ESPNU 150 for 2012 is out
http://espn.go.com/college-football/recruiting/top150prospects/_/class/2012
Not much love so far from Bristol as only 2 current M commits made the cut:
| 68 |
Terry Richardson   |
81
|
Michigan | CB | 5'9" | 160 | Cass Technical H.S. (MI) |
| 117 |
Royce Jenkins-Stone |
80
|
Michigan | OLB | 6'2" | 215 | Cass Technical H.S. (MI) |
Notice that Gunner Kiel is one of the highest recruits in the country - and our future QB beat him out as a Sophomore?
Yeah, that kicks ass.
Kiel, by all accounts, was the best guy at the Elite 11. Morris was #2, ahead of Zeke Pike.
oh thanks for ruining my blissful ignorance.
that that isn't any sort of knock on Morris. The reports were that Kiel was just really, really polished and had a more refined game than Morris did. That's not surprising or troubling given that Kiel is a year ahead of Morris. And Morris looked way better than Pike, who is/was a 5 star (although he hasn't been getting rave reviews so far this spring/summer).
Didn't Morris take home the offensive MVP award?
but word from the recruiting guys there (including the Michigan sites) was that Kiel was the best guy with Morris a pretty clear second, especially during the Elite 11 day.
Keil=Winner of Elite 11 with shane coming in second. Shance also won strongest arm at the elitle 11
Morris=Offensive MVP at the Nike Camp
Ok, this is killing me (and if this has already been asked, I haven't seen it), but how do you pronounce Gunner's last name?? I typically pronounce it "Kyle," but I feel like it could just as easily be "Keel."
...is pronounced like "keel".
with no prior knowledge is "Kyle" but maybe thats just for first names....
Notice that Gunner Kiel is one of the highest recruits in the country - and our future QB beat him out as a Sophomore?Kiel could potentially be our future QB too, you know.
Grades:
Richardson: 81, 4 star, #4 CB
RJS: 80, 4 star, #7 OLB
Bolden: 80, 4 star, #6 ILB
Funchess: 80, 4 star, #5 TE
Ross: 80 4 star, #7 ILB
Ojemudia: 80, 4 star
Brown: 79, 3 star
Braden: 79, 3 star
Godin: 79, 3 star
Stacey: 78, 3 star
Ringer: 78, 3 star
Standifer: 77, 3 star
Gant: 75, 3 star
Williams: 45, NR
Interesting that they had Jordan Diamond and Zach Banner listed ahead of OSU commit Kyle Kalis and Magnuson wasn't on the list at all
I re-read it an additional 2 times by position and then state just to make sure I didn't miss him.
They're a little low on Magnuson (24th tackle) but he's still a 4 star. Scout and 247 have him 16th and 13th so ESPN isn't too far off. Rivals is the outlier with him in a good way (34th overall in the country) which in my entirely uninformed opinion is closer to reality.
What has happened to drop Kaleb Ringer's stock? When he committed it seemed like he was a lock to be a 4* at least.
fans overrating players who commit before the rankings come out. Everyone always assumes that all of the early commits will always be 4 stars.
True, but I remember hearing many recruiting guys in Ohio that he was potentially the best linebacker from Ohio (not a deep year at linebacker) and I believe the Rivals Ohio guys ranked him decently in their top 40. I remember speculation if TSIO lost out on a few other recruits (Ross and a few other elite guys) he was going to get an offer from them. Also, doesn't scout rank him as a four star?
http://recruiting.scout.com/a.z?s=73&p=8&c=1&nid=4898190
He's rated a 78 at ESPN, which may seem low, but note that he's also their #21 ILB. That's still pretty gd good, and really not that far off from Scout's positional ranking.
pretty fair to me, although maybe a bit light on Standifer.
Only 8 five-stars? That number has to increase over time, right?
rankings. But it was mentioned on Rivals that Standifer should definately be a 4 star before it's all said and done. Most think his stock would have sky rocketed if he would have held off of his commitment. I am really excited about his future with us.
2 of the top 150 definitely isnt bad, especially this early. Last year we had zero at the end of the recruiting season.
Ya, but last year is tough to judge against other recruiting years. As the second half the season progressed (we lost more) it once again became ambiguous whether RR would be back or not. This hurts recruting. Additionally, once canned, Hoke and his team had to put a band-aid on the class and bring a few other guys into the fold. Also, I don't know how Frost, Hart, or Zettel were ranked by ESPN, but they were guys we would have either had (Frost) or most likely had (Hart and Zettel) if RR had not been fired. That would have boosted our class ranking. Additionally, it isn't too crazy for coaches to have a great year recruiting their first full season, RR had the 8th ranked class according to Rivals, but Hokes impressive aspect is ability to overcome the negativity of the last three years. Maybe that is the positive emotion we (mainly the program) all have going forward.
If we landed those three, then Hart would have been our only top 150 player. I agree that last year was a tough year to recruit, but I also don't think that 2 of the top 150 is "no love." In 2010 Gardner was our only top 150 guy. In 2009 we had 6, including Isaiah Bell who was clearly overrated by ESPN because he was selected early to play in their all star game. We should end with about that same amount this year.
You are right that we are definintely getting a good amount of love. Two is definitely a good start, and it looks like we have a chance at several more. It seems 4-7 isn't unreasonable to expect if the season goes at least mildly well. Garnett at 40ish is interesting since he seems to be ranked really highly by all the recruiting sites and would be a great get for us at Guard. Loved how he mentioned wanting to play in the UofM Ohio game. Thats cool. Also, Sheldon Day making the end of the list as he did for Rivals is interesting. Plus, I think Ross is ranked a little lower than he probably should be due to his size limitations for NFL potential versus other linebackers.
You're right that size is a factor.
Interesting perspective: Terry Richardson is the #2 player in the country under 5'10''.
that concerned about ESPN's recruit rankings. They're pretty much the red headed stepchild of recruiting information anyway.
the last couple years. They were pretty terrible when they first started the Scouts, Inc. thing after cutting their ties with Lemming though.
periodically during the year or are they carved in stone? I forgot.
They change a bit, but I've heard others express that unless a prospect doesn't get selected for the UA all-star game, they kind of forget about them.
surprised that Chad Kelly made it. I guess we're not as high on him as espn is.
Rodriguez's first class had 7 top 150 guys (2009).
A crude measure perhaps but it reflects the overall rankings that showed us with down years in 2010 and 2011...
UM commits in ESPN top 150 players:
2006 - 6
2007 - 4
2008 - 4
2009 - 7
2010 - 1
2011 - 0
2012 - 2 as of June
I'm very surprised, not at the grades necessarily, but at the fact that we are not even recruiting so many of these guys. I counted 5 by at first blush that we are actively recruiting, but many of these guys we aren't (as far as I've heard) even recruiting. Although I suppose we could have offers to them and they didn't reciprocate.
Look under useful stuff for the 2012 offer list. I'm not curious enough to write up a comparison for the board, but just scanning the top 50 on ESPN's list, I'd be willing to bet we've offered more than 60-70% of those prospects. The names that get thrown around in the recruiting talk are ones that have shown interest in us.
By my count we've offered 25 players in the top 50 and 68 in the ESPN150. And those are only the offers we know we've offered, others might be/have been in contact and haven't been offered or said they weren't interested. Point is, we have gone after a lot of the guys on this list.
My point (that you've supported) still stands, we are recruiting these guys.
give out 80's to everybody. It gives me a headache trying to figure out how kids listed in the top 10 or even the top 5 nationally on every other site is a borderline 3 star to ESPN. I'm all for them giving a higher rating to Ben Braden and Matt Godin but they have hthem neck and neck with kids like Kalis and Banner and Jarron Jones.
ESPN is good for general news but when it comes to specialty, they arent that great. When it comes to news on a specific team, local media is best. When it comes to college recruiting, I trust Scout/Rivals more.
ESPN is ok just to look at anothers opinion but my favorite of the three is Scout, followed by Rivals, and then ESPN. 247 has gotten much of my attention yet, maybe they should.
I prefer 247 now. Rivals is so southern biased that I can't take it. They don't even have a midwest analyst. ESPN is so biased towards the Under Armour All-Americans. I do like scout, except that they do 50 5*s every year. I don't like that because there aren't exactly 50 players worth 5 stars every year. So whatever. I like 247 they seem to be the least biased and don't have set numbers like scout.
How can they have someone 4 points over DGB? I can understand someone being rated higher, but not THAT much higher. Evan Boehm got some serious love from ESPN. I'm all for him too, he has michigan in his top 5 which means a visit, but Ondre Pipkins has had his way with him at combines so many times now and is only rated a 78 or a low 3 star.
I was a long time member of Rivals for about 9/10 years. They are no longer objective - they are biased as they have multiple southern analyst now and NOT 1 midwest analyst, and it shows in their rankings.
When one top analyst stated it was a down year for talent in the state of Michigan, it was the final nail in the coffin for me to leave that site. There rankings are horrible.
I now much rather prefer scout, but 247 is coming on very strong. That Wiltfong (?) is a tireless, relentless analyst and seems to have a huge passion for recruiting. He puts out a ton of stuff.
http://espn.go.com/college-football/recruiting/prospects/_/class/2012/position/te
The #4 guy is at 147, so he's probably just outside it. Remember if this were a list of 250 or so like the other sites, more of our guys would be on it.
And #5 in the country is fanatstic, whether he makes the arbitrary 150 cut-off or no.
They're the #6 and #7 ILB's, respectively. The #5 guy, Aaron Porter, is at #149.
Michigan had 2 prospects (Joe Bolden and Devin Funchess) that "just missed the cut" according to ESPN.
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/recruiting/football/news/story?id=6635012
surprised that Darius Hamilton is #67
took home the MVP from Nike camp, also took home the strongest arm award from Elite 11. I'm very intrigued by the strongest arm award as a sophomore, this is reassuring because with how well he looks of defenders, moves in the pocket, and those smooth mechanics, arm strength was really the only unknown factor and he sure put that one to bed.
is only a 3*, HALOL
#4 CB - Richardson
#5 TE - Funchess
#6 ILB - Bolden
#7 ILB - Ross
#7 OLB - RJS
#21 ILB - Ringer
#22 DE - Ojemudia
#27 DT - Godin
#32 OG - Stacey
#33 CB - Standifer
#37 DE - Brown
#52 OT - Braden
Gant is listed as a WR (#106, 75), Williams is unrated.
This is an outstanding class at this point
Does Florida State have some kind of magic potion they use on recruits? How in the name of Sam Hill do you get that many top prospects to go to a well-documented underachieving school? Do they convince these kids that they could break this trend and be the future of football? I'm not one for acronyms of the internets, but...this deserves a big 'ol SMH...