Best Impact Position for a Super-Recruit?
A hypothetical, just for fun:
If Michigan, in any random year, could get one 5*/Top 10 overall type super-recruit, and you had the power to choose that recruit's position...what would it be?
My gut reaction is QB, then RB, then LB. Other thoughts?
(and yes, I still am enamored with the thought of a 5* RB even after Kelly Baraka and Grady...)
August 13th, 2009 at 5:09 PM ^
Middle Linebacker
August 13th, 2009 at 5:09 PM ^
Punter, hands down
on a more serious note, I would have to go with QB, especially in this offense.
August 13th, 2009 at 11:42 PM ^
Last year, punter would have been my choice. But moving forward, QB or RB in this offense is the key.
RR is getting the players he needs, and those players will get better with experience. Michigan will be back to their winning ways soon, and more 5* players will be interested in Michigan starting next year.
We have some great young players on offense right now, or committed for next year. What we really need is more great players on defense. We all remember what won the National Championship in 1997, right? Defense.
August 13th, 2009 at 5:10 PM ^
A pass rushing DE
August 13th, 2009 at 6:51 PM ^
second.
August 13th, 2009 at 5:15 PM ^
Free Safety
August 13th, 2009 at 5:17 PM ^
QB is the single most important position.
August 13th, 2009 at 5:31 PM ^
(insert Pat White's rating argument here)
August 13th, 2009 at 5:21 PM ^
If the player was in this class (2010), I'd say DE or maybe S. Maybe even LB.
August 13th, 2009 at 5:32 PM ^
What about DT?
August 13th, 2009 at 6:16 PM ^
yeah, we need those a lot now, but on an every year basis i don't think they're as important as other positions, nor do they pan out with respect to their ratings with abundant frequency.
August 13th, 2009 at 6:43 PM ^
With the way the current staff has set the system up.. A 4-3/3-4 combination, I think we're ok, Martin and Cambell are both young (and unproven, Cambell at least), but more depth is needed.
We don't have a legitimate replacement for Graham. That's where we need one IMO.
August 13th, 2009 at 5:21 PM ^
I think it is easiest transition to make high school to college to pro. (Other than RB I guess).
We have had recent success with Stevie B (albeit a red-shirt) and Manningham and Odoms
August 13th, 2009 at 5:45 PM ^
Isn't that what Stonum was supposed to be? (albeit based on early reports of him not doing too well at practice)
Edit: You're right, ignore me.. I just thought about it and the past few 5* receivers have been pretty successful at their respective schools ie. Julio Jones.
August 13th, 2009 at 6:06 PM ^
Stonum was a quite highly rated WR, but he wasn't a 5 star. Julio Jones was a 5 star, #1 receiver and #4 overall player in his class. He was there for a reason. Same with AJ Green, he was the #2 WR and #9 overall. Very highly rated, very productive as freshman. Comparing Stonum to those guys is a bit of a stretch.
August 13th, 2009 at 5:22 PM ^
If I'm not mistaken, WR is the position at which 5-star prospects most consistently pan out, probably because the position is so dependent on athleticism and doesn't require players to add too much weight during their college careers. A big, defense-stretching WR is enough to change a DC's whole gameplan. The presence of Braylon Edwards allowed us to transition from Navarre to Henne almost seamlessly.
August 13th, 2009 at 5:23 PM ^
Wherever there is the most need. This year, I'd say S.
August 13th, 2009 at 5:26 PM ^
This is a tough question but I would probably go with RB, especially in this type of offense.
August 13th, 2009 at 5:29 PM ^
I'll go with linebacker as well. Probably a MIKE type, like Maualuga.
August 13th, 2009 at 8:44 PM ^
Id agree, Woodley turned out alright I guess
August 13th, 2009 at 5:30 PM ^
it has to go to QB. Under out circumstances right now, I may change that to a WR or LB. I think we are pretty set at QB with Gardner coming in. I don't ever see us having trouble getting a running QB in the future, as long as we start to win more consistently. At RB we are pretty set, too. We have Smith and Toussaint. Also, if we can bring in Demetrius Hart, we will be set for a long time. To sum it up, it's QB or RB if you don't take our players currently in the program, and it's LB or WR if you do.
August 13th, 2009 at 5:39 PM ^
CornerBack CB. Michigan has had quite a few impact CBs that came in as freshmen and did very well:
Warren
Jackson
Woodson
Ty Law
just to name a few who played a ton as freshmen and did it very well...
This year with Turner, could be another one of those years.
August 13th, 2009 at 5:44 PM ^
Having a 5* middle line backer may allow michigan to stop spread QB's
August 13th, 2009 at 5:59 PM ^
Sideline QB. We'll need an elite replacement for David Cone's two red wristbands and mouthful of hot fire in a couple years.
August 13th, 2009 at 6:10 PM ^
only because it feels like ages since Michigan had a true star there.
More objectively: CB. Truly talented CBs can change games as freshmen more frequently than any other position.
August 13th, 2009 at 6:17 PM ^
Not a super-recruit, but unquestionably a star at MIKE.
August 13th, 2009 at 6:39 PM ^
Cornerbacks are important, but now that pretty much every team is going to 3- and 4-WR sets, a single CB can only do so much. Teams can just avoid him and throw elsewhere. Woodson played at the end of the 2-WR era, so he really could shut down half the field. That's harder to do now.
August 13th, 2009 at 6:13 PM ^
RB. most ready to go. freshman RB and rookies RBs in the NFL have more of an impact than any other position. after that i'd order them QB, MLB, DE, S, CB...
August 13th, 2009 at 7:08 PM ^
RBs can make the most immediate impact because the learning curve is so much quicker than for a QB or middle linebacker. It's not quite as easy as "take the ball and run with it," but it's pretty close. Once the RB learns the offensive scheme, i.e. where blockers go on certain plays and where holes are "supposed" to be, the pure athleticism and speed that any 5* recruit would have just takes over.
August 13th, 2009 at 7:17 PM ^
But he has still has to be a competent blocker (which many frosh RBs aren't) or he won't be able to play every down. Freshman WRs can get away with crappy blocking to some extent, but if RBs can't block, they'll give up sacks.
August 13th, 2009 at 8:43 PM ^
Never mind.
August 13th, 2009 at 7:58 PM ^
It might be cheating, but assuming we can land 4* at other positions, I will take OT. Convert some to OG. A line full of 5* OT every year would make the 4* at all other positions on offense shine. We win and lose in the trenches.
August 13th, 2009 at 8:42 PM ^
How anyone on this thread could choose something other than quarterback kind of boggles my mind. Quarterbacks earn the big bucks, get all the girls, and get all the fame for a reason - it's the absolute toughest position to play on the football field and, perhaps, in all of sports. From the pressure to the footwork to the athleticism to the intelligence to the leadership to the throwing power to the accuracy, nothing about the quarterback position is easy.
August 13th, 2009 at 9:06 PM ^
Magnus, just curious, who would you rate as the top 5 Michigan QBs since Bo came to town?
August 13th, 2009 at 10:30 PM ^
I'm not a Michigan historian, so I'm probably not the person to ask. I didn't really start paying attention to Michigan until the early '90s.
If I had to make a list, it would probably be:
1. Tom Brady
2. Drew Henson
3. Chad Henne
4. Jim Harbaugh
5. Brian Griese (this may seem like an odd name, but he's the only one to win a NC)
August 14th, 2009 at 12:34 AM ^
I think your list is pretty similar to what most others would come up with. Some old guys of my generation might put in Rick Leach or John Wangler instead of Henson, but my bet is that Griese would probably be regarded as the least "talented" of all of them. Yet, as you pointed out, he's the only one who managed to get his team over the NC hurdle.
While the skills a top-level 5-star QB has may well exceed those of anybody else on the team, a college team doesn't have to have an absolute top-of-the-line QB to win NCs. Fairly recent history shows Danny Wuerffel, Scott Frost, Chris Weinke, Craig Krenzel, Josh Heupel, Chris Leak, and Tee Martin leading their teams to the NC, while future NFL stars like Brady, McNabb, Michael Vick, and the Mannings didn't.
That's not to say a 5-star guy hurts, as Leinart, VY, and Tebow have proven. There's just more than one route, personnel-wise, to a national championship. The '99 FSU, '02 OSU, and '00 OK championship teams won theirs with fantastic defenses as much as anything. You could say the same thing about Michigan in '97 with some justification.
August 14th, 2009 at 7:50 AM ^
That's true. There's no guarantee that a 5-star QB is necessary for winning a national championship. However, that statement probably holds true for DE, WR, RB, etc. The quarterback controls so many aspects of the game that it's difficult to justify other positions that only control a small portion of the field, like a DT or MLB.
Also, when looking at your list, Scott Frost doesn't really belong. True, he wasn't a 5-star QB and he led his team to success, but he was an option quarterback. Option quarterbacks would never (or rarely, anyway) be ranked as 5-stars.
August 13th, 2009 at 8:43 PM ^
If you have a guy who can collapse a pocket on his own, or reliably get to the QB off the edge with the speed to actually bring him down at a key moment in the game, or always be drawing a double-team, that's the big game changer to me. If the DLs can't put real pressure on the QB, then the secondary's job becomes dramatically harder.
Woodson would have been fantastic in 97 regardless, but it certainly made his job easier to have Steele, Josh Williams, and James Hall constantly in the QB's face. The real stars of the '06 defense IMHO were Branch and Woodley.
August 14th, 2009 at 11:41 AM ^
I wouldn't complain if we picked up Sharrif Floyd. That dude's a beast.
August 13th, 2009 at 9:03 PM ^
to all those of you who said qb...is mallett spelled with 2 t's or 1?
August 13th, 2009 at 10:11 PM ^
Any offensive skill position or DB. Lineman on both sides of the ball very rarely even at the 5 Star level have the strength and stamina to play every down as a freshman. They can impact like M.Martin(not that he was a 5 Star but you get the point) but every down at this level is a whole lot different than HS.