stop right there. Because this is getting really long on a post that’s not about this. But let’s just put a quick list here out of that top group that Partridge did help recruit. I’m going to say 4 starters, 1 rotation guy, 9 transfers, one guy left who could contribute late. I’ll call it 4 starters, 1 rotation guy, 1 special teams guy, 9 transfers. Jay? Out of his list it goes 9 starters, 3 special teams, 3 rotation guys, 8 transfers. Charbonnet, Asiasi, Black, Wheatley Jr and Jackson all contributed something useful before leaving. A lot of those Partridge guys contributed very little. I’ll also argue that Haskins contributed as much as any top 100 guy Partridge brought in. I’d say Gary and Peppers are probably both equal to Haskins, but Haskins dominated against OSU and Peppers/Gary couldn’t beat them. 

This is my conclusion. Ross and McGrone are prime examples of my fear with Partridge. Neither were linebackers on Big  Ten winning teams and both were underdeveloped by their coach. Again, I’m probably one of the least unhappy guys about this situation and I understand he’s not a Co-DC here yet but there’s a lot of talk about it if other staff members move on in the next few years. That to me is a mistake and I do believe we could have hired someone who was as good a recruiter or better that could also develop better. Partridge has some guys with high rankings and not a lot to show for it. Again, Gary is a big one and so is Peppers. Both had previous relationships with him and were the primary reason he was hired. He no longer has ties like that to high school guys. The smarter play to me would have been to get another East coast catholic high school coach that has ties to big time recruits like Partridge back in the day. Again I urge you to look at that list and evaluate the talent yourself. On a re-rank most all of Harbaugh’s guys would go up in ranking. Partridges guys? Hinton would drop to a low 4 and Solomon would drop to middling 3 stars, along with quite a few of his other recruits. Just my take. 

The defense, particularly the LBs and DBs, in the last 2 Big Ten championship seasons have largely been his recruits including:

• Dax Hill (S)
• Chris Hinton
• Josh Ross (S)
• RJ Moten
• Brad Hawkins (S)
• David Ojabo
• DJ Turner
• Brad Hawkins
• Michael Barrett

Source:  https://247sports.com/Coach/Chris-Partridge-3716/AllTimeRecruits/

Many of the recruits above were under the radar guys that worked out very well.

And let's not forget that he was the primary for first round draft picks Cesar Ruiz and Devin Bush, as well as recruiter for Ambry Thomas and Cam McGrone who were each drafted and still in the NFL.

You’ve got guys in Michigans past like Soup Campbell, Greg Mattison, Brady Hoke(as line coach and head coach elite recruiter), Fred Jackson(loads of elite guys), Les Miles, Bo himself, Sherrone Moore, Jay Harbaugh, Ron English, Lloyd Carr(as an assistant and early head coach, not later years), Jim Herrmann, Vance Bedford, Gattis even. Tyron Wheatley himself was a great recruiter, just not around long. Clinkscale and Elston have big resumes though they haven’t pulled as many big time guys at Michigan yet. Bellamy is definitely a big time recruiter too. Elston, Clink, and Bellamy in their short time have been handcuffed by Harbaugh flirting with the NFL. That makes it really hard to pull elite guys. I think that starts changing now. 

I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. He most definitely did. Anyways I didn’t mean to go down a rabbit hole here so I’m just going to be done with this. But I can factually tell you Partridge had everything to do with Peppers coming to Michigan. 

Thanks MJ!4.  You make good sense!

I looked at the guys Partridge recruited and there were a TON of disappointments.  

I hope things turn out better this time around.