Scout Releases Team Recruiting Rankings: Michigan #1
Scout just released their team rankings today, and it should come as no surprise that Michigan is ranked first (ARTICLE HERE). So far we've had an amazing start to our 2013 recruiting class, and there is a definite posibility that we have the number one class in the nation after signing day next year.
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How do they have Taco as a 3*? He's an absolute beast based on what I've been reading lately.
Now I could be wrong because I am kind of new to following recruiting, but some sites do not update as frequently as others. So while some guys have great camps and their scouts are there they just haven't updated their current rankings. Me personally, I look more at their overall rankings across the board rather than following just one site. I am no expert or anything, but I usually trust what guys like Ace or Magnus say about guys because we trust that they will give their honest opinion. No matter how many people hate on Magnus or any other guys that evaluate kids, at least they are giving their truthful thoughts on a kid.
That's exactly it, I've heard a few people from Scout saying that they've been really impressed with how Taco has played at the camps he has been at (particularly the camp in California), so when scout releases it's newest set of rankings, he will certainly be moved up, the only question is how high will he move up to.
He has been really impressive from what I have heard as well. I think the kid is talented and I am excited to see this kid in the next few years. My worry is and I dont mean to imply that this is the case with this kid because he has looked great, but these camps aren't like playing the actual game. I just hope that he can continue to use his awesome skills and talent he has to be the same player that is dominating in these camps when the real seasons hit for him. This may be a bold prediction so early on, but I feel like if this kid can keep up the good work he could be a top 10 first rounder if he ever hits the NFL. Does anyone else have these concerns? Also sorry if this is a stupid question.
I don't doubt that Taco will translate his camp performances to the field, but you have to be at least hesitant about camp performances until you see the player so the same thing with pads on in a real game.
There are plenty of recruits every year who look great and camps and combines and then let down on the field, and vice versa. That why Bolden and Pipkins had such high rankings - they looked great at both.
Then again, Taco is more of a raw prospect than some others, and that's OK. He'll be a good one to keep an eye on during FNL this fall.
I agree and it is not at all a knock on the kid. I'm glad to have him be part of this class and he certainly has given us something to talk about and be excited about for the time being. I think his intangibles are his greatest tool and like you said it will be interesting to follow this kid along with plenty other ones that have yet to see the field as Wolverines.
Although we all love Taco as a prospect, there are reasons he's not a slam dunk recruit. First of all, he didn't even start for his HS team as a junior. He came in during passing situations as an OLB. Not getting starter-level PT as well as playing a different position than he projects at the next level has kept the services more skeptical. Additionally, he doesn't have a killer offer list, more specifically, he didn't get an offer from the home-town team.
Now, despite those things he's a guy who shows a lot of high-end potential and who has looked good in camps over the summer. However, it's the lack of on-field production and high-end offers that has kept him from being rated in the Adolphus Washington or even Sevon Pittman range. Having a big senior season or all-star performance could certainly change that though.
My lord, we're going to be so good off the edge. Even this year, with Clark/Beyer and Ryan/Gordon, we should be upper-level B1G. As 3 of those guys enter their junior year in 2013, we'll have (my guess) Ojemudia/RJS ending up at SLB and Strobel at WDE (Wormley and Godin to 5T/3T). If Taco blows up at WDE... lordy.
The brief videos from the Cali and OH camps show an enormous, quick, and athletic player in Carlton.
Not unless you are talking about Boots. Then it's Carlton.
Strobel will not be a WDE. He's a big dude, he'll be a 5-tech. With only slightly less certainty, I'd say Ojemudia is a WDE. He was a DT in high school, and asking him to play LB would be tough. He's a DE all the way.
RJS could be a SAM, but I think he'll play MIKE. He seems like a better fit there to me.
But Strobel, Wormley, and Godin all look like 5T's. And I don't see any of them moving to 3T in the ideal scenario. I know 3T and 5T are supposedly similar in this D, but there's a big difference between a double team from a Guard-Tackle and a Tackle-TE. They're all too good to keep off the field, so Strobel to WDE.
Now I may contadict myself with the next statement - SLB and WDE do look like similar positions to me in this D. You're either playing outside the Tackle (WDE) or Tight End (SLB), and both seem to be able to need to fall back on pass drops. SLB needs to be better at this than WDE, but it's necessary for both. If Strobel is the next Roh, he may not have the athleticism to do this (Ohio offered him as 3T, so WDE may in fact be a stretch). But I think Ojemudia would be just fine.
I wouldn't be so sure on Strobel. I do think he's headed for 5-tech eventually, but he could be one of those guys (like Roh) who starts out at WDE and eventually grows into a SDE. At the very least, he's more able to play WDE than Wormley and Godin, both of whom might be 3-techs before all is said and done.
You said this in your evaluation of him.
"Despite the offers from big-time schools such as Alabama and Florida State, I think Michigan may have jumped the gun a little early on Dawson. In my opinion, he's not the elite prospect that some of Michigan's other targets are (such as Ethan Pocic, Chris Fox, etc.). Not that Dawson's commitment will necessarily prevent the Wolverines from grabbing those guys, but it does constrict the window a little bit. Dawson stands up high too often, and when he's not pulling or pass blocking, he tends to get lazy with his footwork. His base gets too narrow and he's passive. He seems content with just trying to push a guy around with his upper body. He's not a great athlete, but he moves well enough to be a an FBS player. I'm just not sure that the nastiness is there to finish blocks, drive guys into the ground, or get up to the next level."
Which goes against pretty much everything else I have been reading about him. His pass blocking is praised and his mean-streak is undenied in nearly all write-ups I've read about him.
I guess I mean, do you still have that sour taste in your mouth that you had when he committed?
Honest question here, not trying to sound like a prick. I genuinely want to hear your opinion.
I would guess that Strobel is more likely to be a SDE, and Ojemudia will be a WDE. And then Taco at WDE as well, should give some solid depth at the end positions.
I wonder if his high school coaches are partly to blame. After watching his camp tapes, I'm pretty sure I could find a way to keep that caliber of athlete on the field for all 4 downs.
Could you imagine the thoughts going through the head of the kids who starts ahead of him? My back up has D1 offers why the hell do i only have offers from Ohio dominican!?
I can't wrap my head around that either, it just seems weird. Does anyone here know if theirs some strategic reason for it?
Maybe the opposing high school coaches are to blame. The ones who are smart enough to take advantage of the fact that Taco rushes upfield at full speed, making it easy to run the ball at him.
You're assuming he doesn't have the type of speed, quickness and intelligence to get back into the play. This is High school football we're talking about so it's not to unrealistic to be that athletic, Maybe he is not such a good tackler? you wouldn't see that in the camps he has been to this year
That is what is so great about this class. Most of these guys are underrated and have high ceilings. I would not be surprised to see a lot of these guys move up the in the ratings.
Here's the thing...
You can't have the number one recruiting class in the nation and also claim that they are underrated. 99.9% of the time, those two are mutually exclusive.
Yes, but that only applies if you are claiming the entire recruiting class is both #1 and underrated, when I think the earlier post is only suggesting that some players in our class are underrated, not the entire class.
Having the #1 class in the country while having some individuals within that class be underrated is not mutually exclusive... and seems to be the case in terms of this class (Charlton and Conley, just to name the obvious ones).
The operative word was "most", which is more than "some", but not quite "all". It is a natural thing to have some players who are underrated, sometimes even drastically. But we also may see some players slip as they fail to advance their skills in their senior seasons. The tone of the post was that as a whole our class was underrated.
Would be more upset if this were Taco's ranking at the end of the summer.
Taco, Dawson seem to be making names for themselves.
The summer camp rotation will be seeing more of our commits go up against elite competition in both the Nike camps, college summer camps, and of course, The Opening.
I could see Dawson making a Pipkins-esque rise in the rankings. I doubt he ends up quite as high (only because very rarely are OGs ranked that high, even the top OG in the country), but he seems to dominate every event he attends, much like Pipkins did a year ago.
Agree.
Love the fact that every camp scout seems to include the adjectives "Mean, nasty" when describing Dawson.
I forsee great things for the Michigan offense with guys like Dawson and Kalis for the next few years.
Five BiG teams in the top 20. Way too early, but that's good for the conference and only 4 traditional SEC, though 5 with Mizzou.
5 traditional SEC teams - Georgia, Florida, Bama, Auburn, LSU
7 total - TAMU and Mizzou
Texas A&M. Then again, I'd say 5.375 B1G, with Notre Dame playing 3 B1G teams each year.
still don't get the "Notre Dame is part of the B1G" thing: having them in recruiting rankings discussions, listing in Big Ten Blogs, valuing a win over them vs division/conference opponents, etc.
Don't think I ever will.
As a Nebraska fan, I dn't blame you for thinking that. But unlike nearly half the other schools in the Big Ten, we play ND every year, and because of our historic, academic and geographic similarities, we recruit a lot of the same players. Also, our game against them is always nationally televised, and is very widely watched.
So although our games against ND don't count in the conference standings, they still count for quite a bit for both teams. Hell, we play Penn State or Wisconsin 4 times a decade now, but we play ND 10.
Glad to see them up there.
Which is a good thing, because, for me at least, it's much too soon to wish PSU's football program well.
5 Big Ten teams + Notre Dame in the top 20? It will be interesting to see if that''s more of "early signing" trend or if the tide is beginning to turn a bit due to cap limits in the SEC...
Holy moly
Recruiting locally > Recruiting "nationally"
20th in the nation would still be a solid haul for MSU.
Just ask Ohio fans. They are so pissed that Michigan is taking top recruits from Ohio.
Too simplistic: recruiting locally successfully > recruiting nationally unsuccessfully.
The best is recruiting locally and nationally successfully. Last year we had a really good recruiting class, especially after cleaning up well locally, but did not finish strong on the national front and ended up slipping from Top 3 to about 5-7 ranked class in the nation. If we swing a Garnett or two at the national scale that adds some top-end prospects to round out the class. We did miss out on Levenberry, but there are other guys like Mathis, Pagano, Poggi, or a Fuller/Cravens type recruit who would guarantee a Top 3 class. Good to establish the local base since there seems to be more stability there to allow us to weather the storms of uncertainty over the national recruits.
/know you are making fun of MSU
School | ACE Big Ten + Rankings | Scout Rankings |
Michigan | 1 | 1 |
Ohio | 2 | 4 |
Notre Dame | 3 | 5 |
Penn St | 4 | 12 |
Nebraska | 5 | 17 |
MSU | 6 | 20 |
I like the allignment!
Also love that Big Ten teams are recruiting so well- hard to get a NC team from a conference without a very solid top-level in conference and it's hard to imagine the Big Ten not having that.
(upvotes, struts into kitchen to grab some lunch)
Interesting that TAMU joins the SEC and is suddenly recruiting at the top of the ranks, while LSU, who is dependent on Texas recruits, is suddenly not.
There are a total of 13 Texas recruits for LSU out of the last 4 classes. That's 13 out of 104 players. That includes some highly-rated folks, but I wouldn't call LSU "dependent on Texas" at all.
I was under the impression that Louisiana had some pretty solid football in their state as well... Schools like OU are a bit more dependent on Texas recruits.
According to ESPN, LSU had 9 players on their 2011 roster from Texas. Louisiana? 74.
Spent a short amount of time in Baton Rouge and got to chat with some non-coaching members of the Tigers staff... Their mission is to "lock down" their own State and cherry pick a couple of random national targets. Doing this will allow them to finish with a top class year in and year out. Overall recruiting is fairly easy for them because they are the only game in town... the other LA D1 programs are MAC equivalents. Mississippi to the east is no threat...they got two SEC programs dividing their state talent and Texas to their west produces enough D1 talent for everyone to get a piece. LA as a state as far as producing D1 talent is easily in the 7-10 range on a national level. (TX,FL,OH,CA,GA,PA,....only states I can think of ahead LA off the top of my head without googling national averages... im sure AL, IL, the Carolinas, MI and LA can probably switch any given year. Further.. how many of those states have multiple top flight D1 programs) Long story short... they are kind of on a recruiting island.... they usually have their choice of the in state recruits.....
EDIT: Found a link: http://highschool.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1182411
This link does a ratio... but the numbers of D1 recruits produced by each State is shown in the column. (LA is producing Top Flight talent or the number of kids playing ball in their state)