Scouting Report: Eldridge Massington
This week's scouting report is on Mesquite (TX) West Mesquite wide receiver Eldridge Massington. He's 6'3", 205 lbs. and claims a 4.5 forty. Michigan has a good shot at pulling him in; however, USC is supposed to be his favorite, despite the fact that the Trojans haven't offered yet. Massington looks a little bit like David Terrell to me. Big kid, good leaper, good but not great speed. He's not quite as quick as Terrell, though.
USC is coming in to look at him today. Based on the numerous conversations I've had with Eldridge, if they offered, I wouldn't be surprised at all if he committed on the spot. This is something Brian Perroni at Rivals tweeted last night as well.
Michigan was his favorite for a while, but he's been getting attention from other bigtime programs lately. He had mentioned USC to me back in February or so, but his coaches had only heard from them once or twice. Now that it's heating up, things are changing and the odds of Eldridge coming to Michigan are shrinking.
Just curious, how would you rank Treadwell, Allen, Stringfellow, Larue, Massington, and anyone else I forgot based on talent?
1. Treadwell
2. Massington
3. Allen
4. Larue
I haven't watched much of Stringfellow yet, so I can't say much about him. I do like all those guys, though. I've said this before, but I'll mention it again: the difference between the guys Hoke is offering and the guys Rodriguez offered is noticeable. Some people have mentioned that I've been more positive in my reviews of players lately, but that's largely a function of whom Hoke is offering. There's not as much to complain about when he's offering elite athletes. That doesn't mean all of them will pan out, but the difference is significant.
Can you expand on the difference (besides the height and dreads vs. no dreads)? Is the difference mainly that the WRs being recruited by Hoke are simply larger and better suited for a pro-style offense (maybe a bit slower initially but larger and with more pass blocking abilities) or is it something further?
I'm obviously not Magnus, but based on his previous writings and what I've seen on tape, they're simply better athletes. We all remember when 4 of the first commits in the 2010 class were Jeremy Jackson, Jerald Robinson, Ricardo Miller, and DJ Williamson, don't we? Aside from Miller, who had a substantial amount of hype at that time, none of those guys really seemed to be elite athletes, or have high ceilings down the road. A majority of the offers that have gone out, thus far, are of a much higher caliber than those types of players. The same is true across various positions
I almost forgot about Miller, since he moved to TE (and now back to WR). You could really see during his senior year at Pioneer that he just didn't have the speed to play wide receiver effectively. I don't think it was quite as obvious when he was an underclassman in Florida, for whatever reason. But he actually looked like he got slower as he matured. And everyone thought "WTF?" when he offered Williamson, who barely lasted a year in the program. Outside of Roy Roundtree, whose effectiveness on the outside is still up in the air, Rodriguez's wide receiver recruiting was atrocious.
Size has a lot to do with it (TWSS). The catching radius for a guy like Martavious Odoms (and I love Odoms, don't get me wrong) is much smaller than a guy like Eldridge Massington. Especially when you have an inaccurate quarterback like Denard Robinson, it's helpful to have a guy like Junior Hemingway (who was recruited by Lloyd Carr) who can go up and get balls that someone like Odoms simply can't. When Rodriguez first came to Michigan, I assumed that he would use guys like Odoms, Gallon, Robinson, etc. on bubble screens, end arounds, and trick plays more often than he did. Instead, he had little guys running routes that big guys could have run just as easily, although the occasional bubble screen was useful.
On top of that, the recruitment of outside receivers was pretty pitiful, in my opinion. A guy like Jeremy Jackson is a not a Michigan-caliber receiver, whether his dad is a coach or not. Jerald Robinson is another guy who doesn't really have the speed to separate, and it's yet to be seen whether he can go up and get the ball or not. Both of those guys were recruited by Rodriguez.
We'll see whether Darboh, Chesson, Dukes, and whoever else we get in 2013 are more competent than Jackson/Robinson. My guess is that they will be.
What is your opinion on slot WR moving forward. It seems like the coaches might want a lot with the offers to Allen and Larue.
I'm guessing we move from our slot ninjas to guys looking more like Breston.
Yeah, I think the slot guys in Michigan's near future will be 6'0" or so, more like Breaston than like Odoms. Then you can play them on the outside a little more easily, too.
To add to Magnus' point: I think a lot of us assumed that Rodriguez would sacrifice size, but gain elite speed in his receiver recruiting. We certainly did get smaller receivers, but not even the slot guys had any great speed. Odoms, Dileo, Gallon, etc, might be nice players, but none of them possess that elusiveness that makes up for their lack of size.
Admittedly he may not be extremely elusive, or at least never showed it, but Martavious Odoms was incredibly fast. You cannot say that he did not have elite speed when he was the only guy on the team to beat Denard in a foot race.
Are any of the WR at least 50-50 for UM chances?
Or is the staff hoping with 4-6 guys all at 33% chance we will likely get at least one of them?
Treadwell is probably the best bet as of right now, but I don't know if he's 50/50.
Our inability to land elite talent at a few of the high need positions (to this point in the recruiting cycle) has been the most frustrating part of recruiting this year; althought frustrating and recruiting are two words that are hard to use in the same sentence these days. We are seemingly rolling up an embarassing amount of talent at certain positions (OL), but we seem to be having trouble in getting elite WR talent to look our way despite the obvious playing time. It may be our current system, but who knows.
Please, please do not take this as a dig on our current recruiting, as I could not be happier with the past two classes. Just what I have found personally frustrating--which is clearly immaterial in the grand scheme of things.
If you look at the receivers we've offered, there are 19 offers out there and only 4 of those guys have committed, including Jaron Dukes to us. They're just not committing that early. [Insert comment about pre-Madonna receivers loving the spotlight.]
On the flip side, we've offered 18 offensive linemen and 14 of them have already committed.
It's true that we haven't convinced wide receivers to commit...but nobody else has, either.
Nowadays, we call them Pre-Lady Gagas.
Pre-Madonna would be old as fuck. And it's prima donna. Not sure if serious.
It was a joke.
I guess Eldridge does sound like an old man's name. Now I get it.
Edit: This guy comes to mind
He wasn't around for the pre-madonna prima donna threads.
Guess I'm post-pre-madonna. I retract much of what I have written. I still think it's an old man's name.
Post-pre-Madonna? You just blew my mind.
The 50-50 guys scare me the most, after some of our recent near misses when it came down to the wire.
Michigan has several offers out to WR, and I know they really want Treadwell, but I do not see them holding a spot for him. Recruiting receivers is a different animal. If they get 2 kids that they like to commit they will take them and move on. Are those of you closer to the situation thinking that Treadwell will have a spot held for him?
I wouldn't be surprised to see Treadwell pull a Logan Tuley-Tillman, but I also wouldn't be surprised to see Treadwell wait it out and commit elsewhere like Jordan Diamond. Michigan has as good of a shot as anyone, but I don't think he's a shoo-in.
The kid just ran a 10.5 100 meters, that's really good speed.
Sometimes track speed doesn't necessarily translate. And like I said, he has good straight-line speed, but when he changes direction, he doesn't get back up to speed very quickly...which is an issue for a lot of track guys.
has that kind of speed. The video I saw of him posted by Tremendous, he's very elusive and has speed to spare. Awesome acceleration. He reminds me of Reggie Bush and others, in the sense that he has that ability to break one anytime he touches the ball. I think we could really use a player like that. My own opinion.
Agreed on Larue. He could be a big play guy.
If Manningham and Arrington had a mythological beast-child its name would be Massington.
Seems like destiny...
He's pretty much my favorite receiver. He's a Manningham and Arrington mix, bred for his skills in pass catching.
Far too few Napolean D. references on the blog!
Per Tremendous, USC just offered Massington. Also Tremendous/Aquaman (less than an hour or so ago) just got a phone call from Massington, explaining what he whether or not he would immediately commit upon getting the USC offer (sparknotes: he won't), and going over some stuff about what other schools interest him, future visits, and an official visit to Michigan.
This is what he says. Actually getting the offer and thinking it over could change things, although he was pretty adamant that he was in no hurry to make a commitment and that he still wants to visit Michigan.
I thought that LSU would also play a factor in Massington's recruitment. Am I thinking of the wrong WR?
The belief is that LSU doesn't plan on extending an offer. If they were to, then yes, they would be a factor too. I have to believe USC is the heavy favorite though and would have been regardless of LSU. I don't think Eldridge necessarily anticipated getting offers from USC and Alabama.
I just read that he received offers from Alabama and USC today. He may not committ on the spot, but I think he is heavily USC.
Am I wrong in feeling like the coaches haven't exactly pulled out all the stops for Eldridge? It's seemed like Hoke and Co. were cooler on EM than vice versa. At least until now, apparently, since EM got his SC offer.
"Pulling out all the stops" is hard to do in April/May when you don't have official visits or much leverage. What are they supposed to do that's legal to "pull out all the stops"?
Perhaps that's poorly phrased. It's a matter of attention paid by the coaches at this stage, right? And it seems like Massington is not the highest priority for that attention.
To be honest, this is kind of the impression I had gotten myself. Not saying the coaches have been dragging their feet with him necessarily, but I get the vibe that he's not necessarily their most targeted receiver not named Treadwell.
Well, they supposedly want a big guy for the outside (Massington, Treadwell, etc.) and a slot guy (Larue, Allen, etc.). So if Treadwell is their top guy - and he seems to be - then it makes sense that he wouldn't be their biggest desire.
Is Ateman still a Michigan target, or has that moved on? His 247 profile still lists UM as "warm", and he's the same kind of big, quick kid it seems.
Last I heard (about two weeks ago), Michigan was still hard after Ateman.
Atrick Ateman?
Just committed to Oklahoma State University.
With Ateman going to Oklahoma St. and Massington leaning USC our chances of pulling a WR out of Texas are not good. It is really beginning to feel like this class of WRs may boil down to if they can land Treadwell or not. I do not see him committing anytime soon.
With Isaac visiting USC again he seems like he may be almost ready to make his choice, but I think our RB class will be fine with or without him.