Hello: Aaron Alexander
6'1" 205 LB from Belleville (according to 24/7 link).
Welcome aboard, Aaron!
There was a segment on the Michigan Recruiting Insider about Alexander this past week and Jermaine Crowell and Sam Webb were both raving about him. He's 6'1" 205 and ran multiple 4.4 40s in front of the coaching staff. Also high character and high academic kid. Michigan was his 1st D1 offer and Crowell was saying that Alexander just needs in game reps and he's the type of kid that Iowa scoops up and makes everyone else who didn't offer him look stupid
Good to see Crowell seeming to warm up to our staff
Do you now want the realistic breakdown of the recruit?
Ive told this board numerous times to not listen to Webb or Balas or EJ or any of the Michigan analysts who twist everything to make it seem every Michigan recruit and team is incredible. One UM site is saying this kid should be a low 4 Star…why?
The truth is the kid hasn’t played football. He has been hurt & when he did play he was smaller & didn’t play LB. There is no reason to be for or against his abilities based on film or on-field performance because there is none.
As for performing in front of the coaching staff, I can tell you something Webb purposely didn’t mention…which is he has attended multiple camps & left without an offer from all of the them except Michigan.
The reality is Michigan is taking a chance with a local kid they hope develops into a good player. But as of right now, he is a 2 Star player (since he hasn’t played) with the ability to reach 3 Star with better film/performances.
Once again, don’t be mad at me. But please stop getting all fired up because of what Webb, Balas & EJ try to feed you. According to them every year Michigan is elite.
excellent post.
Anybody can say he draws comparisons to Ian Gold - duh, he's fast and plays LB for Belleville, but as the OP says this is M trying to get in on a kid that frankly hasn't played much.
Ian Gold was a stud. Probably not a great comparison.
AA is for quitters.
Lol. A favorite line of my old drinking buddy.
Alcoholism sucks for everyone around it. For anyone in recovery keep at it.
Tell me more.
Composite ranking?
Isnt ranked
Eastern Illinois and Marshal are his other offers. Hopefully a sleeper. Not a very impressive offer list.
Yep, this is the entire list:
And this is gonna help us beat Ohio state how...
offscale low
Pretty sure this is the guy Sam Webb compared to Ian Gold.
Played against Ian Gold in high school. That’s a laughable comparison. Gold was a complete stud that wouldn’t leave the field for multiple years at Belleville.
your 4 TD performance for Polk High was amazing.
Yeah No. Belleville was loaded we were not.
This comment is fucking awesome!
Have you played against or even seen Alexander play? It’s possible he’s every bit as good if I remember Gold was not that highly ranked coming out of high school
ian gold was highly ranked.
Trust the coaches?
My general feeling is that if a coach takes a flyer on a guy early on that they've seen in person they know what they're looking for (doesn't mean the guy works out, but that's oftentimes not easy to predict). If you're a week out from signing day and you've whiffed on a bunch of guys then I tend to see those flyers as being more, well, flyers on guys you weren't crazy about.
This falls into the prior category, and fast LBs feel like lotto tickets at this point. I am interested to see how he pans out this season because Belleville does play tough competition and will be scouted, so I assume he won't stay under the radar much longer.
As others have noted in the thread - coaches have watched him twice in person so they like what they see.
There are apparently several reasons/ excuses why this kid isn’t ranked and I am sure the Hello post will cover those.
At worst he could be the “Don Brown special” that we got every year except A-Aron is: in-state and from a school that we are trying to “reclaim”, knows the rivalries well, AND it seems like the majority of the coaches actually got to see him in-person even BEFORE the offer was tendered.
TL; DR - Yes - trust the coaches on this one.
This. 247 ranks him as the 23rd player in the state ATM. He can only ascend from there. He has the tools, but seems to be lacking experience playing at a program like Belleville.
Let’s not forget scouting from abbreviated seasons, capacity restrictions, and limited camps due to Covid has rankings in a bit of flux.
LBs that can run sub 4’5” are a valuable and rare piece of the puzzle.
In state kid from Belleville? Lots to like here.
Wait. What's special about a guy who can only run less than four-and-a-half feet???
You should see his long jump.
For all the criticism about the Harbaugh regime around here one should not be that he doesn’t have the ability to take lower ranked guys early who turn out to be excellent players criticize him for not out recruiting OSU for sure thing 5*s but not for landing these type of recruits
Considering the staff has seen him twice in person recently and evaluations are behind from scouting services due to CoVid, yeah trust the coaches.
I tend to go with “trust the coaches” anyway, but after not having a camp season last summer and a limited one to begin this year, definitely trust the people who have actually evaluated the kid closely
...and whose livelihoods depend on getting this part right as much as anything they do. Def doesn't mean they are right but the motivation to be right is crystal clear.
Don’t the livelihoods of the coaches depend on their evaluations of players they’re bringing into the program as well? Poorly evaluate players and your W/L record suffers and you lose your job. Meanwhile nobody bats an eye if the recruiting sites label a kid a high 4* and he’s a bust, or if they simply don’t rank a kid that ends up a stud. So whose livelihood REALLY relies on being accurate here?
The job of the recruiting sites is to generate clicks for their websites. The accuracy of grading individual players doesn’t really matter. As long as you’re remotely accurate (which most people can do by looking at an offer list) then the team rankings will sort itself out and you’ll look like you’re great at your job.
Again, the coaches are putting in easily 10x the work that the recruiting sites are on these kids. The recruiting sites have to evaluate thousands of kids. The coaching staff narrows their lists down to maybe 200-250 kids, then evaluate those kids. You really want to argue whether some guy behind a computer is a better talent evaluator than an actual college football coach, often with NFL coaching experience on top of it? Is that the argument you’re trying to make here?
I can absolutely guarantee the Michigan coaching staff has done more work and spent more time evaluating this kid than anyone at any of the recruiting sites has.
The low rated guys Harbaugh takes have not been the problem with the program. One of them was just drafted in the first round
You are correct and awesome for him and I truly hope Aaron sets all kinds of records and is also a 1st rounder!
However, what happens if you look at ALL the lower rated kids the Harbuagh regime has taken, how have they fared? Sorry, after 6 frustrating years of JH - the "QB Whisperer", I am off the "Trust the Coaches" bandwagon and am in the Missouri mode - "Show Me!".
Missouri mode, like... Ronnie Bell? An unheralded recruit from Missouri with zero football offers until Harbaugh offered and is now at the top of the WR depth chart? The guy who was UM's leading receiver in 2019 and 2020?
THAT kind of Missouri mode?
Surely that's what you mean, right?
Yeah Ronnie Bell has led us to the promise land as top WR. He is so good after last season most fans want Harbaugh gone.
Bell being at the top of the WR depth chart is the problem with Michigan football not the solution
Oh, I forgot that players are only considered a success if they win a Heisman trophy or a NC. My bad.
Bell is an outstanding receiver and if you can’t see that that’s a you problem
Bell is a good, solid receiver -- not outstanding. Love having him on the team, but "outstanding" is a bit much.
Camp offers that lead to quick commits from lightly regarded prospects are nothing out of the ordinary. We seemed to have them every year under Carr and have had plenty since. As far as I can remember, the results have been pretty good.
if a kid pops at camp against other great players, that generally means they are worth getting.
Very rarely are you going to stand out in that environment unless you're pretty good.
double post - Channing Stribling is one that comes to mind
To anyone that says “Trust the Coaches!”, all I have to say is “Joe Milton”.
After the talent evaluation cluster that was last year I don’t trust talent evaluation by Harbaugh.
Congrats to him and welcome. Impressed with th multiple 4.4 40s he pulled off recently. And while Belleville maybe isn't the biggest pipeline in the state it's still nice to see that fence mend a bit.
With his size, speed, and determination I'd say his floor is a very valuable special teams guy. And his ceiling is high. Despite all the carping, that makes him an excellent pick-up.
According to Crowell, (Sam Webb interview) this happened because of Clinkscale. Sam did compare him to Ian Gold. I remember back in the day when Ian Gold committed, and I wondered why they were taking a smallish kid from Belleville. Didn't take long to see why.
Ian Gold one of my fav players.
3 stars galore baby