What were some of the worst recruiting decisions made by Hoke and RR?

Submitted by Toby Flenderson on December 22nd, 2018 at 4:26 PM

RR: Giving Ray Vinopal a scholarship

Hoke: Not taking a QB in 2012.


Your thoughts?

Grampy

December 22nd, 2018 at 7:19 PM ^

I recall liking Vinopal, who was a breath of fresh air in a horrible secondary.  I was bummed to see him go.  I think he went to WVU or Pitt and was a contributor there.  Give me 5 minutes with RR’s lists of commitments and I bet I can find a pile of guys who I liked less (from a football player perspective, I have nothing against them personally)

JonnyHintz

December 22nd, 2018 at 5:44 PM ^

One could argue it helped to create the class imbalances we experienced under Hoke and depth issues that we’re still recovering from. A small class of OL is hard to overcome, especially if that OL doesn’t pan out. You’re left with a void of upperclassmen at a crucial position and you have to pray you hit linemen in your future classes. 

 

Hoke’s refusal to recruit a QB in 2012 after missing on Shane Morris in 2011 and following that up with Russell Bellomy has created QB depth issues that we’ve just now overcome, and it’s taken 3 QB transfers in addition to recruiting actually QBs to overcome. 

Seth

December 22nd, 2018 at 10:57 PM ^

You get into these cycles of young guys and no guys. Same thing happened to Paterno his last decade. For Michigan we got nobody out of 2010 and that compounded things when 2011 was a transition year.

So now Hoke has to get 11 guys in 2013-'14, and in the meantime he's got Mealer at C in 2012 and started a true freshman Cole in 2014. The line is young and sucks for a few years so OL recruiting falls back AND the one good guy they got in 2014 is out of eligibility for 2018, when the 2012s and 13s were all gone and no 14s and 15s who could play meant Michigan had a true sophomore and two true juniors on the interior and was trying to decide whether to live with some questionable dudes or freshmen outside. In a year from now Bredeson and Onwenu and maybe Ruiz will be gone and the 2018 class was damaged by a bad season, so we have to hope these 2019s and maybe a 2020 can play.

It's not a direct cause and effect thing. But it's very hard to have a consistently good OL and missing out on a class means missing out on crucial opportunities and having to fill in later with younger players. Sometimes you get some luck and bust the cycle. Michigan did not get enough good luck (eg Glasgow) to offset the bad (Pace, Fox, and Newsome injuries) 

Watching From Afar

December 22nd, 2018 at 6:07 PM ^

Until this year "Harbaugh's guys" have been true sophomores at the oldest. His 2015 class was a partial class he had all of a month to get together after leaving the NFL. Of course Hoke's guys were the contributors for the majority of Harbaugh's 4 years. That's common sense and not at all unusual unless you hit on multiple starting freshmen/sophomores.

Rabbit21

December 22nd, 2018 at 9:41 PM ^

I feel most of mine have involved alcohol and peer pressure around destroying inanimate objects.  Always too scared of females to make bad life choices around them.

There was the thing with  the Thai strippers and the chicken, but I’m not sure that was a “bad” life choice per se, except maybe the chicken had regrets.

TheCube

December 22nd, 2018 at 5:01 PM ^

These week long layoffs are the problem imo. Should be back in the groove once we start playing a regular spaced schedule come Binghampton and Penn State

 

Edit: Oops wrong thread. Oh well.