Michigan's receiver corps once the Collins-DPJ-Black era ends was already shaky before Oliver Martin's painful departure. Now things are even slimmer after one of their three outside receiver recruits in the last two cycles announced he'll lose at least a season to a "medical finding":
That's pretty vague, and a lot of things can turn up in a physical, from improperly healed old injuries that require surgery, to heart conditions. Here's hoping it's just the former.
Kent was a late find out of Lakewood St. Ed's, an power private school near Cleveland. The few eyes we got on him saw an extremely good route runner with elite acceleration off the line and strong footwork—the kind of prospect who doesn't look like much in testing numbers or generate many stars from the industry, but produces early and often in college. He also was a willing blocker. I'm guessing his YMRMFSPA was going to be Roy Roundtree, a guy whose name peppers Michigan's career, season, and game record books, and a guy who featured in many of the greatest highlights of his era. Any stargazer who thinks this isn't a big loss because of recruiting rankings has no idea what they're talking about.
It's not clear if this affects Kent just this year or his entire career. If you take a medical scholarship you can't come and play football again, and it seems from the tweet that Michigan and Kent aren't ready to make it permanent yet. It's a small bummer to lose a down-roster true freshman at a strong position this year, but it would be a huge one to lose a receiver for 2020 if the NFL takes the kind of bite out of the depth chart we expect it to. After DPJ, Collins and Black, Michigan has just Ronnie Bell from the 2018 class, Cornelius Johnson from this one, and the slots and guys they're recruiting now. Also the likelihood that Erick All stays at receiver just ticked up a notch.
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