2018 recruiting class: names trending Blue

Submitted by Wolverine Devotee on

It never ends. NSD just means we're done with one class. I hope you enjoyed your moment of relaxation. That is one more second than Harbaugh had of relaxation.

Now it's time for 2018 (born in 2000!) It will be a smaller class since the last two were massive.

We currently have two consensus 4 stars committed in Otis Reese and Emil Ekiyor.

Here's some key targets from 2018 that we have a large lead for in crystal ballz-

  • Dorian Thompson-Robinson, 4 star QB from Vegas. Last Michigan ball was January 15th and we're leading for him at 63%
  • Tyler Friday, DT, the #1 player from NJ and highest ranked player with a Michigan offer. We're 67% on him, but his most recent ball is to Rutgers for some reason. This will be corrected.
  • Marquan McCall, the #1 player in MI. High school OL teammate of Ja'Raymond Hall's. He's 40% Blue but nothing has been put in on his timeline in months.
  • Aidan Hutchinson, #2 player in MI and a 6-5/234 DE, son of Steve CHRIS. We are 100% balled for him because obviously.
  • Kalon Gervin, a 5-11/180 CB from Cass Tech. 88% Blue with his last 7 predictions being for Michigan, nothing since August. 
  • Kolin Demens will sign 10 years after his brother Kenny Demens did. Slipped a bit in the ranking, obviously we're 100% on his radar.
  • Will Mallory, #11 TE in the country from Florida who holds Clemson and Alabama offers. Son of former Harbaugh teammate. 

 

Impact_Panda

February 2nd, 2017 at 12:56 AM ^

In this class, the final ranking won't matter as much as the final average. If we can get a .91 or even a .92 average (for comparison, this year's average was .9093), we will do just fine

alum96

February 2nd, 2017 at 3:27 AM ^

The average per player matters EVERY year.  Your comment was sort of funny "hey guys don't worrk about class rank this year after we just obsessed about it for 12 months.. it only matters in years we have a chance to be ranked high in it."

OSU just finished off a top 2 class with only 21 players.  So yes the class rank still matters and it can still be a top 5ish class IF the components are spectacular ala OSU this year.  I don't expect quite that level as what OSU did was unprecedented in history but it can be around 10th ranked if Harbaugh really hits on things. 

That said everyone focuses on final rank too much every year IMO as that is far more dependent on volume, when it should always be average player rank.

ColeIsCorky

February 2nd, 2017 at 8:07 AM ^

I put this in the other thread, but I believe we should look at it only with the top 20 players in each class to get a fair measure. It would leave out the outliers. Here's a boring but good example as to why.

I am an accountant for a grocery retailer for my day job, and the other day I was having a discussion with our CFO about how our VP of Ops proved why he wasn't an accountant. They were finalizing their labor budget for 2018, and the numbers spit out an overall labor rate (labor as a percentage of sales) as 9.20% (roughly).

Our VP decided to test this by literally highlighting the column in excel that had labor %'s by store and taking the little average number in the footer of Excel. It read 9.90%.

He in return calls our CFO and explains, "Your labor % is too low. It needs to be higher."

"How did you come up with that?"

"I highlighted the percents in Excel and that was the average"

/facepalm

The reason you can't do this is because all stores have varying Sales #s that aren't comparable at all - stores with higher Sales will have the highest impact on labor % for the company, and, therefore, you cannot treat them all equal. Not to mention that our stores with the highest sales are actually a completely different format of store with way lower labor %'s, but yeah. Point still stands.

Is this a good comparison at all for what we are looking at here? Probably not as it's two totally unrelatable statistics.

HOWEVER, the main point is if you're going to do a direct statistical comparison to get your rankings, then you need to actually look at comparables. Stripping out the kids at the bottom for each class will give you comparable data, especially since the ones at the bottom are dragging your average down. Most classes have more than 20 recruits, so I think that should be the number.

ColeIsCorky

February 2nd, 2017 at 11:42 AM ^

I agree. But there are some similarities. Your assumption is that all store sales are the same in my example, and the assumption here is that class sizes is the same if you use average star ranking as your measure. In both cases you are looking at non-comparable data that skews the rankings.

To go further with this dumb example, your larger stores have more lower salary workers and therefore a lower labor %. All stores only have one store manager, about the same assistant managers, but the number of lower salary wage workers varies based off of store size. Labor needs to be managed on a per store basis or at least similarly sized stores together. Same goes for ranking classes by average stars. Your top guys and bottom guys all have the largest impact on ranking.

Watching From Afar

February 2nd, 2017 at 12:14 PM ^

Got into an argument with an FSU fan about this. At the time FSU's class had like 16 people in it and Michigan had 23 or 24. FSU had a higher average beacuse Michigan had Taylor and Woods. So the FSU guy argued that FSU's class was better because of the higher average. Except had you taken Michigan's top 16 guys (the complete size of FSU's entire class) then Michigan had a higher average. You shouldn't be penalized for taking lower ranked guys in a huge class in comparison to a class of 14 like Stanford who has a high average.

Let's say you have 11 recruits that average a 93. Michigan has the same 11 guys with an average of 93, and then 5 more guys with an average of 89. How is Michigan's class worse? They just have more bodies, with the same high end talent. The extra guys are just gravy.

Hard-Baughlls

February 2nd, 2017 at 12:09 PM ^

There is strength in numbers that help to mitigate any misses on top tier prospects.  You need your 3 stars to hit more often than other schools 3 stars because everyone has misses.

Expected productivity should be the area under the rankings lines in those charts.  The lower 3rd of your class will matter, whether it's on special teams or a sleeper that blows up and makes up for a 4 star that doesn't come to fruition.

 

Mr Miggle

February 2nd, 2017 at 8:09 AM ^

It's harder to fill a big class and keep a high average rating than a small one. The most important aspect of a class is hard to quantify. How well did you address your needs?

The 2016 class gets dinged for that because we needed more on the OL. The 2017 class is better than it's numbers because it addressed every need. Trade one WR for a similarly ranked OL and it would have been perfect. Perfect in the sense that you maximized the value of the talent, not that you got every recruit you wanted.

 

Impact_Panda

February 2nd, 2017 at 10:16 AM ^

It's funny though, because your quote isn't really what I was getting at. Obviously average rank is always important, hence why OSU has a historic class even though they're still #2, as you said. I was just alerting people to the importance of the average recruit ranking if they weren't already.

For example, everyone on here has talked about how Clemson hasn't recruited on a top 5 level and yet they just won a national championship. The thing is, their average recruit ranking is still pretty high. Their most recent classes are .90+ and even older classes are around .88 and .89. They have just had smaller classes in recent years.

StellaBlue

February 2nd, 2017 at 1:31 AM ^

Yes, they are related.

For biological relationships between living things on this planet, the only question is how closely related.

Me and Harbaugh? Related.

You and Tom Brady or Giselle? Related.

Me and a butterfly or oak tree?  Related, more distantly.

Always a matter of degree.

BursleyBaitsBus

February 2nd, 2017 at 1:05 AM ^

Interesting that a ball came in for DTR on Jan 15th considering he himself said UCLA's lead got even larger after Coach Fisch went over to Westwood. 

Mr Miggle

February 2nd, 2017 at 8:20 AM ^

Not signing one is a mistake I never see Harbaugh making.

It was a big uphill battle when we lost Fisch and didn't yet have a replacement. Pep is showing that he will be a force in recruiting. I think he's going to be a big draw for his coaching too. It remains to be seen how that applies to DTR. His interest in Michigan wasn't based on Fisch, but hiring him should help UCLA.

alum96

February 2nd, 2017 at 3:34 AM ^

FSU just landed 2 top 5 RBs in the nation in the same class.  With due respect to this year's class, we need to finally hit a home run on a RB.

I am puzzled why TEs are not flocking to this university.  OSU is getting higher rankedo nes than we are.  I thought the Stanford offense would attract them galore.

And yes OL and DL EVERY YEAR - no more Hoke holes in the depth chart.

I think we can stick to 2 WRs max (which is fine with the 2 massive hauls back toback in 16 and 17) as this class is probably going to be 18-20 and that assumes a lot of people given firm handshakes on their 5th year and normal playing time/bust attrition of 4-5.   Need to continue hauling in DBs as we have a lot of guys on paper who look fine but nothing proven so need to continue stocking up.  Can probably stick to 2 LBs or so next year too.

If you want to go with 5 OL next year you are talking about 25% of the class being that one position alone, throw in 2 TEs, 1 RB, 1 QB, 2 WRs and you only have room for about 9 defensive players if we can somehow get to 20. 

We have 75 scholarships to underclassmen right now...

JonnyHintz

February 2nd, 2017 at 2:44 PM ^

Ah but we do. We had 4 freshmen TE's last year (two redshirted and will still be freshmen next year). Asiasi was #3 TE in the country and a top 100 recruit. Wheatley Jr was the #12 TE in the country. We were also very close to landing Isaac Nauta, a 5* TE.

Ali G Bomaye

February 2nd, 2017 at 8:38 AM ^

Yeah, since TEs rarely go pro early, remaining eligibility matters more than high school class. We had two TEs with freshman eligibility last year (Wheatley and Asiasi) and we'll have two TEs with freshman eligibility this year (Eubanks and McKeon). And it sounds like we'll be signing at least 1-2 more next year, so we'll maintain a nice distribution.

ArmenHammer

February 2nd, 2017 at 7:49 AM ^

For 2018, the #2 TE Brevin Jordan has UM in his top 3, and the #3 TE Jeremy Ruckert has UM in this top 5. Also, Jay has begun recruiting for 2019 #1 TE Isaiah Foskey. So, that is something. For recruits to be attracted to Harbaugh's affinity for TE's and Butt's success probably shouldn't have had a strong effect until right about now when Butt's headed to the NFL and Michigan's gaining momentum. We'll still have heavy battles with Clemson and Bama for those guys moving forward.

Quailman

February 2nd, 2017 at 1:16 AM ^

UM may lead right now for DTR in Crystal Balls, but he said himself that UCLA hiring Jedd Fisch makes it very hard for any program to beat UCLA.