Holmes Onwukaife Not Blue
(Per Rivals; Josh)
Cedar Park DE/OLB Holmes Onwukaife came out Monday and said he was ready to commit to Michigan. The problem is Michigan just picked up two commitments at his position in the last few weeks. Being the summer non-contact period, they don't have the ability to talk with each one of their prospects they've previously offered at the position to say, "We're full," or "We're going to take some time and evaluate our needs further, so hold on for the time being."
Now, Michigan did not tell Holmes, "Sorry, we're full and the offer is not there." They like Holmes and wanted to try to fit him in somewhere else. Here is what Holmes had to say about the situation last night:
"...the outside linebacker position is full, and they opted me to try the inside linebacker, but I dont think I'm going to."
So, Holmes is not committed to Michigan. I am disappointed because I really like this guy's film. I think hes better than Parkorz.
So this is the third false-report of a commit this year, and it's June. J. Johnson OLD/MD; Williams CB/FL; Onwukaife MLB/DE/OLB/Deathbacker/TX. Apparently Williams was more of his assumption that he could commit, but Johnson and Holmes seem to be false media reports
This is annoying
....It's what happens when kids aren't allowed to sign anything for the next 8 months, and two competing recruiting services are trying to scoop each other for news. Think Ed Werder and Vikings with this whole Brett Favre business. It's pretty similar.
All in all, this is good. I don't think we needed 3 deathbackers. Now we can get Heimuli and some other DTs, and focus upon D-backs like Cullen Christian.
.....too bad for the kid. He'll get over it - if he wanted to commit to Michigan, he'd have tried inside linebacker.
On to the next recruit.
He wanted to commit to Michigan. Otherwise, he wouldn't have done it. It's not like this was his only offer.
If you went to school to be a dentist and someone offered you a job as a toothpaste salesman, I'm guessing you wouldn't like hearing people say, "Well, if he really wanted to clean teeth, he would sell toothpaste."
...but a better correlation is to my job. If I was recruited to a law firm in shareholder litigation, but once I went to accept my offer, they told me the job was going to be as a partnership litigator, I truly would be gilding the lily if I turned the offer down based on that change in circumstance.
Didn't you just say in a related thread, as your hunch, that he'd eventually go inside if he committed? I find it refreshing that the staff is honest now, instead of dealing with a transfer 3 years down the road. If he can't deal with it, better to go to Harvard now. I hold no ill will toward anyone here.
a) If that were the only law firm recruiting you, I might agree. He has other options.
b) I did say that I thought he was a better fit at inside linebacker. That doesn't mean I would expect him to move there and like it or that I thought the coaches should be dishonest and switch him once he's here. I'm glad they're being honest, too.
Can't blame a kid for wanting to maximize his potential.
Magnus, I'm interested in which recruit you think has the better upside, Onwukaife or Paskorz?
Onwukaife, but not by an extremely wide margin. I think Onwukaife is a good deal more athletic than Paskorz, and I think Paskorz would be better served by putting on 30 or 40 pounds and becoming a traditional DE.
Bad analogy. A better analogy would be that you wanted to be a dentist, but they offered you a spot in medical school to be an anesthesiologist.
Yeah, but that's not as funny.
Uh... not really...
It's more like wanting to be an anesthesiologist but they offered you a spot in dental school to be a dentist.
Sorry, but I'm just trying to keep in line with jg2112's line of reasoning where you start out with a confrontational line then essentially completely agree with post you are responding to.
...I'm a litigator. Put up your front, yell a lot, get a lot of attorney fees, then settle the case to the "mutual agreement of the parties."
LAW SCHOOL?
MICHIGAN?
UNIVERSITY, OF.?
MICHIGAN?
STATE, OF.?
ANN ARBOR?
PRR is back!!!!!
Wrong. If you want to use an analogy, you can't use two positions where one is clearly inferior. It's not like they offered him a spot on the football team, then told him he could be the towel boy. It's inside versus outside linebacker. Different, but not by that much. It's not like they switched him from QB to PAT holder.
And I agree with whoever brought up everything he said about the school. "Michigan has such tradition, such great academics...." I don't like all the bullshit since that's clearly not what was important to him.
Holmes said he discussed it with his parents and the academics were great and Michigan was the place for him etc etc... so much for all that.
Didn't he verbal before visiting?
....told Scout or Rivals and Coach (I think) Gibson, and then the OP conversation happened with Coach Rod.
is the loss of his name on our roster. Great name.
I would have to assume that Marcus Rush also is out of luck as it seems he was targeted for the deathbacker position also. This brings up an interesting topic concerning the early verbal and how many to accept. Should the staff be going slower and have less recruits at this point or is this the result of 3-9 and worrying about the fan base screaming about the demise of Michigan football.
On a side note Holmes ranked #55 in the state of Texas, Hopkins was #97 while Tony Drake wasn't even in the top 100.
Yeah, Rush is SOL if he wanted to commit.
to move inside or to the D-Line? Will he still be an option?
I don't think he's the type of player who could succeed at ILB or bulk up to be a strong-side DE. I think the ship has sailed for him.
holmes looks way better.....look at the competition too... anything in PA or Texas 5A ball....
yeah bro let's rescind his scholarship and give him aids
Awesome
Yes, drop Jordan and take Holmes. Look at their films. Damn it.
or we dont have to offer every scrub on the face of the earth... that could also work
^THIS^
*I wouldn't use the word "scrub" to describe a recruit, though. That's pretty harsh.
Is that what you feel we've been doing?
Why are you always talking about "feelings"?
No, but I feel like we should offer the best players first and gauge their interests and then fill in the class with less quality players after......whatever, it also looks shitty when a kid has an offer and can't commit because the position is full
I agree with Part 1 of your argument, but as for Part 2...not so much.
It doesn't look shitty when a kid tries to commit but the position is full. It happens pretty frequently. No team out there limits their number of offers to the number of spots they want to fill. Even USC offers 10 guys to fill 2 running back spots (those numbers are made up, but you get the point).
Onwukaife waited too long to commit. I'm sure he follows recruiting, and he wanted to be the third guy to fill a position that plays only one. That's like a third QB trying to commit in one class or a third TE. It's nobody's fault. It just happens.
That's just how RR recruits. It's the method M fans are stuck with.
First time post. I am a virgin to M Go Blog
Our 2010 class scares me for a couple of reasons
1. We are filling up the class with three star bush league recruits and are not patiently awaiting the decisions of some of the better star athletes. Rich Rod is stabbing himself in the eye with Nike cleats if he fills this class without waiting on some big fish. At this time last year we had roughly 5 commitments and look how our class turned out..top 10
2. As recruiters we are competing with the likes of SMU, Stanford, Kansas, Central Michigan, Tulane and other shitty institutions of high learning for recruits. We have virtually lost the battle with big traditional recruiting rivals... (why are we accepting commitments from kids like Dileo, Hopkins, Drake)
3. Rich Rod has a hard on for Florida. I hate to break hearts but we will never win the recruiting war in the south. As a student of the University of Michigan I see no real reason why a football mercenary from Miami would leave the women, weather, and worship of the South for cold weather and less attractive girls. Don’t kid yourself..most of these kids Rich Rod recruits are not future Rhodes Scholars. We need to reestablish dominance in Big Ten land before Ohio State chain locks the Midwest and Michigan State picks up their instate scraps.
4. Who is Cornelius Jones..enough said
Come on, tell us now, how do you really feel about Rich Rod's recruits? Don't hold back or anything.
Thank you for not saying "enough said" instead of "'nuff said" it makes you look slightly less like a raging maniac.
1. Thus far the Rodriguez era is hemorrhaging players (Mallett, Boren, Babb, Horn, O'Neill, Wermers, etc.). It is imperative that Rodriguez increase the number of players on the roster. He can't necessarily afford to wait around until February 4 (or whenever NSD is) to hear the decisions of a bunch of 17-year-olds.
2. Marvin Robinson, Ricardo Miller, Jeremy Jackson, and others would disagree.
3. Once again, players like Denard Robinson, Ricky Barnum, Jeremy Gallon, Marvin Robinson, Ricardo Miller, etc. would disagree. Luckily, it doesn't matter what YOU think about leaving Miami.
4. Cornelius Jones is standing right behind you with a machete. That's who he is.
Just to be an ass, but Michigan has switched to Adidas.
I kinda wish you would have gone back to not posting...
Magnus responded adequately. I couple more things.
The Florida comment is about the dumbest thing I've ever read. Florida is one of (if not the) most talent rich states in the country. Martavious Odoms was our leading receiver last year as a true freshman, should we have not recruited him? Our next best receiver, Greg Mathews is from (what???) Florida as well. Some of the best players to ever play at Michigan (Steve Huchinson, Anthony Carter, etc.) are from Florida, in addition to the standouts that Magnus mentioned. Let's keep recruiting there, shall we?
We will always have some recruits who are getting offers from second tier schools. You failed to mention who we competed against for Gardner, MRob, Ricardo, and those types. Some positions in RR's scheme aren't going to be hot items to other big schools. Deal with it. Or bitch about it forever.
I just think saying that these guys are bush league is ignorant. Whether or not you agree, RR and his staff decided that these guys are good enough to play for Michigan. Cornelius Jones, for example, received an offer a year ago. Sounds like they were sold to me. But you probably know more than they do.
Warning: Long read. I apologize. I just felt the need to respond.
1. RichRod tried what you're suggesting of "putting his eggs in one basket" with Pryor. It didn't work out. That doesn't mean that it'll never work out, but it's a practice that has a large chance of backfiring (and very badly).
2. Even if we're Michigan, these kids were born around 1991. Our last NC came when they were 6. That's not to say that we haven't done anything since then (most recently, the 2008 Capital One Bowl) but recruits are always looking for what's hip-and-now. And we just had a 3-9 season. It's more then understandable that kids would be scared to commit to a school with extremely high standards (football, not necessarily academic) with their third DC in as many years and a second year coach. The point of all that is that recruits are wary of coming here so we're prone to getting some lower rated recruits then "usual".
3. Having one atrocious year is [sort of] acceptable. If we have another 3-9-esque year then Michigan and RichRod lose a lot of appeal for a long time. It's vitally important that we have an okay second year. This will show recruits that we are back on the up-and-up.
4. Having a low number of commits at this point means very little. Texas has 19 commits and a great class. Purdue has 0 commits and thus no class. We still have plenty of room for blue chip recruits if they want to come here. But, it's not like we've got a line of 5 stars that we're turning away.
5. We haven't had tons of battles with "big traditional recruiting rivals" so there have been precious few battles to win or lose. We got Gardner. Although OSU hadn't offered, I'm betting that they wouldn't mind taking him now. We're definitely in it for Lo Wood. I'm sure there are other examples that I simply can't think of. Of course, you can say that we haven't gotten in those battles because we haven't gone after those "super" kids. Which brings me to...
6. System, system, system. We're recruiting guys that work for our system. That isn't the same system that OSU, LSU, USC, Texas, etc. are using. There are similarities and some positions it matters less for than others, but we're recruiting who we need. I'm sure that we have so many WRs coming in because we didn't have the type of talent that RichRod's offense requires. And since slot ninjas are such an important part of that offense, we're getting a lot of them. And since kids with those skills tend to be shorter but they're still measured against the prototypical 6'2" WR, they get hurt in the rankings.
7. Recruiting rankings at this point are extremely fluid. A 3* now can be a 4* later and vice-versa. These kids are still growing... a lot. Additionally, talent is especially hard to evaluate on defense so I take those rankings with an even bigger than usual grain of salt.
8. Last year we had a 22 member recruiting class. 7 of those kids were from Florida. Almost 1/3 of our class came from a state that we're "never win the recruiting war in". To give up on Florida would give up Vlad, Gallon, Robinson, and Vincent Smith (among others). I like what I hear about them so I think that we're doing just fine recruiting the state of Florida.
9. I'm not going to address all the reasons that you list for why recruits won't leave the south. All of them are completely subjective (especially the women one).
10. Cornelius Jones is in all probability our future 4th string QB. No matter what, he adds depth and is supposed to be a fairly good passer. That's not a bad skill when our other QB commit of the class uses his arm second to his legs.
Cool..but we still commit the scraps of Georgia,Florida,Alabama,Miami, and to some extent Florida State.
...I have no idea what you just said.
I think he is trying to say we take commitments from kids that are not wanted by those schools.
I just want to WIN!!!!!!
...and if these players are going to do it, then so be it, but I don't want to wait around 5 years to "establish the system," or whatever the new saying for that shit is.
Are you a Yankees fan?
Anyway, we have a new coach with a new system. The road has been taken and, therefore, it will be followed. So whether you like it or not, we're going to be recruiting players who fit the systems run by the coaches.
Everyone wants to win. That's like saying, "I want to breathe."
I'm sorry that we didn't go with your plan of hiring the coach that automatically wins all games without getting the necessary players or prep time. That coach was available but Bill Martin thought it would be more fun this way.
Well how long is it going to take?
Are you an 8 year old?
RR is doing such a terrible job recruiting that Michigan managed a consensus top 10 recruiting class after a 3-9 year and is currently ranked 10th by scout.com for the coming recruiting class. RRRREEEELLLLAAAAXXXXX.