Najee Harris Explains His Commitment Decision

Submitted by Caesar on

I understand many are exhausted by the topic, particularly nearing NSD, but I found the article (link) interesting. 

1. It really did come down to the final day, which I think acquits Sam Webb (some were accusing him of prolonging the story to get subscriptions).

2. He didn't commit to Michigan for reasons Harbaugh would respect. Michigan doesn't yet have the recruiting to claim that all their athletes will face off against the best in practice. Harris framed this a way Harbuagh would, talking about constantly getting better against the best football players in the country.

 

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Steves_Wolverines

January 27th, 2017 at 4:15 PM ^

I'm excited to see Chris Evans and Karan Higdon improve from last year. They were obvious game changers to the style of Smith; but can they carry the load alongside Walker and Davis? 

And if it's true that we're running more of a spread (hello Evans and Higdon), and less of a RB by committee, I wonder who benefits the most? 

Joined: 01/17/2013

MGoPoints: 4673

Lee Everett

January 27th, 2017 at 9:14 PM ^

I don't comment on front page posts often.

The board, by nature, selects for topics that are (more or less) most worthy of discussion by bumping them to the top whenever a comment is made, whereas the front page's posts are locked into place and pushed further and further downward by new posts.  Yeah, I could take my time to write a lengthy and insightful comment, but it could just find itself in Siberia after four front page posts are made later on in the day.

A workaround would be to somehow link the comments section of a frontpage post to a comments section.  I have seen other sites do this; whenever an article makes the front page, an automatic discussion thread is created.

Sometimes we do this on our own, and it's telling when a duplicate Hello: Post gets more love on the MGoBoard then it does on the front page.

Joined: 07/07/2016

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Yung Geezer

January 27th, 2017 at 3:49 PM ^

He picked bama so he can spend his entire day training.  He didn't come to play school!  Would have been a little more on his plate at Michigan, at bama he can focus more on football.

Joined: 11/09/2016

MGoPoints: 6720

FrankMurphy

January 27th, 2017 at 3:51 PM ^

This stings, for a number of reasons: 1) I can't really argue with his reasoning, 2) it highlights the fact that we're not on 'Bama's level yet, and 3) he seems like a pretty level-headed, down-to-earth kid who would have been a great addition to the class. 

Ah well, c'es la vie. Best of luck to him. 

Joined: 08/19/2008

MGoPoints: 31923

MGoStrength

January 27th, 2017 at 4:00 PM ^

I personally appreciate that he didn't talk too much, kept to himself, went about his business, then explained it after he made up his mind.  You really can't fault a kid for wanting to practice/play against better competition.  The one caveot to that is that he will also likely compete against one of the nation's top RB recruits for playing time every year too.  

 

I'll be curious to see how he pans out.  It would have been great to have him, but I'm quite excited about Samuels and looking forward to seeing how his skills translate against better talent in college.  I can't remember the last time we had a guy like that.  And, if all else fails at least we'll have the most muscular RB duo in Sameuels and Taylor in the country.  Maybe we can be the all-biceps team.

Joined: 07/29/2010

MGoPoints: 20002

Snake Eyes

January 27th, 2017 at 4:12 PM ^

I notice he said he wanted to compete against the best in the weight room and on the practice field.  Seeing how he's such a competitor, I'm shocked he didn't also mention competing against the best in the classroom.

/bitterness

Joined: 03/27/2014

MGoPoints: 1347

BlueWolverine02

January 27th, 2017 at 4:18 PM ^

And this is why we need a state of the art weight room like Bama has, not a room in the basement.  Not that it would be the only deciding factor for many kids, but you need to keep up with the big boys if you want to recruit with them.

Joined: 09/20/2014

MGoPoints: 18458

MGoRob

January 27th, 2017 at 4:19 PM ^

Wants to go up against the best?  Total Defense 2016,  #1 Michigan, #2 Alabama.

Wasn't our D-Line the best in the country? So technically speaking he chose wrong.  He won't be going up against the best.

Joined: 03/14/2010

MGoPoints: 4429

Ahriman

January 27th, 2017 at 4:49 PM ^

A lot of Michigan's problems have been because of the O-Line. Hopefully the hiring of Frey will help alleviate the problem. It may be true that Alabama is in a better place now, but all it takes is for some good players to decide to make their own way. Like they say, Rome wasn't built in a day.  Neither was Alabama. They went 7-6 in his first year and won a championship in his 3rd year. Plus he had a lot of built-in advantages (lower standards, more fertile recruiting area, etc.).

A really good running back would have been nice and it'll come, but when you have a dominant O-line, you don't need the top RB to be succesful (look at Harbaugh's Stanford days).

Plus, I just saw this (DJ Williams said he would've played for Harbaugh given his success at the NFL level). http://michigan.247sports.com/Bolt/Former-NFL-LB-Id-choose-to-play-for-Harbaugh-50859969

Joined: 11/30/2015

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Mr. Owl

January 27th, 2017 at 4:24 PM ^

Basically, meh. Nothing actually said here. Good luck to him or something, but overall there was just a lot of wasted time. I truly don't care if he's successful or not. He's just another Alabama player.



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Joined: 01/15/2015

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rob f

January 28th, 2017 at 2:55 PM ^

Nothing wrong with stating that now, I suppose, but if Harris had announced for us rather than 'bama, the site would have crashed for the rest of the day and we'd still be singing praise to Najee instead of downgrading his abilities.

Joined: 11/11/2010

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Hard-Baughlls

January 28th, 2017 at 7:45 AM ^

but not sure why this is even important.

1) Race is a stupid categorization, and historically a classification based just on the color of one's skin or shape of certain facial features (eyes).

2) That said, certain groups from certain regions produced different distributions of body type and muscle mass that can lend themselves to differing athletic abilities.

3) Nordic countries produce some of the best (strongmen) in the world due to certain muscular geno / phenotypes.  It's nicknamed the Viking gene.  North and East Africa produces some of the best long distance runners in the world. 

4) Genes of the best sprinters in the world are tied to West African decent. However, due to forced breeding of the "strongest" during slavery in the colonies and Americas, natural selection does not fully explain why blacks in the caribbean islands and the US are generally the best sprinters in the world, as it was often hardly a "natural selection." 

5) Lastly, exhaustive research has been done on musle mass, musle fiber type, aerobic capacity, etc (often,as of late, to determine predisposition to disease, obesity, etc) has been done, suggesting that different "races" or at least subcategories of groups sharing phenotypes and from similar regions do in fact show differences.  

All that said, the differences are hardly as obvious,  or simple to identify as we attempt to make them.  In fact, some white men can jump.

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