UM Offers 2014 RB and DE (surprise!!)

Submitted by winterblue75 on

Figured some could use a move on from Hand....is offering committed kids this late in the process for 2014 a bad sign?

 

Sam Webb ‏@SamWebb77 5m

#Michigan offered 2014 Sugar Land TX RB Vic Enwere (Cal commit) & 2014 Berrien Springs MI DE JhonnyWilliams (Mizzou commit) this afternoon

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BILG

November 14th, 2013 at 2:47 PM ^

at Michigan you should have both.  Elite recruits and good development of the players.  I am not an OMG star whore who thinks every 5* is the next program savior.  However, there is not denying the correlation between recruiting rankings and on field performance when given a large enough sample size of teams and years.  Yes, Dantonio's defense is extremely impressive given the recruiting rankings.  They are Alabama lite (same schemes, just lesser talent).  However, Sparty's defense and Wisconsin's offense are doing all this in a very weak conference.  If the goal is to be mediocre midwest, you can recruit smart 3* character guys and plug them into a system.  If the goal is to compete against the elite (OSU, SEC), then we need the talent as well as player development.  Don't lower expectations just because we suck right now.   

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alum96

November 14th, 2013 at 3:03 PM ^

"However, Sparty's defense and Wisconsin's offense are doing all this in a very weak conference."

The same conference UM can't do much in the past half decade, save for 1 year.

Dude one step at a time. You are still in the mindset of "we need to be like OSU".  We are now light years away from them.  We now have to "catch up" to MSU and Wisconsin.  Once that is done we can think about catching up to OSU.  And we get the same recruits as OSU.  Look at the rankings the past 10 years.   If you think the difference between a 12-1 OSU team and a 7-6 UM team is 4-5 slots in the recruiting rankings (i.e. OSU #5, UM #10) year after year you are really not casting enough of a critical eye at our coaching staff(s).

Also your lack of respect for Sparty and what they have done the past 4 years is similar to what many here still have- they live in denial.  MSU right no is probably over the past 4 years the 3rd best program in the Big 10.  And Wisconsin has been to the Rose Bowl 3 years in a row - granted with a quirk with OSU last year, but still.  It's a good "10th to 15th" ranked program year after year....

I know what our eventual goals are here but for the past 15 years we have been mediocre.  A consistent 3-4 a year loser outside of the disaster years where it is worse.  We have had top 10-15 classes almost all those years.  The coaching and position coaching specifically gets too big of a pass by the UM fanbase.  The coaches get plenty of raw talent to work with at a school like this and have failed to walk that talent from HS recruit to top end college player far too often. 

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BILG

November 14th, 2013 at 3:08 PM ^

100% when comparing Carr to Tressel.  But OSU's decade of dominance over us and the B1G is very different when breaking it up into the Carr era vs. the RR era.  RR did not recruit top 5 classes and RR did not recruit the same type of players as Carr, for obvious schematic reasons.  I do not debate that player development and coaching is most important in getting the most out of your players and clearly we have not done that lately. But watching 3* recruits under perform vs. 4 and 5* recruits underperform wont make me feel any better.

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BigBlue02

November 15th, 2013 at 1:21 AM ^

You know what is f unny...you said Michigan was mediocre because they had consistent 3-4 year loser outside of the disaster years where it was worse. Dantonio has been at MSU for 6 years. He has had 1 season with fewer than 3 losses. He also has two 7-6 yeard, a 6-7 year, and a 9-4 year. You have basically just said we should respect Sparty for being Mediocre.You have also just said that MSU being mediocre has gotten them to the 3rd best B10 team. Your entire post is extremely ironic.

Joined: 06/29/2009

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YoOoBoMoLloRoHo

November 14th, 2013 at 9:05 PM ^

to make key plays through either athleticism or instinct. Peppers seems to have both, but the MSU guys you listed have the instinct and enough athleticism to fill the bill. JMFR has the instincts without a 5* rating. I think Reon and Channing are middling stars that could be difference makers in 2 years. I don't know which kids the staff should target but I think the D would benefit more from a raw 3* with upside than a solid 4* at this point.

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clarkiefromcanada

November 14th, 2013 at 3:14 PM ^

Recruiting is precisely what has killed us for a while

I agree wholeheartedly with this statement and, until the past two years in particular. The 2010/2011 linemen hauls are coming back to bite us in the ass repeatedly in the running game and pass protection. 

As to the post, sorry, I wasn't going for literality there. 

The thing is, for all the elite recruits we have gotten over the past we've missed some...the Nick Perry's of the world come to mind. I've seen so many "this close" to allegedly commiting to Michigan (looking at you RoJo) or sitting in the stands with our head coach (TP) that no loss on a recruit moves the needle for me any more. 

I'm blunted to it. Maybe blunt is the answer to Michigan's recruiting woes....

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SalvatoreQuattro

November 14th, 2013 at 5:35 PM ^

You move on.  No one recruit is critical. At least not for good programs. Michigan lost Hand, but could gain someone just as good next year. Or they could have someone better than Hand on the roster already.We have no idea how good Deshawn Hand is. He could be another Clowney or a bust. Getting despondent over the loss of an unproven player seems a bit absurd. 

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Magnus

November 14th, 2013 at 4:34 PM ^

Enwere is certainly interested. He said prior to the offer that he would like to visit Michigan but that he wouldn't come all the way from Texas if he hadn't been offered.

Williams has shown more interest in Michigan State than Michigan, but he doesn't have an offer from MSU.

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I dumped the Dope

November 14th, 2013 at 6:57 PM ^

Just a quick review of the highlights ...broke arm tackles ...nobody caught him from behind ...fast first step from a standstill We can use him. Also like a shot putter or heavyweight wrestler on DL. Those guys practice explosiveness every day. It seemed like in the late Bo, Mo and early Carr years we got some great guys out of TX besides our bread-and-butter Mi and Oh. Then it fell off. Take note, Coach Hoke! 8-)

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LSAClassOf2000

November 14th, 2013 at 2:50 PM ^

Some of Jhonny Williams other offers looked to be Toledo, Ball State, San Diego State, Notre Dame and Bowling Green.

Vic Enwere was offered by a lot of schools - Michigan State, Illinois and Minnesota in the Big Ten, but also Iowa State, Kansas State, Virginia, Tulsa, Houston and others. 

 

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gwkrlghl

November 14th, 2013 at 3:10 PM ^

I think it's an obvious sign we're going to strike out with other people on our radar. No other reason to offer two guys out of the blue. I've got a strong feeling we're going to whiff on McDowell too - and I think if we all look over the rims of our maize and blue glasses, a lot of us would agree it doesn't look good.

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jaylee714

November 14th, 2013 at 3:14 PM ^

Do the coaches bank the two scholarships if they can't get who they want or do they offer someone they know is going to commit just cause?

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Avon Barksdale

November 14th, 2013 at 3:20 PM ^

Banking scholarships is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Has anyone noticed the NCAA is a joke and doesn't enforce any rules? Tennessee has 19 scholarships available and just took their 31st commit. . .

We will never compete on anything other than a "MAC level" if we continue to "bank scholarships." The Big Ten is God awful and will continue to be God awful until we 25+ a year and let it pan itself out.

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Avon Barksdale

November 14th, 2013 at 3:16 PM ^

I have seen people up and down this thread say: "Player development is way more important - look at Sparty."

Yeah, let's look at Sparty. They went 11-1 in 2010 while running over the B1G on their way to getting blasted 49-7 in the Capital One bowl by Alabama. If you think it's "good" to get 3 stars and "develop" them, then the Big Ten will have major issues competing or decades to come.

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alum96

November 14th, 2013 at 4:02 PM ^

"They went 11-1 in 2010 while running over the B1G on their way to getting blasted 49-7 in the Capital One bowl by Alabama. If you think it's "good" to get 3 stars and "develop" them"

How did UM do vs Alabama with all its 4 stars?

Second, no one is saying to take all 3 stars and develop them.  They are saying take our damn 4 stars (and a few 5 stars) and develop them.  Dantonio showed what he can do with classes loaded with 4 stars, it was 2002 OSU.   Any UM coach has a running start on any MSU coach in football - the coach here has access to a higher caliber of HS player.  Sparty will ocassionally get a Lawrence Thomas or Burbridge at the very top of the class but if you put recruits #3 through #20 side by side in UM v MSU class year by year you will see a chasm in terms of ranking.

By any form of logic if the SAME level of coaching is applied to MSU class of recruit and UM class of recruit the UM players overall should have a higher ceiling and come out a superior player in 4 years through the system.   That is what people (such as me) are asking for.  Not to take lower level recruits - UM gets the same type of recruits as OSU.  OSU is developing them - the play on the field is the evidence.  The jury is out on what sort of development we are getting.  And past development was lacking... it is not just us, Notre Dame has cycled though a bunch of average coaches and left a lot of on the table.  Texas save for Vince Young era has left a lot of on the table.  That would point to coaching staffs who are lacking in development skills.

You would be hard pressed to name more than 5-6 kids who really have made significant progress from late August to early November.   And you can make a case a few kids have regressed.  Sparty looks a lot better even on defense than they did 3 months ago, and so does OSU esp on defense.  Can you make that case here?  At both the individual level and team level.

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