Hoke Priming for the 2012 Class..and Further

Submitted by DGDestroys on

For those of you worried that the 2012 class will start off slowly because Hoke's late to the game, fear no more. Hoke got around a little bit today, visiting several top prospects. First, he checked in at Cass Tech, where former UM assistants Tony Dews and Tony Gibson checked in to offer a pair of Technician juniors, LB Royce Jenkins-Stone and CB Terry Richardson. In the article, it's mentioned that Hoke was in to see Coach Wilcher, and might be close to offering. 

Michigan coach Brady Hoke was also by Cass Tech on Monday, as well as an assistant from Wisconsin. Richardson has seen a recent rise in his recruitment and feels he could be close to adding a few more offers.

“I think Michigan, Michigan State and USC are the three closest schools to offering next,” Richardson said. 

In an article about RJS's offer from Pitt, he mentions that Michigan is showing strong interest in him, as well.

Other schools showing Jenkins-Stone strong interest are Auburn, LSU, Michigan and Michigan State.

The Scout Boards are reporting that, while Hoke was in Cincy to show interest in 2011 FB Trayion Durham, he checked in on Taft High School and 2012 super-recruit (and likely OSU lock), DE Adolphus Washington. FWIW, I like Wormley better (wink).

To look even further into the future, Scout had an article up today about 2013 MI QB Shane Morris. He goes to De La Salle Collegiate in Warren, and has two very early offers from Toledo and Cincy. Grew up a Michigan fan, but right now, MSU's showing more interest (legally...illegally...what does it really matter? Enjoy some highlights, the kid's definitely got a D1 arm. 

Denarded

January 24th, 2011 at 8:49 PM ^

Imagine being a freshman in Detroit playing the Westside Cubs (freshmen in the Detroit area cannot play high school football). The Westside Cubs had James Ross, Terry Richardson, Royce Jenkins-Stone, Brian Blackburn, Dennis Northfleet, and Laron Taylor. That's scares me just naming off some of the players.

JC3

January 24th, 2011 at 7:32 PM ^

Both Michigan and Ohio are going to be loaded in 2012.. it's time for Brady and the boys to do work, which they've already begun. 

I wouldn't be surprised to see an offer (and maybe commitment) from RJS in the coming months. 

WolvinLA2

January 24th, 2011 at 7:34 PM ^

That's all well and good, I'm glad Hoke is working it, but CB and LB are probably the position groups of the least need for 2012 and we won't have many scholarships to fill.  I'd be OK with waiting on the Cass Tech guys for the time being.  So they got Pitt offers?  If they're good enough to make our 15 or so slots in 2012, they shouldn't give two shits about Pittsburgh.

WolvinLA2

January 24th, 2011 at 7:59 PM ^

I guess I'm curious how elite they are.  I've heard talk about RJS for a while, but it sounded to me like James Ross was the elite one, and RJS was "good," that why James Ross got the early Michigan offer and RJS didn't.  If we only take 2 LBs in 2012 (likely) then I think I'd prefer Ross and the best out of state LB we can find, unless we think RJS is better.  He just doesn't seem like the kind of guy we need to offer right now.

Similar situaion with Richardson.  Outside of the fact that I've heard Hoke isn't wild about short CBs, with all of the corners we took in this class, I don't know if we take more than 1 CB in this class.  Is Richardson that one? 

EDIT:  And why do you say next year should be a big class?  If we take 20 in this class (likely) then we'll have 15 scholarships for 2012 before attrition.  I'm sure we'll have some, but I doubt we'll be able to take 20. 

JC3

January 24th, 2011 at 10:16 PM ^

RJS is a very good player. Ross is a more polished product at this point, but Royce has great upside. Plus, they played together as kids, and their skill-sets compliment each other very well. It will be very good for Michigan if both are playing side by side in a few years.

bing24

January 24th, 2011 at 7:48 PM ^

I with you DG - Offer this kid, looks like he's a ball hawk and fast. Also like how he wasn't afraid to stick his nose into ball carriers. Keep the CT pipeline going, this kid already is offered by some high profile southern teams and the LB is supposed to be good as well. I can tell you from watching the past 3 years, DB/LB are always positions of need. If they only had some DT's to offer......

WolvinLA2

January 24th, 2011 at 7:57 PM ^

I know people like to talk about the Cass Tech pipeline, but what has it done for us lately?  Thomas Gordon is the extent of the Cass Tech pipeline in the last 5-8 years, and that's not a whole lot.  No doubt their recruits get a lot of hype, but unfortunately BooBoo, BWC, and Teric Jones have all fallen short of the hype.  Only Thomas Gordon has lived up to his hype, and that's because he didn't have any.  Again, I'm not trying to rip on these guys, but I wouldn't say Cass Tech players have done a whole lot for UM lately.

That said, I agree with you that DB/LB are important positions, which is why we want to be as picky as possible with those spots.  By my numbers, unless A LOT of guys transfer, and hopefully that doesn't happen, we'll have 3 scholarships to give between LB and CB, so I think we get stingy with offers to those spots.

DGDestroys

January 24th, 2011 at 8:20 PM ^

I'm tired of this meme "What has Cass Tech done for us recently?"

Booboo had all the talent in the world, he just couldn't get his act together. Another couple of years of coaching and I'm confident he woulda lived up to it.

If BWC could just get his god-damned pad level down (which he has vowed to do under Hoke, take that FWIW), he would be all big ten. 

Teric Jones didn't have that much hype...and he's been an extremely versatile athlete for us.

Prison Abs is a monster who has far out-played his recruiting hype

WolvinLA2

January 24th, 2011 at 8:25 PM ^

I wasn't meaning to slight any one of them individually, it's just that people rave about our Cass Tech pipeline, and we haven't gotten a regular starter from that school in quite a few years.  I'm not saying we stop recruiting it, but it has been a pipeline more so in quantity than quality, you have to agree.

DGDestroys

January 24th, 2011 at 9:05 PM ^

I mean class size. Big class, meaning a full, 25 person class. I know nothing of a 'mass exodus' (although I'm expecting at least a couple of guys, with their own best interest and ours in mind, to leave after spring ball), but there are already set to be about 13 or so scholarship seniors leaving. Add on  likely attrition over the next two years (no one's perfect at player retention) and assuming we don't complete this class (i.e. up to about 21), there'll be a lot of room

cypress

January 24th, 2011 at 10:38 PM ^

Huh?

DG...maybe I'm not getting how all this works, but it looks to me like we are going to have a very small class in 2012. If we fill this class out (which is appearing likely), we will only have 13 to 15 seniors graduating. You really expect 10 to 12 players to leave? 25 seems extremely unlikely.

King Douche Ornery

January 24th, 2011 at 7:46 PM ^

Just starting to follow recruiting?

Get out while you can. Save YOURSELF! Forget the women and children! GO!

No lifeboat--just JUUUUMMMMMPPPPP!

In reply to by King Douche Ornery

Vasav

January 24th, 2011 at 7:51 PM ^

But he's 100% right. Once you get hooked, you start texting your friends, checking twitter, rivals, scout - and then one day, you're sad because the whims of a 17 year old trying to make one of the biggest decisions of his life don't match up with what could help Michigan football. And you realize that you'd have been better off getting addicted to world of warcraft or something.

In reply to by King Douche Ornery

Blue_Sox

January 24th, 2011 at 7:52 PM ^

The whole Dee Hart decision was quite a compelling ride, wasn't it?? I love emotional roller coasters that's why I can't wait for more!!