The always interesting article about why you did or didn't choose the instate school or either instate school.
February 4th, 2019 at 12:05 PM ^
From Anthony Bradford: "...went to Georgia, which was a good place to visit, great scenery in Athens."
LOL!! The only scenery in Athens is wearing a short skirt... All-American boy, right there!
Reading through the responses it's pretty clear who grew up not liking Michigan (which is okay - wrong, but okay) and who felt belittled (or 'disrespected') by the program for not enough attention. No worries in any case...
February 4th, 2019 at 12:07 PM ^
What was the story with Anthony Bradford (LSU OT commit)? Sounds like Michigan didn't offer him despite the fact he was a fan (at least went to games/practices). Academics? Curious.
February 4th, 2019 at 12:24 PM ^
The reason you cited is the most prevalent rumor.
February 4th, 2019 at 12:09 PM ^
I don’t understand why it is so hard to accept the fact that these kids just grew up MSU fans. They were gonna commit there regardless. Quit getting so pissed over it, they will get some guys we want just do to various reasons (their parents raised them to be huge MSU fans the biggest) and we just have to move on to other guys, that is just recruiting with another big ten team in the state.
February 4th, 2019 at 12:31 PM ^
Either that or their coach is an MSU fan.
February 4th, 2019 at 12:11 PM ^
Ruke Orhorhoro on why not Michigan State -
I didn’t like the way they recruited me, showed fake love. I visited there like four or five times.
He goes on to talk about being strung along and never getting the offer they were promising him. Some of the players talk about being upset that they weren't shown any interest until their sophomore year. Yikes.
February 4th, 2019 at 12:14 PM ^
If they're going to ask why they didn't go to either Michigan, MSU, or both then they should cut down on the number of recruits they ask that too. The last few players weren't offered by either so it's not like they had a choice.
February 4th, 2019 at 4:57 PM ^
agreed! They do this like every year and you just kind of feel bad...which is strange, since they're among the very very best in the state and are going D1.
(I should probably make the obvious joke that you could depend on State to offer Nos. 11-15 at least.)
February 4th, 2019 at 12:17 PM ^
Take it FWIW but you've got 15 different people from different schools and different backgrounds and they all are uniform in their negativity about Michigan. I know nobody here on the board wants to hear it but guys that isn't what you want to see.
Take a look at the comments made by the players not going to either MSU or Michigan. They are either benign or positive about the MSU experience (even though they're not going there) and negative about Michigan. Maybe it's just dumb luck that they picked the only 15 kids not positive about the Michigan recruiting process but I kinda doubt it.
That's not great Bob. Not great at all.
February 4th, 2019 at 12:23 PM ^
Doesn't it seem like it's the way these articles always go? No matter the coaching staff and even in years where the team does well in state?
To me, it's more, there are good reasons to choose somewhere besides Michigan St., but I have to come up with a reason why I wouldn't choose to go to the big in-state school. I agree it's a concern, but I don;t think it has to do with the coaching staff as much as the weird in state dynamics here. They do need a designated Detroit-whisperer, though, maybe Sherrone Moore?
February 4th, 2019 at 12:27 PM ^
I don't think that this article could be classified as anything but bad news. Nobody is making a "sky is falling" argument here but I don't think the article is written in a particular way so as to enhance any negativity. The article kind of writes itself.
The primary takeaway from the article would appear to be: Michigan? = Hard Pass.
February 4th, 2019 at 12:57 PM ^
Anybody that's spent any time in executive management knows what a 360 evaluation is and these comments, to me anyways, are the "prospective employee" input field. The uniformity in their responses regarding Michigan tell a pretty clear story (IMO) on how people perceive the coaching staff and the school experience in general.
If I got these comments from the direct reports of one of my managers I can assure you we'd be having a very heart-to-heart meeting in my office that day. I would be very concerned.
February 4th, 2019 at 1:15 PM ^
Part of the problem is UM doesn't have anyone to recruit the inner city on staff. It used to be Wheatley but now that he's gone there is no natural fit to take over that role. Chris Bryant has kind of taken over that responsibility but he's not an on field coach so his impact is somewhat limited.
February 4th, 2019 at 1:43 PM ^
Thank you for explaining to me how employee evaluations work after twenty years of working experience I was totally confused on that point, although frankly, if you take the negative 360 evaluations of a manager into account absent any other input, rather than use them to add weight to a negative top down evaluation, you will be the very first in the history of corporate evaluations to do so.
I don't think anyone's thrilled by these, I just happen to think it's almost always the same types of quotes in relation to the two programs year after year. The one time it seemed a little different was Hoke's first year.
Definitely think a structured reachout in-state is necessary, but I am not sure this means the sky is falling.
February 4th, 2019 at 1:59 PM ^
The new and improved format makes it confusing as hell to follow but I wasnt responding to you - i was responding to the poster directly underneath you. And I have no way of knowing the extent of yours or anyone else's experience in doing a 360 - I was referencing my own viewpoint on them.
And where on earth do you get a "the sky is falling" take from me? I pointed out it the uniformity of the negative responses concerning Michigan would be concerning to me if I was in a position of authority. Which I am not obviously.
Candidly for someone with 20 years plus experience in this area I'm a bit surprised you're not concerned.
February 4th, 2019 at 2:11 PM ^
Maizen or "Hei2man" is resulting in the Board appearing to be deeply divided about issues they primarily agree upon. Here, both of you are really saying that Michigan should take a look at its in-state recruiting, but it is being made to appear that you are on opposing sides of an issue. It is like he is just throwing a hand-grenade into the discussion and then bailing on it because all he wants to do is get people arguing. He doesn't even care where the discussion ends, he is just courting discord even if the things he says are completely outlandish and unsupportable.
He does the same thing in basketball threads, where if you mention any negative trends you are said to be "siding with Maizen."
It is a technique that should feel all too familiar right now.
February 4th, 2019 at 2:16 PM ^
Because the comments about Michigan in this article tend to be the same from year to year regardless of coaching staff, which leads me to believe there's something else giving the responses the edge we all noticed vs. anything the staff is either doing or not doing.
As I mentioned earlier I do think there needs to be a bit of a step by step rebuilding relationships tour, but you have to wonder how much of this is born of the Overton window for acceptable comments for these guys getting shifted by Sparty's relentless negative recruiting.
You're right about not having any way to know what someone's experience is and I could have phrased my comeback a little better. I think sometimes you assume things that are fairly common knowledge here(such as what a 360 evaluation is) aren't and then pull somewhat of a humblebrag in explaining your point of view. That said, I came off as a jerk in my reply to you and I apologize.
The sky is falling bit is a bit of hyperbole, admittedly, but I do think you're making a little too much of this.
February 4th, 2019 at 2:51 PM ^
I think a good management technique is taking one side of an argument / poll, without context, and making decisions that can be generalized to a large population. Makes sense.
February 4th, 2019 at 12:29 PM ^
I don't know how anyone can read that article and not be alarmed. It's carrying over to 2020 and 2021 too. Rogers and Jennings are bothing leaning elsewhere. Spindler and Dellinger are getting ND crystal balls. Trieu said the other day Damon Payne is an OSU and FSU lean at the moment. The warning signs are all over the place and people would rather ignore them and pretend they don't exist. Bold strategy lets see if it pays off.
February 4th, 2019 at 12:34 PM ^
The amount of effort and time you put into your trolling is remarkable. And now I can feel good about myself because I know I just made your day by responding. It's amazing that getting strangers on the internet to talk to you is what makes you happy.
February 4th, 2019 at 12:43 PM ^
Got to love the "you're a troll" takes from the mgoidiot brigade anytime someone dares to be objective. You'd think going 15 years without winning the B1G and getting our ass kicked by OSU every year would make people realize something different but nope. Telling each other nothing is wrong and everything will be "fine" won't help our football program actually live up to expectations for once. It's very clear people here will defend anything they have a personal attachment to and anyone who threatens that worldview gets crucified. Now cue those posters in 3, 2, 1....
February 4th, 2019 at 12:50 PM ^
You don't get negative feedback because of bad news, Shawn. Mgrowold is discussing "bad news" here too. People aren't bothered by that, even when they disagree.
You get negative feedback because you are abrasive, contemptuous, and dishonest.
The next time you admit to getting something way wrong will be the first; frankly, the next time you are open about your habit of opening multiple accounts, some of which you operate at the same time, will be the first.
You are extremely harsh. Sometimes you are correct, but in others you are not. For example, it's possible that Michigan will have some issues recruiting in-state, but then, if they turn things around, you'll be operating another account and will never admit that you got it wrong.
Just like you have never admitted how wrong you were about Beilein.
February 4th, 2019 at 12:50 PM ^
And if you are trying to offer objective and honest analysis, then you are even worse than before. You don't provide anything "objective." When you try to give "honest" analysis, it just turns into you giving the most negative takes possible to try and draw a reaction.
Many people here provide honest and objective analysis without going overboard like you do. Of course there are concerns over Michigan football, but it isn't this doomsday scenario you always seem to paint it as.
February 4th, 2019 at 12:56 PM ^
What was our recruiting class ranked??? Oh yeah, that's right #7 overall. Wow, maybe we should get all of the MAC level 3* players in the state so we can say we rule the state of Michigan.....wrong. Let's worry about who we got, not who we didnt' get.
btw, UM didn't offer Mangham or Mosley so maybe the bad feelings are just bitterness.
February 4th, 2019 at 6:33 PM ^
All those kids interviewed are going to Power 5 schools so all are above MAC level. No one is saying Michigan was going to take all these kids but it does come off that there approach seems off to these recruits.
February 4th, 2019 at 1:00 PM ^
Michigan is literally on their 4th coach in the past 15 years. All have had different approaches to recruiting. You keep talking about it like it's a monolith, even though last year Michigan pulled in the top 2 guys from the state.
And looking at the 2020, Michigan seems to be having trouble recruiting one school - Oak Park. Every other top recruit they've either signed or are leading for. The two 2021 recruits from Clarkston have 1 crystal ball each, both from the say guy who writes for Irish Illustrated, and picks he made 6 months ago and whose prediction rate is below the "average" on 247. So yeah, I know you think you're being some firebrand trying to convince us sheeple of impending recruiting apocalypse, but you aren't doing a particularly good job actually backing it up.
February 4th, 2019 at 12:31 PM ^
Harbaugh put together a staff of guys from the NFL with no recruiting chops and it showed. Luckily he seems to have learned with his hires this year and Pep is the only dead weight on that front still left and hopefully the new hires have enough time to salvage the 2019 in state class.
The reality is college football is like 85-90% recruiting and 10% coaching and Harbaugh flipped around that ratio in his hiring decisions. You only get 20 hours a week with these kids and that is in-season, at the end of the day you need to have more talented players to win consistently at the highest levels.
February 4th, 2019 at 12:50 PM ^
So wait...Michigan's coaches were good enough to pull in consecutive top-10 classes and then apparently became too NFL for one year when recruiting dipped?
I know people like to knock the staff for literally everything, but this "they were too corporate" talking point seems pretty illogical. McElwain wasn't a particularly great recruiter and Hamilton does feel like a bad fit, but we're literally talking about one "NFL guy" on the staff.
February 4th, 2019 at 1:15 PM ^
The staff changed. Recruiting operates on a lag cycle because relationships are built up over multiple years. Michigan's first staff included guys like Wheatley and Durkin who were really good recruiters. We also had guys like Fisch, who yes came from the nfl but had extensive college football experience and track record.
As those guys left for new opportunities we brought in guys like Pep and Mcelwain and kept guys like Drevno and suddenly you had a staff that, especially on the offensive side was primarily coach first ignore recruiting track record guys. That was the staff that did most of the recruiting for this years in-state crop and last years mediocre class. Harbaugh started adjusting last year and brought in Al Washington and Sherron Moore and continued to bring in those types of guys this year and it should pay off in the coming years. But yeah we had a 1.5 window of a legitimately bad recruiting staff and stuff like this is the result.
February 4th, 2019 at 1:56 PM ^
I'm not arguing recruiting went downhill, only that your argument was he brought in a bunch of NFL guys when, as you noted, it was one guy (Hamilton) who came in during the better recruiting years. McElwain has been a college coach effectively his whole career, and Drevno was at one point a decent recruiter. Fisch coached in college for 1 year before coming to UM, so if anything he was more NFL than a lot of guys on the staff. Losing Durkin probably hurt and Wheatley seemed to be a key force in the state.
Yes, Harbaugh brought in better recruiters. But it wasn't some massive systemic issue; it was missing on a couple of guys and Harbaugh fixed it.
February 4th, 2019 at 1:26 PM ^
I'd say the drop off after year 2 was a combination of the new coach affect wearing off and replacing a few of the dynamic recruiters with worse recruiters. Wheatley was huge for in state recruiting and Pep was a big downgrade from Fisch. Harbaugh seems to have realized that by bringing in Moore and Washington after 2017 and Gatis, Campanille, and Nua after 2018. The current staff has a lot more college coaches than NFL coaches.
February 4th, 2019 at 12:59 PM ^
It showed?? Really? Looked like they did ok to me. Charbonnet and Harris seem like they did pretty good, but they aren't from Michigan so who cares.
February 4th, 2019 at 12:48 PM ^
I agree there are some troubling consistencies in the responses. It’s always good policy to self evaluate and the Michigan staff should take note.
Michigan still nailed a top five Championship caliber class. So many unknown things go into how kids are recruited. Michigan is also pulling National level talent and MSU is not. That goes into how these kids feel about their level of “love”.
More competition means your may not be the focus.
February 4th, 2019 at 1:08 PM ^
It seems like almost every year we hear about in state recruiting drama under Harbaugh. It is hard to know for certain what the real story is and it may be different for every kid, but I agree with you that a troubling trend does appear.
February 4th, 2019 at 2:07 PM ^
Every one of these interviews features guys saying stuff like this for both schools. I distinctly remember one of Hoke's early classes having lower-rated in-state guys complaining nobody from Michigan was interested in them and that bothered them.
It's dumb to me that they ask a bunch of high schoolers to either talk about their rival or school(s) that never showed interest in them. They're loaded questions and so they get loaded responses. People want to make more out of it than is there because it fits into the bullshit "Harbaugh is a loser" narrative that some people want to grasp onto.
Harbaugh should be taken to task for pulling scholarships. Not for what a bunch of teenagers feel is the appropriate amount of "love" to show them.
February 4th, 2019 at 1:12 PM ^
Yeah...bottom line is there is a lot of talent in that list (higher rated than many of our recruits) that had M offers and are going elsewhere. Without digging any further, that's not a great look.
February 4th, 2019 at 1:17 PM ^
Agree, not good, in MI. But we appear to be doing very well and genuine in other states?
February 4th, 2019 at 5:14 PM ^
For every negative reason a kid gave for not choosing Michigan there are a number of kids who chose Michigan in the class who said the opposite. All I hear all year round from recruits, their coaches, their families, and recruiting analysts is how great of a family atmosphere Michigan has and how genuine and personable their coaches are. It's not surprising that kids that didn't go there would have some negative views.
February 4th, 2019 at 12:39 PM ^
It's always fun to read the quotes because there are kids who give the diplomatic answer and others who you can tell are really mad and want you to know it. Lots of "they didn't show me love" and "they aren't genuine".
February 4th, 2019 at 12:52 PM ^
There’s no two ways about it, in-state recruiting for the elite players has to get better. Somehow there is a disconnect between Michigan and the Detroit area kids. Some of those quotes were pretty damning on Harbaugh and the staff.
I know Harbaugh likes to recruit nationally and doesn’t think he needs to put a fence around Michigan. But it seems like his reputation is way down In his own state. That’s not good
February 4th, 2019 at 2:28 PM ^
Michigan picked up 3 of the top 5 recruits in the state for 2018. Of the remaining 2, one went to MSU and the other to Kentucky for reasons that sound not football-related. So this whole notion that Michigan doesn't recruit in the state is wrong.
They lost out on a couple of guys from Belleville who seemed unhappy with Michigan from early on and a guy who wants to play at Wisconsin, which makes sense considering he grew up a fan and is an offensive lineman. Does Michigan need to recruit better? Sure. Everyone does. But Harbaugh's reputation is not any more "down" in this state than anyone else.
February 4th, 2019 at 12:53 PM ^
There's maybe one or two kids on here where this might reveal anything we don't already know, and most of it is a misrepresentation of the situation. Saying you didn't get enough love from Michigan or Michigan State when they weren't heavily recruiting you isn't really a reflection of reality. The only kids on this list Michigan may have actually wanted to commit are Brown, Mazi Smith, Dixon and Barnett. Maybe Dobbs. The rest is just newspaper fluff.
February 4th, 2019 at 1:05 PM ^
But, but, but, we NEED to get many many more Michigan player just 'cause it makes people on the board feel better. /s
February 4th, 2019 at 1:08 PM ^
I’m convinced we did not want Dobbs based on his saying we did not recruit him hard and his performance at the All American game.
February 4th, 2019 at 12:59 PM ^
Wow. hahah, it's VERY easy to tell the recruiting approach msu is taking with regard to negative recruiting U-M. Almost every msu guy (save for a few who took the high-road and said "not the right fit") said their coaches are "fake"
LOL aight.
February 4th, 2019 at 1:09 PM ^
The pearl clutching in here...
Michigan had, what, the #5 or #6 class in the country? The state of Michigan didn't have a banner year for recruiting, either. I don't think it's a stretch to say that the UM staff didn't have a lot of interest in-state, and that shows in a lot of the responses shown. "They didn't show me the love"..."They didn't offer me, so whatevs"..."They were off-putting about the whole thing"...'A bunch of dicks'...
Seems like a typical response when people get jilted in a publicly humiliating way. The starz (for Maizen) are in the class, not necessarily in the state...
February 4th, 2019 at 1:45 PM ^
Yes, the 2019 class has some nice talent, but there are also some legitimate questions about some of the most talented kids in the state. Whereas Aidan Hutchinson and Donovan Peoples-Jones (the top guys in the past two classes) were pretty locked in when it comes to being college contributors, this 2019 class is more boom-or-bust at the top.
Dobbs is a guy who could be a 1st round pick in four years...or he could be mired on the bench, transferred away, etc.
Dixon could be a Big Ten standout (probably not a 1st rounder, IMO)...or languishing in PSU's doghouse.
Brown could be a 1st round pick in four years...or other guys might outwork him.
The guy I would most watch out for is Barnett, though. He's a guy who I think will excel in MSU's system.
February 4th, 2019 at 1:53 PM ^
There a decent chance Mazi has the best college career of any of the Kids out of Michigan this year. That would be my bet. With Barnett and Brown right there.
February 4th, 2019 at 2:33 PM ^
Barnett looks like a good WR, and I agree s\should excel at MSU provided he plays up to his potential. But yeah, there are a lot of people hand-waving away the fact that a guy like Dobbs went from a top-10 national recruit to #60 and was somewhat underwhelming at major camps. This wasn't a particularly great year for in-state talent, and while obviously Michigan would be served getting the best players possible the idea that they've lost some ground to other schools because they didn't snag everyone always struck me as needless whining.