TomVH: Quick Greg Garmon Update
I spoke with Pennsylvania RB Greg Garmon tonight and he told me that he's planning on making it out to Ann Arbor in one or two weeks. He has Michigan in his top three with Penn State, and has North Carolina as the leader for now.
He told me that this visit will help him to get to know Michigan better, which is important for his evaluation of the program. It sounds like Michigan has some ground to make up with North Carolina, but nothing that can't be over come.
April 26th, 2011 at 12:16 AM ^
Sounds good. Sure love to get us Dunn, though, now that the fall of the OSU Empire has begun.
April 26th, 2011 at 12:22 AM ^
I've seen a lot of comments regarding the possibility of Dunn switching to us. Is that really a possibility? I just cant see any recruit who pledged to OSU switching to Michigan. Was he ever interested in us?
April 26th, 2011 at 12:34 AM ^
That is exactly what I was wondering. I talked to a few guys I trust a lot and they both said there is "maybe a 25% chance he would switch, if your an optimistic fan who knows anything can happen with high school recruits." But they disagreed on the fact that one said it would almost depend more on tOSU's "top" recruit at RB and that the sanctions will only have a major affect if they aren't allowed to go to bowl games like USC while the other said that he has heard that he likes Tressel and with him gone he may de-commit immediately. Tom what do you think?
It looks to me like OSU is aiming for a potential resignation after the 2011 regular season -- that is, they want to stretch the process out until then (I'm not sure if they will succeed, but I think that's the strategy), so they can do an ideal coaching search, timed not unlike the 2007 Michigan search.
I suspect most of their class would hold together at that point, with a lot of the other elite programs already close to full up.
Disagree with this. Michigan and Ohio State have always been bitter rivals in recruiting, and as the two best programs in the Big Ten (traditionally), many recruits have had interest in both. This is especially true for players in Michigan and Ohio IMO. Don't think a recruit switching is out of the realm of possibility at all.
Now going to the other school after already playing at the other? Think there's only been one since the 40's, and that's that fucker Justin Boren. May he suffer for eternity.
April 26th, 2011 at 12:36 AM ^
Initial reaction: Seems to have really good speed and size with potential to add more lower body muscle. He is explosive in the open field. Has good agility, though not great, and sees open field well. Runs too high however, and is too dependent on speed to beat slower defenders, doesn't display much power or use of hands to shed blockers.
In my opinion he is a solid RB prospect and a better safety prospect. But I'd take him at either if I were a Michigan coach.
April 26th, 2011 at 12:37 AM ^
I agree. He seems to have good hands too, looks a lot like a wr playing rb.
April 26th, 2011 at 12:41 AM ^
"Shed blockers" should read shed tacklers. The film doesn't really show any clips where he is forced to shed blockers. Playing safety it wouldn't be a huge issue.
April 26th, 2011 at 12:42 AM ^
This recruit definitely has the customary "slight speed advantage" so that's not anything too special.
He has good balance, which compensates for running too high. I don't know how I feel about the old-timey filter on the highlights. That said, I like watching the kid play, especially with a team that can block decently. Hopefully he won't try the improvised end-around too often in college.
That's a crazy 75-yard run starting three yards shy of the endzone @ 1:10.
April 26th, 2011 at 12:52 AM ^
A bunch of his runs ended up going 20 yards in the negative before going positive. Anybody else have McGuffie flashbacks? The young man will have to unlearn that at the next level.
The next clip they show after that just look at the end zone. The letters are all backwards. For some reason they just flipped the same highlight and put it in there twice.
That play itself is nice that he had the vision and speed I guess, but it really won't correlate to the college game so I'm not sure how much it really means in the end besides if he tries to do it in college and gets a 20 yard loss. I'll assume he will learn better before he would actually reach the field.
Still, good highlight tape.
Has he been to Michigan before? or did he just throw us in his top three? Either way, glad to see us up there.
I don't think he has been on campus yet, at least not this year.
I couldn't remember him being on campus either. That means he's already attracted to Michigan and will probably (hopefully) love his visit.
Having UM and UNC as a Pennsylvania kid shows hes got interest in good acadamia (quotes/background research aside) and I was wondering if PSU is in the same class or is that just the hometown team for him. On a side not as a curious fan, where would the conference rank behind 1.NW 2.UM 3???
By US News rankings, I believe Penn State is ranked something like 8th or 9th in the conference. Still though, there isn't a single "bad" school in the B10. You're going to get a quality education everywhere.
12) NU
29) Michigan
[30) UNC]
45) Wisconsin
T47) PSU
T47) Illinois
IIRC they're also very good in certain programs (business especially, I think).
Interesting. I was under the impression that schools like Minnesota and Indiana were ahead of them. I know Penn State does have a good business school.
Which, it's the Big Ten, so yeah, it's about 25th nationally and about 6th in conference.
(8 of the 12 Big Ten schools are top 30 and 10 are top 60, Indiana doesn't have a program and Nebraska is an extreme outlier at 95)
April 26th, 2011 at 10:28 AM ^
I think a lot of that depends more on the specific program. Business, for example, would definitely move a school like Indiana up the list as the Kelley school is quite good.
April 26th, 2011 at 12:34 PM ^
IU is very good at several specialties (I'm at their School of Public and Environmental Affairs right now, ranked second in the nation) but their liberal arts program isn't on par with M/NU and the other top ones. Obviously engineering gets overshadowed by Purdue, but Kelley is very good, SPEA is about as good as it gets and Jacobs, the music school, is pretty highly regarded too.
Honestly though, if you have a degree from any of the B1G schools and you do fairly well, you'll be fine. All twelve of them are really good in at least one field.
T56) Ohio State
T56) Purdue
T64) Minn.
T72) Iowa
T75) Indiana
T79) Michigan State
T104) Nebraska
All and all, pretty impressive that 11/12 schools are in the top 100
To compare: number of top 50 by conference
ACC: 7/12
Big 12: 1/10
Big Ten: 5/12
Big East: 2/16
PAC12: 5/12
SEC: 1/12
That's funny...you never really think of the ACC as a powerhouse academic conference. But I guess with Duke, UVA, UNC, Wake Forest, etc it's not doing so badly.
Who is #7? Maryland?
Georgia Tech
FWIW, Maryland is tied for 56, Clemson 64, Virginia Tech 69. The two just outside the top 100 are NC State and FSU
9) Duke
25) Virginia
25) Wake Forest
30) UNC
31) Boston College
35) Georgia Tech
47) Miami
So Maryland (56) just misses the cut. The ACC also has Clemson (64) and Virginia Tech (69) are also in the top 100. Only FSU (104) and NC State (111) are outside the top 100. This is only of the reasons I love the B1G 10 - ACC Challenge. Since (IMHO) it matches the two best academic and basketball conferences against each other.
But what I love more then this, is that the SEC only has one team in the top 50, Vanderbilt, which is arguably the only "clean" school in the SEC.
And that ends my little off-topic rant.
P.S. I blame you for making me due this.
April 26th, 2011 at 10:19 AM ^
you should use ARWU, QS world university ranking, or times higher education world university ranking.
These are rankings that are skewed toward undergraduate programs, and done by what many consider to be an inferior publication using inferior methodologies. By comparison, Michigan is generally ranked as somewhere between 15th and 25th in the world by the more sophisticated organizations (e.g. QS World University Rankings, which even U.S. News uses for its top 400). These generally put UM pretty far above the rest of the Big Whatever, with Northwestern usually being next, followed by Wisconsin:
http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-ran…
Some services are a bit different, but all have Michigan looking in the rear view mirror at schools like Penn State, Indiana, etc., which don't ever show up.
FWIW. Yuri Wright a Michigan target from New Jersey made a jump in the rankings on scout, he is now the #6 overall corner in the class of 2012. Sorry if this has already been mentioned.
ReRouting...
His running style reminds me a little bit of Carlos Brown. I'm not sure if that's good or bad, but that's who I see.
Does that mean he will go down if someone barely touches his jersey.
Speaking of RB's I see Donovan Roberts is announcing this weekend. Are we in his top group that we should be waiting for his announcement?
He's announcing tomorrow and is apparently visiting Arkansas the same day. Infer what you will from that...
I really doubt it will be Michigan. AFAIK, he's never visited Ann Arbor.
If Mahone can get his grades in order, I think he would be a good get. He is going to end up being the best RB in Ohio by the time signing day comes around anyway. Warren Ball is completely overated. I watched him get shut down by great and mediocre teams, and most of his production was against sub-par competition. Bri'onte Dunn and Mahone seem pretty comparable with Dunn being slightly larger but Mahone being slightly faster. Either way, there is some good talent out there that we are in position to have a chance at a commitment.
Where have you heard about Mahone having grade problems? I heard the reason he hasn't been offered is due to fred jackson not being enamored with the camp he had at UM last year. Our staff seems to think he may be better suited at LB. He has northwestern, vandy and BC offers - don't think grades are the problem.
I trust the staff, but looking at Mahone's film I think this kid should have been offered yesterday. Not to mention we aren't in on too many other RBs very strongly (outside of top group for Garmon).
I haven't hear about grade issues either. It seems like Mahone is really interested in psu and msu. I personally want him to get an offer, I think he will be rated higher once they re-do the rankings.
I should clarify that his 2.5 GPA is somewhat low for UM standards and could raise the typical question of whether or not he can handle the college load. I was not trying to imply any NCAA qualification issues or issues with test scores. I still stick by my statement that I believe he will be the best RB in Ohio (class of 2012) by the end of this year.
Does he know that Ann Arbor is much different than Pittsburgh? I don't want him to pull a Christian.
I am so relieved to receive an update on our RB recruiting. Personally I'm hoping we can land either I'Tavius Mathers or Donovan Roberts. I see a previous posting stating that Roberts may be deciding this weekend -- man, I hope we have a shot at him!
April 26th, 2011 at 10:11 AM ^
We don't need a running back. We have 8. One more would be 9.
It would be great if we got a STAR running back, but otherwise, there's no reason to have 9/85 scholarships devoted to a position that only sees 2 or 3 kids play in a given game. Do we really need 6 scholarship running backs sitting on the bench?
April 26th, 2011 at 10:13 AM ^
And Coach Hoke seems to want one main back. Besides V Smith on 3rd downs, what are the other guys going to do.
April 26th, 2011 at 11:32 AM ^
As a followup to Magnus comment -- agreed, what we need is a star rb.
Not just another rb to join our stable of serviceable but not amazing rbs... rather I'm talking about a T Wheatley - Tshimanga - Chris Perry - Brandon Minor couldabeen if he hadn't always been hurt running back!
Tom, there is a leak on the scout forums that there are two silents. Do you have any info on it that you can confirm?