Michigan out of the running for Lawrence Thomas
"The list remains flexible but features, in no particular order, Ohio State, Florida, Alabama, Michigan State, Notre Dame, USC, Penn State, Oklahoma, Miami and Cincinnati. That group offers a rough outline for upcoming unofficial visits."
http://michigan.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1059097
The x-factor is everything people around here have been complaining about for the past year or two. No stability on the defensive coaching staff, a head coach on the hot seat, bad in-state press, major violations by the coaching staff, a coach at Renaissance who hates UofM, etc.
How can a HS football coach have that much power over a kid? Fred Smith, Hankins, and Lawrence Thomas all grew up fans of Michigan and have been steered away by a flipping HS football coach. Makes you wonder where the family is in all of this and how can a kid so easily be swayed?
I'm sorry, but if my childhood favorite offered a scholarship there is no way I could eliminate them this early in the process. The really sad thing about this is that Renaissance's coach has no valid reason for this hatred of Michigan.
Hopefully, things change in the class of 2012 as it seems like Cass Tech is loaded and Mr. Ross at OLSM wants to play with the Tech guys as they have grown up playing youth football together.
It's Rich Rod. Why? That I don't know. And like I just mentioned below, I don't think that these HS coaches really do have that much effect on a kid's recruitment. I mean, I think that a lot of these kids really value their coaches' opinions, but I don't think that most of these coaches would be able to keep their jobs for very long if they were lobbying so heavily against a certain school. School boards and Athletic Directors wouldn't allow it. Which is why, as I pointed out above, a coach actually came with Thomas to meet with Michigan's staff personally. I'm pretty sure that everyone is blowing this whole "Thomas' coach hates us" thing way out of proportion. It may have been a slight factor, but from what I've seen of this guy in interviews, he seems to have a fairly level head on his shoulders. Most coaches like that know that this is an important decision in a kid's life and that they shouldn't be the ones dictating to a kid what they should do. I think he may give some advice and drop a "I don't think Michigan's the place for you" line here and there, but I'm pretty sure that's the extent of it.
I don't mean to be a dick, but do you honestly believe that?! The public schools in Detroit have a few problems that would probably take precedent over this. I really don't think that they could give a shit about a coach steering kids away from a certain university.
"seems to have a fairly level head on his shoulders". Good thing because football helmets have a hard time staying on when kids have crooked heads.
While I can not explain why the Renaissance coach has such a hatred for M I can understand how he feels. OSU, MSU & ND have never wronged me in anyway other then by being the enemy, yet I still have a severe hatred for them. My guess is the coach over at Renaissance has come to his conclusions in the same manner if there is no other visible explanation.
In a Scout article last week it said that when Thomas was in AA he talked to GERG and GERG said something along to the lines of "we're gonna let you play MLB but we think you might eventually grow into a DE"
Thomas' response was something like "It sounded stupid...I play in the middle, I've always played in the middle, and I have no interest in DE".
After reading that article i knida thought he was done with us. You know, because his coaches at Renaissance know what position he should play in four years better than a former Superbowl winning D-Coordinator
brandon graham played MLB in highschool and then ended up playing DE in college.... hey lawrence, how did that move work out for brandon???
The fact that he would openly question GERG means people were in his head before the visit. You gotta love all the negative recruiting that Sparty is doing. Classy job, Mr. Dantonio!
If we win 8+ games next season, in-state recruits will have tingly balls over Michigan again.
Let's be honest. We never really had a chance with Gholston or Thomas because of their HS coaches. Arnett is still looking at us. Don't act like the sky is falling just because we aren't going to get a couple kids we never had a chance with.
That is the way they were steered from any early age. There are players that will only look at UM for similar reasons. I don't see this as a big issue.
Oddly, you say that pretty often. It's a gross overstatement. What I am saying, is that it never should have been at the point in the first place that we didn't have a chance with these kids. Gholston's and Thomas' coaches both should have had almost no effect on their recruitment. Recruits' coaches haven't liked us in the past and we've still landed kids. It happened just last year, in fact. Marvin Robinson's coach hated Michigan and was an Ohio State fan. Guess where Robinson is now.
this news makes me a little sad. Like someone said above though, it is a long way from signing day so who knows what will happen between now and then.
Don't you just hate shitty news in the morning?
GOD I miss college.
Perhaps my mental health should not revolve around the choices of random high school football players as much as it does... perhaps.
because then he will regret not picking Michigan after they pound his ass for 4 straight years.
giving the ol' Drew Stanton treatment in some circles ... (not that Stanton ever wanted to go to UM, even after going 0-fer, but you know what I mean ... ;)
Didn't we agree yesterday that it would be ... ;) )?
/Grammar Neo-Nazi
is an msu player more likely to beat michigan or beat (up) a frat dude?
or his coaches don't want him to come here, he should go somewhere else, and Michigan can focus on two things:
(1) Winning 10 games again, which might turn Thomas's head;
and
(2) Bringing kids to Michigan who actually want to go to Michigan.
Never had a chance, to many people talking negatove about us in his ear
We have a better national recruiting base than MSU, but let's not kid ourselves. We can't keep getting shut out of the best talent in the state and expect to beat MSU any more than 50% of the time (if that). Michigan has historically relied on a huge talent gap to beat MSU teams that put a much greater emphasis on beating UM than UM puts on beating MSU. Without that talent gap, I don't know what happens to us. We've already seen that Dantonio can get a team with zero talent to play even with a highly talented Michigan (2007) and basically hand our asses to us when they have the better players ('08 and '09). Lawrence Thomas could be a four year starter at Michigan and he's not even giving us a look alongside Michigan State? (where he might actually have to compete for a job). Color me extremely worried.
Perhaps I need to rethink my definition of "getting our asses handed to us" because 2009 definitely didn't feel like that to me. And here I thought "overtime" meant it was a close game...
MSU dominated us for about 55 minutes the way that we dominated Delware State. Yardage total before Michigan's first TD drive was about 380-80. You're kidding yourself if you think that the final score was even remotely reflective of how the game was played. In the end, the final score is the only thing that matters, but teams who get outgained in a game by 166 total yards rarely win games, and I have yet to see an indication that this year will be different.
The scoreboard doesn't count total yards.
C'mon Magnus, his point stands. They pushed us around for most of the game, even if we managed to tie it up late.
"Getting our asses handed to us" =/= overtime game
That's not even close to making sense. If Woolfolk didn't have a bum shoulder and actually tackled Larry Caper, we very well might have won the game.
Michigan played probably it's worst game of the year against MSU. It was the first road game in cold, wet conditions for a true freshman QB taking snaps from a backup center. It is ridiculous to draw any long-term conclusions from that game.
You wrote:
"the final score is the only thing that matters"
and that renders everything else you wrote irrelevant.
When Michigan wins a game this fall despite being horribly out-gained in total yardage, I hope you respond that you feel the win isn't really a win.
I'll toast victory, you can whine about aesthetics.
Luckily for us they don't stop games before we score all of our points. We would be screwed if they took away 92 yard scoring drives such as the one Tate led us on at the end of the game.
Also, in 07, we outgained Appy St. by around 100 yards....can we count that one as a win?
an indication that this year will be different." O RLY? In March, before spring practice, you haven't seen anything to suggest we're playing better football in September? You don't like our statistical improvement since last November? I think Tate's accuracy has really been on.
The level of impatience is just staggering. It used to be that around here, people couldn't wait years for things to turnaround. Then it became less than a year. Now we're supposed to be winning the yardage battle for our Oct 9 MSU game during spring break or people aren't satisfied with the progress.
Patience
First of all, that "no talent" Michigan State team in 2007 went 7-5 in the regular season (Michigan was 8-4) and featured guys like Devin Thomas, Javon Ringer, and Jehuu Caulcrick. That was not a bad team. The game was also played in East Lansing, and shit happens on the road in rivalry games (see Michigan-Michigan State the very next year, when a 3-9 Michigan team led a 9-3 Michigan State team into the 3rd quarter). They hardly handed our asses to us in either 2008 or 2009.
Second, you don't really make any sort of point other than "Lawrence Thomas to MSU is bad." Well, yeah, it's bad, but to be extremely worried about a handful of recruits is silly. The only players Michigan has really lost out to the last two years who didn't go to Renaissance are Edwin Baker, Larry Caper, and maybe Max Bullough. The pipeline stuff is going to happen, it really shouldn't worry you.
Wait, so because we we haven't gotten the best talent in Michigan lately means we won't beat MSU more than 50% of the time? I don't get it. Our recruiting hasn't changed since RichRod has gotten here. In the past, if we have been shut out and not gotten great instate talent (not that there is an abundance of it in the first place), we have just gone out of state and gotten great players. If you are truly worried about Dantonio's classes that rank in the upper 20's (with Gholston part of it), then I don't know what to tell you.
this is some of the worst logic I have ever read on this board.
"If MSU beats us in recruiting one state, there is NO WAY we can ever make up the talent gap by recruiting the other 49 states that we have far more access to than MSU!"
Despite all the hand-wringing, RichRod is "landing" in-state 5-star recruits at about the same rate as Lloyd. This is from a quick scan of the Scout and Rivals sites:
Depending on the recruiting service, there have been 11 (Scout) or 7 (Rivals) 5-star recruits in MI since 2002 (I'm not including the 2011 kids). Michigan has signed 7 of the 11 (Scout) or 5 of the 7 (Rivals). There have been 4 since 2008 (we missed on 1) and 7 from 2002-2007 (we missed on 3).
Lloyd missed on a few (RoJo, Barksdale, Kyle Brown) and RR has missed on one so far (Gholston).
And that rate will only increase once Michigan gets back to its winning ways.
Also, would I be wrong in thinking we were never actually in the running for Thomas? Like you said, RR has only missed on 1 in-state 5* (Gholston) and it seems like he'll miss on Thomas, but as long Renaissance is run by the same people, Michigan will continue to miss out on their prospects no matter who is coaching here.
I don't have any inside knowledge of the REASONS we missed on these guys (though I read the same speculation as everyone). I approach it this way--every situation with a recruit is unique and I try not to get too bent out of shape trying to devine the specific reasons a 17/18 year old kid chose or did not choose Michigan. In the end, we get our share of the MI talent that we pursue, and we get our share of the out of state talent as well. Now let's coach them up and play.
Depth Chart:
1A) 5th Year Senior Ezeh
1B) Jr. Fitz
3) Walk-on undersized Leach
4) RSo. / Special Teamer Demers
5) To-be redshirted "super-sleeper" recruit Ryan
If I am a 5-star all-everything MLB, I'm taking a closer look at UM... worse case scenario I'm starting my So. year
Ezeh's gone after this year. He wouldn't matter to Thomas.
I disagree.
If Ezeh starts this year, then the MLB is wide open in 2011 with zero starting experience. Fitz would be a Senior with 0 starts (and that would be very telling considering he would of sat for 3 years behind Ezeh!), Ryan a RS-Fr. with zero game experience, special teams player Demers, and walk-on Leach. good chance for Thomas to start as a true freshman.
If Fitz starts this year, the presumption would be that he would be the returning starter in 2011. Thomas would be looking at starting as a So. in 2012.
Either way, the depth chart at MLB looks perfect for a MLB recruit.
I am not one who is usually the spelling police but I have seen this way too much over the past couple of months. Typing would of =/= would've nor would have.
As I said, I am not usually concerned with this stuff, but seeing this for the millionth time in the past 2 months is too much.
and it is not the end of the world.
And I don't blame Lawrence Thomas for wanting to see what else is on offer out there. I do wish he would give Michigan a chance and not write them off from the get-go.
A steady diet of negative UM press, myopic H.S. coaches and guidance counselors, and the sure-to-come onslaught of negative recruiting (picture copy of NCAA allegations in hand of all MSU and OSU recruiter home visits going forward) - yeah, that's a hell of a combination to overcome. So Michigan is going to lose out on a number of kids and people are slamming the panic button.
3-9, 5-7 over 2 years and UM is still landing Top 15 recruiting classes. Man, this perpetual red alert business about landing that one recruit or the sky is falling is getting mighty old (Rojo, NPerry, WCampbell, etc.)
I wish Mr. Thomas all the best wherever he goes. I do think he's very fortunate to have an opportunity to play on scholarship at such a great university like Michigan and still be so close to home and family.
The list is followed by this: "That group offers a rough outline for upcoming unofficial visits"
While the article (or readers) may interpret that as "welp, no Michigan, that sucks..." I don't know that it's shut. He's looking at unofficial visits in this list and he's already been on campus to talk with RR in an unofficial visit, correct? It makes sense that we're not on this list then, doesn't it?
We know it's an uphill battle because of where he attends HS but until he comes out with his short five of official visits, I'm not sure RR and co. are done.
Granted, with all that said, it's not real reassuring that MSU is still on that list for an unofficial visit when I'm sure he's been there before also...
You are exceptionally optimistic.
...I think it's part of the reason people like me. That said, I'm more worried about this year's LB corp than the recruiting trail at this point.
Yep, it's March and people are already having full blown panic attacks about recruits and their choices. Yes, losing out on Thomas hurts, but with a quality season I feel that we'll be okay and land 2 great prospects. One kid isn't going to make or break our football program.
He wants to play alongside his best friend. He calls Norman his "big brother". He is also good friends with Will Gholston. The coaches aren't nearly doing as much recruiting on this kid nearly as much as these guys are. He was sitting with them at the MSU vs OSU basketball game a few weeks back.
Plus, there is also talk of MSU switching to a 3-4 defense. Potential LB core will be: Gholston, Thomas, Bullough, and Norman. That has potential to be scary good.
For Thomas, it'll be like playing backyard football all over again with his buddies!
I had heard that 3-4 rumor before, what is the reasoning behind it? Is it personnel, or a new coach, or was Dantonio planning on doing this when he was hired and just now has what he needs?
Probably a combination. I think the coaches have been wanting to run it for a while but didn't have the proper personnel.