Recruiting summary? Focus on RB/DT?

Not true. It helps, but coaches gotta find a way. Once u win a few you’re not supposed to, the big ones start coming then it’s like clockwork. Look at the powers right now, once upon a time they weren’t so dominant.

Michigan has enough “stud” recruits to win a big game 

Michigan literally has the absolute worst luck at recruiting talented RB in the last 15 years, or they are literally the worst evaluators of talent in the last 15 years.  Grady, Walker, Green, Isaac, etc.  Bust...bust...bust...bust.

We have had some very solid, per recruiting sites, RB talent come to Michigan.  Unfortunately, absolutely none of them have panned out to be anything other than an average B10 running back.  That isn't going to get you B10 Championships much less Playoff spots.

The inconsistencies in recruiting is perplexing.  Harbaugh needs to take the OSU approach and recruit a balanced class every year. 

2020 is nothing like 2018. 2020 currently has 20 commits in the top 500, 2018 had 8. 2020 has 9 guys in the top 300, 2018 had 5. The average rating of the 2020 class is almost a full point higher than 2018, and there has been some really excellent chatter about a few 2020 guys that are destined to make a solid jump in the rankings like Jeff Persi, Matt Hibner, and Kris Jenkins. This class will probably finish between 10-12 in the country, with an average rating of around 0.9004 when you take out Gaige Garcia (walk on), and one other commit that has long been rumored to not be part of the class.

It'll be a very solid class with some very good players and some very quality depth. The fact is, it's a weaker year in state. Michigan doesn't have the same cache as an Ohio State, Clemson, Alabama, Georgia, and Notre Dame because of lack of recent elite success. Michigan is much more dependent on regional recruiting because of this, and this ends up lumping them in the same category as the Washington's, Oregon's, Penn State's, Oklahoma's and Texas A&M's of the world.

When blue chip recruits are picking a school, they look for a few things: How the school will set them up after football, ability to put players at their position in the NFL, ability to be on a national spotlight, ability to compete for championships, ability to play early, distance from home, and their relationship with the head coach and position coach.

Michigan excels at setting kids up after football, the relationships, and the national spotlight. They're great at getting kids to the NFL. But there's no proof of concept of competing for a championship, which is why when the other things are equal, players will gravitate towards the top tier schools. The top players in the 2019 class, 2 are immediate starters, and another rotates in. So playing time wise, they can sell that occasionally, but guys understand and are more willing to compete for a spot when the championship angle is there. The distance from home is tough, because if you're an elite player in the state of Georgia, why would you go somewhere that your family won't be able to watch you play every game, and isn't consistently winning their conference? Especially when you have two national title winners and a title runner up within a 5 hour drive of basically wherever you live. It happens occasionally, Michigan got Aubrey Solomon and Chris Hinton, but missed out on quite a few guys. I'm not going to really dive into it, because it's not worth the hassle, but players aren't going to Alabama and Clemson because they're being bought. The fact is, until Michigan wins the Big Ten, and even if they get to a playoff soon, they may have to settle with being in the 8-12 range in recruiting and getting a couple studs, and focusing more on 4 and 5 year guys than recruiting the early entrants. That's not a bad place to be in, and if the pipeline states are stronger, it can lead to the occasional top 5 class. But expecting that consistently probably isnt realistic.