Tom Lemming: MSU might have best recruiting class in state!?
This should give MSU fans something to be happy about. But then again, this is Tom "ND HOMER" Lemming talking who has a fat head poster of Jimmy Clausen in his speedos plastered on the ceiling above his bed.
EDIT: Lemming was just on and explained himself. He actually made sense imho. He also made Sam look like a fool, again imho.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090130/SPORTS0202/9…
January 30th, 2009 at 8:14 AM ^
"Michigan, however, remains on the list of at least three big-time recruits -- defensive end Sam Montgomery of Greenwood, S.C., defensive back Dre Kirkpatrick of Gadsden City, Ala., and linebacker Barkevious Mingo of West Monroe, La."
Umm... Dre Kirkpatrick??? Did this guy do any research? Mingo he can make a case for, albeit a small one. Articles like this are just annoying. Do some research. Michigan would love Dre, but in all reality it is common knowledge that Michigan has no chance for his services.
January 30th, 2009 at 8:24 AM ^
More impact players??? Has he even looked at our class.
January 30th, 2009 at 8:26 AM ^
This article is very ill informed.
January 30th, 2009 at 1:17 PM ^
I believe you give him way too much credit.
January 30th, 2009 at 8:26 AM ^
Lemming traditionally is one of the most egotistical "recruiting analysts" out there. Call him the Chris Mortensen of HS recruiting as he really doesn't do his own research and likes to make provocative statements at times his publications are coming out to generate buzz (and sales). Notice he says Mich St "could" be rated higher than Michigan and Mich St MIGHT crack the Top 20. Whereas evey other recruting service has Mich Top 20 and some even have Mich Top 10. Lemming is what you call in statistics, an outlier.
January 30th, 2009 at 11:50 AM ^
He's a full-out liar.
January 30th, 2009 at 8:31 AM ^
Scout, Rivals, and damn near everyone else has Michigan's class ranked higher .... except Lemming.
January 30th, 2009 at 8:37 AM ^
This is really a non-issue, though. Other than being stupid, it doesn't really matter - WE know that Michigan's recruiting class has better players overall, and we have our entire football history to back up the fact that Michigan is a better program.
January 30th, 2009 at 8:48 AM ^
"Locally, they got everyone they wanted."
Yeah right, since they didn't want Big Will, or maybe he isn't local :)?
BTW, Rivals has M at 7, MSU at 15, and Scout has M at 18 and MSU at 35.
January 30th, 2009 at 8:54 AM ^
How many would have gone to U of M had they been given offers by RR?
January 30th, 2009 at 9:14 AM ^
This MIGHT be true if ALL of our recruits flop and ALL of their recruits exceed expectations. If that happens then this is a well informed article.
January 30th, 2009 at 9:55 AM ^
As long as we get the top player in the state, and continue strong with our national efforts and our efforts in Florida, this really is a non issue.
January 30th, 2009 at 9:56 AM ^
They had Will Campbell ranked as the #12 player in the state.
January 30th, 2009 at 10:51 AM ^
How many teams have won the BCS championship game with primarily midwest recruits?
One, sorta: OSU. And they did it with admittedly ineligible Maruice Clarett. Also, like PSU, OSU recruits nationally.
Midwest kids are OK if you want to be the best of the little eight. But you have to recruit nationally if you want to win the Big Ten on a regular basis and you definitely have to recruit the south if you want to win the National Championship.
At this point, sheep have more reason to fear MSU than UM, PSU, or OSU do.
Baaaaaa.
January 30th, 2009 at 10:52 AM ^
I think looking back at his record it is at least as good as Rival's, arguably better, but ultimately--so? He states that sparty is ahead in his opinion pending the final 5 guys we have possibly committing. Ok, so? After we get the guys we know are likely to come that situation will change, which he admits. He is not alone in stating that sparty got a great class this year. He also, in his first look at this year's class, had Forcier as the #50 something player in the nation, much higher than Rivals or Scout. Still think he sucks?
I don't care one way or another about Lemming, but I'm not sure why all the outrage kicks in over one Dude's opinion. He could be right, and if so would our world be upended? No, we're Michigan and we will return, and beating sparty will be a part of that, regardless of how highly a class is ranked.
January 30th, 2009 at 11:37 AM ^
but all that matters is results on the field. According the CFN, Utah and Boise State had 2005 recruiting classes ranked far below any of the major powers, and that didn't prevent them from ending up highly ranked this year. If we're winning B10 titles and bowl games and beating MSU and OSU in the process, I don't think too many people will obsess over our rankings. If we succeed on the field and have high recruiting rankings, fans will point to them as accurate predictors. If we succeed in spite of lower rankings, fans will gleefully talk about how rankings are overrated. If we fail with high rankings, the coaching staff will be excoriated for not being able to develop all that wonderful talent. If we fail with low rankings, the coaching staff will be hammered for not being able to recruit.
Another CFN factoid: over the last 15 years, Michigan has the highest average recruiting class ranking of any program in the country, coming in at 6. There are plenty of years where we finished considerably lower than that at the end of the season. That's probably the case for most of the highly-ranked recruiting teams. I think recruiting is very important, but IMHO it's a black art, not a science. You're making educated guesses about how 17- and 18-yr olds are going to develop, and that's harder to do than outguess the stock market.
January 30th, 2009 at 11:30 AM ^
many of Michigan's finest players came from out of state.
Don't mean to discount Michigan high school football kids.
They're great too.
Over the last 40 years of Michigan football 3 of the 4 most electrifying players came from out of state:
Rick Leach - Michigan
Anthony Carter - Florida
Desmond Howard - Ohio
Charles Woodson - Ohio
And Michigan landed the best players in both states of Ohio (Turner) and Michigan (Campbell).
January 30th, 2009 at 11:32 AM ^
This seems to be common sense. The talent hotbeds are California, Florida, and Texas. Any good program outside of those states is going to have to find out-of-state talent in order to compete on a high level.
January 30th, 2009 at 11:37 AM ^
Mario Manningham (Ohio), Mike Hart (New York), Chad Henne (Pennsylvania)
January 30th, 2009 at 11:52 AM ^
Braylon (Michigan), Woodley (Michigan), Brandon Graham (Michigan), Jake Long (Michigan).
Let's not make it seem like our state doesn't produce some talent.
January 30th, 2009 at 12:14 PM ^
i thought we were listing evidence supporting out of state recruiting being a good thing as well
January 30th, 2009 at 11:33 AM ^
I've found Lemming to be interesting,but pointless.
January 30th, 2009 at 1:23 PM ^
Interesting but pointless?
January 30th, 2009 at 2:46 PM ^
Conventional wisdom led to me to that conclusion.
January 30th, 2009 at 11:46 AM ^
I could care less how the class is ranked against others, only that it addresses UM's needs. UM is loaded with RBs, while State has some depth issues after this season - so they loaded up with this class while UM took a pass. UM needed a good QB prospect and they got him in Tate. The only area where I think UM and MSU really competed for a player was Norman, and judos to MSU for nabbing a good player. If a team addresses its needs in recruiting effectively, then it has a "good" class, no matter how the recruiting services rank it.
State is clearly focusing on shoring up the talent in MI and OH - 19 of their 22 recruits are from those two states. I will leave the debate over the sanity of that to others, though I will note that MSU will have a hard time going head-to-head against both OSU and UM for local talent, which may doom them to the middle of the Big 11 pack.
January 30th, 2009 at 12:01 PM ^
The battle for Norman is somewhat overblown. Norman committed BEFORE signing day 2008, when we had 4 linebacker commits. Once Witherspoon and Hill washed out, only then did we really need linebackers. But the kid had already been committed for about 7 months at that point.
January 30th, 2009 at 1:02 PM ^
True. My point is that Norman is really the only kid that UM probably "wanted" that MSU signed. But yeah, there was never really any head-to-head "competition" between the schools.
January 30th, 2009 at 12:01 PM ^
Off the top of my head, I'd say that Norman & Baker are the only recruits that I would really want from MSU's '09 recruits, so, I couldn't care less what Lemming has to say about the two classes.
January 30th, 2009 at 1:50 PM ^
I just listened to it on WTKA, and it was funny. He named like 10 MSu commits that are impact players and 5 UM players.
I heard that Tom Lemming does not like Rich Rod. Why???
January 30th, 2009 at 3:34 PM ^
"They got the best lineman from Iowa (offensive tackle David Barrent of West Des Moines"
Ummmmm... is that supposed to mean something?
January 30th, 2009 at 3:40 PM ^
That guy is actually very highly rated. Top 100 recruit.