I've been tracking changes in recruiting rankings at regular intervals, since sometimes the shift tells us more about the star than the brightness. I think the sites are done with their re-ranks after the all star games now, and several of the 2019s moved substantially.

Please remember the rules (even though they're theories):

1. Gravity! Players will slowly drop as more players get scouted. Moving up means you did something; slowly dropping a few spots means the guy is the same.
2. Climate! The rankings have more than player goodness in them. They'll overtly bump guys who went to their camps over those who didn't, for example. ESPN doesn't pretend to care about recruiting outside of the southeast, or bother to rank 2020 3-stars from the Midwest.
3. Measurements! If you follow recruiting you know the various rating systems. Rivals uses the old National Recruiting Advisor system: 6.1 is a 5-star, 3.7 is a high three-star, etc. ESPN is on a 100 scale where the 70s are three-stars,. 247Sports is on 100-ish scale where the 80s are three-stars, and their composite is that but a percent.

Let's go to the re-ranks! I'll highlight big leaps up in green and big drops in red.

QB Cade McNamara

Cade more or less ended up where he began. The only slight excitement over his rankings history was staying ahead of all the guys ESPN added as they filled in behind the other sites. He was the #45 player in the West to the Worldwide Leader when he committed, and finished #38. That site is the highest on McNamara, ranking him in their top 300 while 247 and Rivals have him hanging out just above the 4-stars line.

What's the delta say? That stability speaks to a guy who met expectations. I believe an early Michigan commitment also played a role in maintaining McNamara's status at the top of the wave of guys who are good but not elite.

RB Zach Charbonnet

I got this from MGoFish who got it from Bobby Curtis/Acorn Newspapers

After Michigan, 247Sports was the first to see Zach Charbonnet as an elite running back prospect. Rivals and ESPN were playing catch-up after the season, when 247 was even more enamored with him. Fortunately for those of us who were concerned about Michigan's luck with site-sanctioned running backs, a small injury held Charbonnet out of his All-Star game last month, and that prevented what seemed an inevitable push up the rankings and that dangerous fifth star.

What's the delta say? This is a borderline 5-star prospects that Michigan found early and the sites were slow to catch up, though catch up they did.

[After THE JUMP: Big guys who go up and little guys they don't know what to do with]

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Slot Receiver Giles Jackson

When Giles committed to Michigan the response from most of the sites wasn't exactly "Who?" but they did understandably react like Michigan was going for a Plan B scatback with Eric Gray expected to be enticed away by SEC bagmen. After the season it seemed they had all picked up on why Jackson was a Plan A slot receiver target. Jackson hopped over the 4-star line and was hanging out in the top 250s for Rivals and 247. ESPN upgraded Jackson as well but not into its Top 300, which drags the composite down. They also kept him an athlete while the others acknowledged he's coming in to play receiver.

What's the delta say? Big reevaluation after a big senior year that one site didn't bother with. He didn't get a bump after The Opening last summer despite posting some elite numbers, and was barely known before that (San Jose State was his only other offer at that point). So this might be a case where nobody had heard of him before The Opening and Michigan commitment, and then they saw the senior tape.

Slot Receiver Mike "Sweetness" Sainristil

Sainristil is a big part of the reason I have this article, because I first got word that he was committing to Michigan during last summer's commitapalooza, wrote his Hello post, then had to update it several more times as he appeared on the verge of dropping. Each of those necessitated a trip through the recruiting rankings sites, and I jotted down what the other guys' ratings were. When I finally got to publish that thing I wrote about his ratings journey.

Sainristil's rankings also have a distinct whiff of "Eh, we haven't been up there, but the Boston papers seem to like him." ESPN had Sainristil the second "78" until they got a guy up there and bumped him to an 80 (unfortunately with no explanation), and 247 has been slowly dropping him the last month as they get to evaluations of the people under him—he was 56th in May. Rivals is the comparative skeptic, ranking Sainristil 12 spots below the last 5.7.

They're still listing him as a cornerback even though it's clear Michigan wants a slot athlete first.

What's the delta say? Mix of "this is the guy people in Massachusetts talk about" and "guy is in Massachusetts," with the added issue of low height and a position—slot receiver—that the scouting industry still treats like part of some other position's pile. 247's late jump to the #1 player in Massachusetts suggests they got some eyes on him, as apparently ESPN did last summer. New England recruits rarely rise above high 3-star because so few evaluators get a chance to see them against better competition.

Slot Receiver George Johnson III

The recruiting sites all agree: GJ3 is a real human person, maybe. This is a bit strange since Johnson had offers from FSU, Georgia and a bunch of others, most of which poured in around the time of his commitment to Michigan. He also played quarterback last year for…

/checks notes

/checks again

…uh, yeah, Bill Cubit (YTBC!). The sites glanced, saw a 5'11"/180 guy playing quarterback, and gave Johnson the same rating they gave the nonexistent lineman last week: medium 3-star athlete. With little else to go on, they kept their rankings there. ESPN didn't even have anything but roster data in Johnson's profile until the commitment announcement.

What's the delta say? They don't know, but they trust Michigan does enough to put Johnson over the same that a MAC school or Michigan State might get.

Wide Receiver Cornelius Johnson

Because he was one of Michigan's later commits I didn't have any data on Cornelius until that occurred last December. At the time Rivals was being perfunctory about New England recruits and ESPN's rating also appeared to be without any scouting. But 247 publishes their historical rankings so we can see how much Cornelius climbed. That was a steady rise—when 247 first rated him in December he was in the 500s overall, but that jumped to Top 250 in late April, jumped again after camp season, and stayed there. Rivals finally got a look in the All-Star season and bumped Cornelius into about the same range 247 (and ESPN) had him.

What's the delta say? Late riser who impressed one site at a camp and then managed to make that stick.

Wide Receiver Quintel Kent

Here's another guy who wasn't really on radars until he committed to Michigan, despite St. Ed's being one of the bigger private schools in Ohio. He impressed Michigan at camp and some of the sites had to scramble to put together a profile. Rivals did indeed give Kent a courtesy bump to the low-three-star range and left him there. ESPN said whatever and stuck him in a pile of guys they weren't going to bother looking at. Since Kent didn't do anything else to gain their attention, that's where things stayed. The only change was 247Sports raised him to a medium three-star after his senior season which came with Ohio scout Bill Greene's quotes.

What's the delta say? Bill Greene's opinion counts, the rest probably don't. This guy was undiscovered but the bit of scouting we got on him afterwards suggest a standard three-star, not a star.

Tight End Erick All

You can see the spot where all the sites adjusted their respective takes on Erick All from "is a three-star TE" to "is a borderline 4-star" with ESPN coming just under and the other two just over. Michigan liked All at their Elite camp last summer, and the adjustments followed after a senior season that apparently included a lot more blocking.

What's the delta say? Good senior season matched what Michigan saw and convinced the sites Michigan probably knows.

Center Zach Carpenter

Zach held steady after his initial grade, with his only big drops coinciding with the periods when a lot more players got scouted. Even the Michigan-Clemson battle for his services didn't spark any much interest since the rest of his offers were Arkansas and mid-major/basketball schools.

What's the delta say? Hard to tell if they got an evaluation on him in here. He didn't give them much reason to either, and OL are notoriously difficult to evaluate.

Guard Nolan Rumler

It seems like every site at one point thought Rumler a Top-100 player and then decided he's still good but belongs in the next rung down from that. The first to drop him was 247 last summer, and the last was Rivals in the most recent re-ranking. The result was a gradual descent to solid four-star.

What's the delta say? The agreement, despite the timing, suggests there's a lot of scouting to back up the drop, which still left Rumler pretty high. Guessing they've got Rumler as well-scouted as you can for an OL. The good news is they still have him a top-ten guard.

Guard Karsen Barnhart

This is the OL version of Zach Charbonnet, where 247 was the first to believe Michigan really had found a great player, and then revised that after the season to really great. In this case Rivals said "huh," and moved him into the four-star range after the season, and ESPN said "huh" and didn't change anything. That leaves some significant disagreement, with 247 believing Barnhart's a better prospect than Rumler and ESPN leaving Barnhart back in the pile of 3-star linemen who play tackle in high school and project to who-knows after three years on the bench.

What's the delta say? Barnhart started around where Carpenter was but the more people paid attention the more they seemed to like him. This might (we hope) be a case of one site picking up on whatever makes great college offensive linemen. Or it could be 247 is taking a shot in the dark at that. The ESPN grade is a legacy of the old shruggie response to linemen unless they look like ready-made college players.

Guard Jack Stewart

This one's a bit funny because ESPN seems to have been the first to get a strong evaluation out there—this is what they're good at: taking a hard look one time—while 247 only recently seemed to get to that "not a four-star but a high three-star" plane. The Rivals rating is a meh 3-star and the same opinion they came out with when they took a look last summer and upgraded Stewart from the bin of 2-stars we will look at later.

What's the delta say? The late bump to an 89 by 247 intrigues me. It only matches what ESPN came up with after their evaluation last summer. But was it based on more?

Tackle Trente Jones

"Well hey, this is a guy," said the recruiting sites about a year after Michigan fans thought so because Greg Frey did, although ESPN, who had Jones in their Top 200 early, managed to pay off an early hunch (their scouting report came later with everybody else's). Note: ESPN adjusts their max scores at intervals so an 81 a year before signing day more or less corresponds to an 82/83 on it. Jones fell back 50 guys when ESPN did their final rankings sweep, which now puts them behind the other two. As for those other two, Rivals and 247 shot Jones up from high three-star camp, with Rivals going to top-100-ish guy immediately and 247 needing another few months to be convinced.

What's the delta say? This guy definitely stood out his senior year. I don't know what to make about ESPN, whether they saw something or were projecting with us based on what Michigan saw.

Tackle Trevor Keegan

I don't have older information on Keegan because he committed later, but that which I have (mostly 247's rankings history) suggests Keegan held pretty steady across the board. That steady was "this guy is a top-200 offensive tackle and the best player in Illinois this year" so that's good news. The disagreement is miniscule here.

What's the delta say? Non-movement for a top-200 player doesn't usually mean non-scouting. That sort usually falls back and lands in the pile of 4-stars who don't make the cutoff for national rankings. Keegan must have been continuing to show the scouts what they thought they saw earlier.

I'll have to get to the defense next week.