Recruiting for the Defense

Submitted by Shalom Lansky on

With Rich Rod's reputation for offensive wizardry (and for wizard hats) I'm not surprised that he has been able to load up depth at skill positions on offense.

Depth is lacking on the defensive side of the ball. Two years in, I'm not suggesting that Michigan, under Rodriguez, can't or won't be able to recruit highly skilled defenders in sufficient number, but with his reputation and focus in line more with the offense, is there reason to be concerned that Michigan's defense will be overlooked relative to the offense?

Is RR heavily involved in recruiting on defense? I imagine having a head coach involved along with coordinators and positional coaches would have quite a strong effect on a recruit.

Maybe TomVH can chime in, does Michigan recruit defense with the same intensity it recruits offense?

Can GERG become a brand of his own that high school players will be interested to play in his system, the way offensive players are re: Rich Rod?

J. Lichty

September 21st, 2009 at 11:44 AM ^

from most accounts - Gerg is not much of a recruiter - he is truly a man behind the curtain.

I think the coaches have definitely put effort into the defensive side of the ball, but have swung and missed at some recruits in positions of need.

I dont think offensive recruiting helps. What defensive player would not love to play downhill with an explosive offense to back them up. I think defensive depth was much worse when RR came on board and it will take some time.

We already have some excellent defensive recruits in the upcoming class and should land a few more (Olaniyan, Cullen) before the class is done.

I would not worry about this too much - depth will improve and success will bring more high profile defensive players in, but just pray that Warren sticks around for his senior year.

TomVH

September 21st, 2009 at 12:08 PM ^

Greg Robinson is not known as a recruiter, but it doesn't mean he doesn't help with recruiting. His resume speaks a lot to the recruits, as someone that coached for Texas, and also won a Super Bowl.

If you think about it, though, from a recruits point of view, this is the first year for Greg Robinson at Michigan. We've had 3 defensive coordinators now in the last 3 years. The last they saw of Greg Robinson was losing at Syracuse as a head coach.

While I don't see this as big of a problem as a lot of you, I think it's hard to catch a recruit's attention with what has happened here. It's getting late with recruiting, so it's going to be tough to attract new defensive recruits for this class. The kids that were already interested in us are impressed. This year, so far, has given them a good picture of how they would be used, and how Greg Robinson is as a coach.

It's tough to sell a product that doesn't exist, so with some visible evidence we'll start to see it pick up. Again, I don't see this as big of a problem as a lot of other people do.

I think Marvin Robinson and Kenny Wilkins are going to be solid players for us. We're still in it for Cullen Christian, Aramide Olaniyan, Tony Grimes, Rashad Knight, and a few others. We have Greg Brown (DB) committed for next years class, and are already in on some big name defensive players. So, just be patient, and wait. This season has already done a lot for recruiting.

Koyote

September 21st, 2009 at 12:10 PM ^

I would guess that the GERG's pedigree of two superbowl rings might attract a few defensive players (if people can say it about Charlie Weis, why can't we about GERG?).

One of the things that hurt us for this year's recruiting is that many people were unsure of what the new Michigan D would look like. It would be helpful to have a few more games with big showings like the WMU game.

Magnus

September 21st, 2009 at 12:16 PM ^

Coordinators really don't have that much to do with recruiting. They (and the head coach) decide who's worth recruiting, but the position coaches are the ones who do all/most of the leg work.