Article by Washington Post today on #1 recuit in the nation for 2014, DE Da'Shawn Hand (Woodbridge, VA, about 20 min south of Wash DC). This will provide some insight on why he might be high on Michigan -- he wants an engineering degree. Look at all of the top football programs, none East of the Mississippi are quite at our level of engineering too.*
The Post, at least, makes this kid sound like the kind of quality recruit we fancy would see us as a cut above Bama and tSIO.
* I would say these are the competitive engineering programs at BCS conference schools on somewhat of the same plane as Michigan: Illinois, Penn State, Ga Tech, Auburn, Virginia, VaTech (well VaTech likes to think they are on this list). If you go further west, then Stanford (obv), Cal, TAMU, and Washington come into play. If you look at which ones are going to be football powerhouses turning out DL guys to the NFL, well, only Auburn and possibly VaTech would be real competitors. If i were a 2014 recruit, I'd worry about Beamer not being there in 2018. Same with Auburn's coach, who might not be there in 2014, frankly.
EDIT: Forgot the obvious engineering school Purdue, as has been pointed out. UT-Austin sometimes is said to be a good engineering school, but I'd be interested in those in the engineering field agree with that. Somewhat like Va-Tech, some schools claim to be good at engineering but, out in the market, companies don't necessarily see it that way.
Anything to keep him away from VT. They do have a strong engineering program.
"We've beaten Michigan the last four years. So where's the threat?"
- Mark Dantonio
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