Returning Contributors - with 247 Rating

Submitted by Oost on

Hi guys - working on a project for myself, so I thought I'd share it with you as well. Here's a list of key returning contributors with their 247 recruiting rating. This is not exhaustive, and this is not intended to be a depth chart. But these are guys I think will be important to Michigan's success next year.

Offense:

QB - Speight - .8728

RB/FB - Hill - .8575, Poggi - .9419, Higdon - .8715, Evans - .8911

WR - Harris - .9663, Ways - .8687, Crawford - .9425, McDoom - .8794

TE - Bunting - .8904, Wheatley - .8953, Asiasi - .9626, McKeon - .8493

OL - Cole - .9408, JBB - .8887, Ulizio - .8343, Bredeson - .9790, Onwenu - .9549, Runyan - .8403, Spanellis - .8543 (Newsome - .9074)

 

Defense:

DL - Gary - 1.000, Hurst - .9038, Mone - .9434, Winovich - .8938, Marshall, - .9250 Kemp - .8954, Dwumfour - .8453, Jones - .8540

LB - McCray - .9370, Bush - .8921, Furbush - .8666, Metellus - .8540

DB - Clark - .8699, Kinnel - .9180, Watson - .8513, Long - .9658, Hill - .9359, Hudson - .8819

Key takeaways (and nothing you all don't already know):

  • Michigan's got a long way to go to be as "highly-touted" as OSU and Alabama, especially when you compare this list to their returning contributors.
  • Too many of Michigan's returing contributors from the 2013-2015 classes were ranked as low 4-stars or high-3 stars coming out of HS. There's Mason Cole, Bryan Mone, Mike McCray, and maybe Drake Harris and Henry Poggi who I would consider as highly-ranked coming out of HS who will contribute next year. Out of 22 positions, that's at-most 5 that can be occupied by a upper-class, highly-ranked recruit. I'm not discounting the contributions of players like Hurst, Hill, Kinnel, etc.; just pointing out that they've likely out-played their HS ranking.
  • 2016 and especially 2017 will go a long way to helping fill Michigan's depth chart with highly-ranked recruits.

Looking forward to your thoughts.

ken725

January 4th, 2017 at 12:41 PM ^

Poggi was highly ranked, but that was at DT. If the services had him as a FB, i don't think he would be a 4 star. 4 star FB are very rare. 

I also love seeing that 1.000 next to Gary's name.

michiganfanforlife

January 4th, 2017 at 12:46 PM ^

Ty Isaac feels like the newest "guy who does little at Michigan and goes on to start in the NFL" to me. I hope I'm wrong, and I would start Evans if given the chance next year. It just feels like he's been in the doghouse for whatever reason.




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robpollard

January 4th, 2017 at 12:47 PM ^

Not perfect, or close to it, of course. But when you look at it, you say "Yep, Gary is our best & most promising DL; Asiasi is our best TE; McCray is our best LB; the OL looks about right."



Of course, Hurst is in actuality clearly better than Marshall, and McDoom and Harris could probbaly switch places, etc.



But overall, it shows (again) that having high-level recruits leads to more chances of high-level success on the field. Not earth-shaking info, but good to see some actual data in a year that will have a lot of turnover where will be relying a lot on young, high-level recruits (a la OSU and Alabama, though our recruiting is not quite at their level yet).



Thanks for putting it together.

Nolongerusingaccount

January 4th, 2017 at 12:50 PM ^

Frankly, I don't care about being as highly touted as OSU or Alabama. We were only five points from being undefeated.

Yes, I believe Harbaugh is recruiting better. I also believe they are better coached than in the past. Thus, I'm optimistic regardless of whether we don't have the same amount of points under 247.

As long as we are consistently top ten and are bringing in the additional athleticism, we will be able to compete and hopefully win




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michgoblue

January 4th, 2017 at 1:11 PM ^

I hear what you are saying, but at the end of the day, why is it that OSU and Bama have been flat out dominant for so long?  Sure, Saban and Meyer are once (or twice) in a generation coaches, but they also have the most talented rosters year after year. 

I believe that Harbaugh at least in the discussion of being as good as Meyer and Saban.  But even if he is, when we play OSU yearly, you have equal coaching with a roster advantage to OSU.  That's not the recipe for long term success. 

At the end of the day, watching Clemson dismantle OSU, and watching Bama easily handle Washington, the thing that jumped out at me was the incredible athleticism and talent on both Clemson and Bama.  We need to get our program up to that talent level to routinely be in the playoff picture.

Also, as to the point about being 5 points away from undefeated, I hear what you are saying, but keep in mind that we accomplished that with a team consisting largely of seniors.  I think that the OP's point was that for the next few years, we will have a team that is either upperclassmen who are less highly-touted or athletic, more touted players who are freshmen and sophs. 

ChiCityWolverine

January 4th, 2017 at 12:56 PM ^

Drawing an arbitrary line at top 150ish will never tell the whole story. Kinnell, Newsome (an injury wild card, I realize), Winovich, and Hurst were all top 300 recruits. Wheatley, Bunting, and JBB barely missed that cutoff. Other than JBB, all of those guys figure to be impact players in 2017 and beyond.

Most of that group had serious interest from solid Power 5 programs or better and would project as strong contributors. We all understand the need to add elite players to the roster, but discounted some for being "low 4-stars" despite their considerable potential on the field is dumb. Hurst is ticketed for the NFL eventually, and I'd guess a couple more of these guys will join him. 

Oost

January 4th, 2017 at 1:24 PM ^

Yes, I agree drawing an arbitrary line doesn't tell the whole story. But given the standard deviation in rankings such as these, and given the data the NFL draft bears out, highly-ranked recruits are more likely to be successful and contribute at a higher level to their teams. For every low 4-star like Hurst who turns into a 1st-round pick, there's another 5 that end up with ho-hum careers.

Even looking at 2017: Michigan has Jeter, Hudson, Malone-Hatcher and Irving-Bey that are ranked with a few points of each other as low 4-stars. What are the odds all 4 will be key-contributors to Michigan? What are the odds any of them end up all-B1G players? What are the odds any are drafted in the 1st or 2nd round?

Put it this way: I'd rather Michigan be pulling players from a top-100 pool that has somewhere from a 50-75% success rate at being key contributors to their college team than a pool of 101-300-ranked players that have closer to a 33% success rate at being key contributors to their college team.

reddogrjw

January 4th, 2017 at 1:00 PM ^

along with some high rated 3-stars

will take care of things

every recruit for 2017 is a 4-star on at least 1 site except Kurt Taylor - even beter than the 2016 class

2 more classes like this and we'll be rock solid with starters and depth

Blue in Paradise

January 4th, 2017 at 1:12 PM ^

Recruiting rankings only matter until mid-way through your sophomore season (or thereabouts). This is the point in time where the median player can be expected to begin contributing to the team during games.

At that point, only thing that matters is what you are showing on the field.

Oost

January 4th, 2017 at 1:27 PM ^

I don't think a back who got 0 carries against OSU or FSU is coming back. Or if he does, he's not playing a huge role. Walker RS - I didn't include any Redshirts except Spanellis, who's like our 7th OL at the moment (even though he'll get passed by Ruiz and others IMO).

Blue in Paradise

January 4th, 2017 at 1:21 PM ^

NDSU only have around 5 kids that came in as low 3 stars and nobody higher than that. Yet I would take them over 75% of FBS teams, including 5 - 6 B1G teams.

Recruiting rankings are important but only part of the overall picture.

doggdetroit

January 4th, 2017 at 1:52 PM ^

You are far more likely to win a national title if you recruit a higher ratio of 4 and 5 stars than your competitors. The FBS equivalent of NDSU is probably Wisconsin, which relies almost exclusively on 3 stars with a few 4 stars sprinkled in. Wisconsin will never win a national title. I don't want to be Wisconsin.

Blue in Paradise

January 4th, 2017 at 2:45 PM ^

Is whether recruiting rankings matter more than how guys are actually playing on the field? Would you trade Chris Evans to get Derrick Green back just to improve our avg rankings?

I said they rankings are important- it is a given that you need talent to compete at the highest levels (and rankings are the best proxy that fans have gauge that talent). But it is only part of the puzzle.

Blue in Paradise

January 4th, 2017 at 2:46 PM ^

Is whether recruiting rankings matter more than how guys are actually playing on the field? Would you trade Chris Evans to get Derrick Green back just to improve our avg rankings?

I said they rankings are important- it is a given that you need talent to compete at the highest levels (and rankings are the best proxy that fans have gauge that talent). But it is only part of the puzzle.

SeattleWolverine

January 4th, 2017 at 2:11 PM ^

Not sure that this is the right way to handle it but I like the general idea. I'd probably look at the entire roster, because to some extent, a lot of recuiting is imprecise on a player level but at a positional level level you try to get ~6-8 highly rated corners and hope that 2-3 of them are good. Recruiting success is really about depth of talent rather than the individual ratings of guys.

 

Like with Speight, ok, if he is a 3 stars or 0.85 or whatever but he beats out Peters, Malzone, McCaffrey, and O'Korn, what does that 0.85 mean? The overall reality at QB is that we have some solid 4 star guys, no true 5 star really as McCaffrey is maybe not quite tehre, and a 3 star beat our 3x 4 stars (also 4 stars Morris and Gentry previously). If he is good enough to beat out 5x 4 stars, is he maybe more like a 4 star himself? Because to me, it seems like by citing Speight's 0.85 it seems like you are trying to indicate that we have 0.85 level talent as QB. But since individual recruiting rankings are imperfect, that's a bit misleading when we have a bunch of other 4 star options. Don't think that you are getting accurate info i you indicate that we have 3 star Minnesota/Indiana-esque talent at that position by boiling it down to 0.85. 

 

Also, 2nd and 3rd string quality matters for depth, as we saw with Peppers, Butt, Newsome, Speight etc so you gotta factor that in somehow because even if you have Butt as your All American TE, he can get injured any time. 

 

On the flip side, like with Gary, he can't play ever snap etc and our recruiting for his position is not perfect even if he is a 1.000 because the quality of guys getting some snaps and in the pipeline for the future matters too. 

 

Ideally you'd want some sort of weighting too for experience and time in the program but in practice that gets maybe too complex. An 18 year old 1.000 OT w/o time in the S+C program or experience is worth less, right now. Our roster for 2017 and even maybe 2018 will skew pretty young for the talent. 

BlueinOK

January 4th, 2017 at 3:12 PM ^

When you're a junior or senior I don't really care about stars anymore. At that point, we get a pretty good idea of where they are at.