TomVH Interview with Michigan Opening Invitees at Columbus NFTC

Submitted by RakeFight on

TomVH interviews the 2013 commits who won invitations to The Opening while competing in the Nike NFTC in Columbus yesterday (Morris, Dawson, Charlton, McCray).  The video includes some highlights of the 1 vs 1 drills, including Taco Charlton destroying some poor O-linemen.

http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=7895820

(It's a slow day, and I didn't see this posted anywhere, including the other NFTC threads... but if it already has been posted, feel free to neg me into deletion land)

Leaders And Best

May 6th, 2012 at 12:40 PM ^

Leaders And Best

May 6th, 2012 at 12:55 PM ^

- Though Ohio State commit Billy Price snagged MVP honors, he wasn't the top performer along the defensive line during one-on-ones. Michigan commit Taco Charlton was rarely stopped while Indianapolis (Ind.) defensive end Anthony Winbush and Detroit (Mich.) defensive end Malik McDowell were some of the other top guys who used a variety of moves to nail the quarterback.



- Michigan commit David Dawson looked really good at the guard position and had a better day than fellow pledge Logan Tuley-Tillman.

- With two days to watch most of the quarterbacks, there was pretty much a consensus top three of Morris, Zaire and Del Rio.

http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/recruiting/blog/eye-on-recruiting/18972455/del-rio-ends-strong-weekend-with-ohio-nike-camp-mvp-honors

RationalBuckeye

May 6th, 2012 at 6:40 PM ^

I think I can say this without bias, being that it happened to both UM and OSU recruits. ESPN/Nike wants to see the big names at the opening, not the little guys that perform well at a camp. They want the ESPN 150 to be proven as the best indicator of talent, and they'll bump the highly rated kids to get Opening invites because it makes them look good.

It's the same logic that gets overused, but is sadly, correlated with the UA game, and the UA 150. Guys that go to the camps that ESPN endorses get rated higher on ESPN, and get invites to more prestigious ESPN-endorsed events. 

RationalBuckeye

May 6th, 2012 at 8:03 PM ^

Agreed, just overall take it with a grain of salt. You guys may not like Urban, and I don't like Hoke, just in the sake of rivalry. But neither side can say that the opposing coach is a poor judge of talent, and these guys will find the players who fit best in their individual systems. That's good enough for me

umalum16

May 7th, 2012 at 9:06 AM ^

I tend to disagree with the assertion that neither side can argue that somebody is a bad judge of talent. While it may be totally unrelated to pure "talent," it is at least worth noting that when Urban finally got a team of all players he recruited they were kind of crappy. Again, as prefaced, this could be for a variety of reasons, but several recruiting analysts have said something in the past along the lines of "Urban has a rep of star gazing, and he tires of recruiting quickly." These same analysts imply that he has recruited off lists as much as evaluation. Is this true? Who knows. But it's not totally crazy, and it seems to get mentioned often by people in the know.

MN Go Blue

May 6th, 2012 at 2:46 PM ^

He was the MVP of the Elite#11 camp he did on Friday, but was not named the QB MVP on Saturday.

To answer the question about The Opening tickets I am guessing it was a combination of ranking coming in and how they did at camp.  The really highly ranked players just have to pass the eye test.  They do not need to be the top performer on that day.

gopoohgo

May 6th, 2012 at 1:13 PM ^

Loving the thought of Taco and Mario coming off the edges in a couple of years on 3rd down, Pipkins coming up the gut. How long has it been since we've seen edge pressure like that?  Not since B.Graham....

TheOnlyOne

May 6th, 2012 at 1:18 PM ^

Dawson's power base is unbelievable. He has thrown 300-lb kids off balance with solid handwork on multiple occasions. It's going to a major challenge getting to Morris.

Michiganguy19

May 6th, 2012 at 3:40 PM ^

The Senator Nickname? I get the idea, but hate hate the way it sounds referring to a 17/18 year old. I know people have said they hate the nickname sugar. But that nickname is 5x better.

M Wolve

May 6th, 2012 at 8:41 PM ^

I wonder if this can be Tom's second football related challenge (the first was his Barwis workout).  Give Tom a set of pads and have him go 1 on 1 with looping lb's.  Then cycle in V Smith.  I'd pay top dollar.

Jmilan

May 7th, 2012 at 9:20 AM ^

I'm sure this has already been said, but I think Charlton's length and speed is going to be a pain for teams to deal with for the upcoming years. He has a great pass rush and hopefully all the success we are seeing on these clips will carry over once the pads get put on. I know it's early, but I really hope that he can continue to be as much of a beast that he has been in these camps once he gets on campus and starts going live.