TomVH: DE Max Issaka Offered and More

Submitted by TomVH on

Just spoke to New Jersey DE Max Issaka (6'3", 240 lbs), and he told me Michigan offered him yesterday. He's not sure if he's going to visit or not yet. I'll keep you updated.

3 Star Ohio TE Jamare Mills (6'5", 244 lbs) was contacted by Michigan. He's calling them back later today. They haven't offered, but want him to visit.

**Michigan is also targeting 3 Star Texas DE Brandon Alexander (6'6", 230 lbs). I don't know if Michigan has offered yet. He's a transplant from Louisiana, which bodes well with Fred Jackson's connections.

(I'll try to keep updating this thread as I get more info)

profitgoblue

January 20th, 2011 at 2:14 PM ^

I think Brian should set up a live TomVH blog on the main page.  Tom could answer all of our questions and provide updates in real-time for the next several days leading up to Signing Day.  I mean, what else does he have to do that's more important?

GoBlue007

January 20th, 2011 at 2:20 PM ^

Does Tom generate any income from this?  Other than being a dedicated Michigan fan, what is his incentive for all of his diligence - does he get a cut for any of his work?...he should.

GoBlue007

January 20th, 2011 at 2:32 PM ^

In econ class they call it an externality....anywhere else they call it "being cheap."  TomVH is a key part of our blog community and makes us so popular that MSU, ND, OSU, etc... troll this sight for info. Just saying, otherwise always glad for the info.

Beavis

January 20th, 2011 at 2:33 PM ^

Tom runs a recruiting site with some other people (U Recruit), and he has a mgoblog email, so that suggests he's either got an ownership intrerest in this blog or on salary.

Beavis

January 20th, 2011 at 2:42 PM ^

It is just an educated guess. The guy is a major contributor, with his own tab and his own email address. At that point there has to be some compensation, or Tom will be declared a Saint sometime in the 22nd century.

GoBlue007

January 20th, 2011 at 2:47 PM ^

Got it - that makes sense. In which case MGoBlog is a great forum for him as well.  I checked out the U Recruit site - pretty well organized and looked impressive. I have a nephew who is a so. in high school with aspirations to make it to a major program (we are not an athletic family so that is working against him) - maybe they can help.

mattg843

January 20th, 2011 at 1:55 PM ^

How am I going to get any work done.  Every time i refresh there is a new update.  I guess it will just pile up for the next 2 weeks. 

Tom, appreciate the updates...keep'um coming

Tauro

January 20th, 2011 at 1:58 PM ^

This article says he was going to visit Michigan:

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/sports/college/s_716388.html

Hope it's true.

Edit: relevant portion:

The Panthers have lost at least 11 of 18 recruits from the Class of 2011. Several of those who remain committed are wavering.

"Our recruiting class was supposed to be one of the best in the country," Issaka said. "The whole program is too traditional and too respectable to be downgraded like that."

Issaka said he is planning to take official visits to Central Florida, Michigan and North Carolina, and also is hearing from Georgia Tech, Maryland, Michigan State and Rutgers.

CWoodson

January 20th, 2011 at 2:11 PM ^

I must have missed the memo where we're only allowed to say positive things, no matter how absurd and lacking evidence of any sort (re: TEARING UP THE RECRUITING TRAIL).  The post you're complaining about was not ridiculous and didn't call out our coach or anyone else - it merely suggested Hoke has pulled a whopping single Minny recruit in this grand tearing up of all recruiting as we know it.

Hoke was certainly hamstrung by the timeframe, it's unfair to have really high expectations for any class following a coaching change, and he could certainly close strong (hope he does), but if reference to reality ruins your fun, you must not have much of it.

/not about the part concerning WAIT UNTIL SIGNING DAY, which was stupid

CWoodson

January 20th, 2011 at 3:54 PM ^

Thanks for, uh, reading all of my posts?  Not creepy.  An improvement to your reading comprehension would help you notice that that poet laureate gordie bell told someone what type of posts "we" weren't interested in here.  In case you still don't get it - he was "telling other people how to post."  When morons try to censor the content or overall outlook of posts here, I think it's ridiculous, and I'm always going to say something.

If you're whining about my desire for others to write in complete, punctuated sentences without the need to type "stfu" due to pathetically limited communication skills, well, you're out of luck friend.

I hope you're not still mad that you don't know enough about basketball to criticize John Beilein.

Fresh Meat

January 20th, 2011 at 4:26 PM ^

I'm not here to get in a pissing match with someone I have never met, never will meet, and don't care to meet.  If you want to have some "grudge" against me because I questioned whether JB was the best coach and posted a thread on it, that's fine.  My point was only that you seem to spend a lot of your posts just telling other people why their posts suck.  Try contributing something to the conversation.  Since you obviously are trying to turn this into MLive by constantly insulting my intelligence (I know nothing about basketball and have poor communication skills) I'm not going to waste any more time responding to anything you say.  But seriously, get off your high horse.  Let people post what they want and if you don't like it like I said, just let it go man, or neg them, whatever, but stop being so confident in how awesome your own posts are.  The fact that you questioned how that other guy got all of his points (OMG POINTS GIVE ME MORE PLEASE DON"T NEG ME) lets me know that you take posting too seriously.

BigBlue02

January 20th, 2011 at 5:21 PM ^

Ha, this one made me laugh for a couple reasons. "My point is all of your posts are aimed at telling people why their posts suck and that's not right. Now let me tell you why all of your posts suck....." and "let people post what they want and if you don't like it, move on....also, you take posting way to seriously and you care too much about points. I don't want to get into a pissing match, but I bet I could piss way farther than you." The way your entire post comes across is very funny and quite ironic.

UofM77

January 20th, 2011 at 4:49 PM ^

It is fair to say Hoke and co. are working around the clock were you on the sight a few days ago when fans were lined up on ledges and bridges around the country. Even though we havent actually signed many of these recriuts momentum has definately swayed and there are alot more intrests in the program that was definatly lacking last week. It may be premature but i understand the enthusiasim.

Captain Obvious

January 20th, 2011 at 2:24 PM ^

I'm pretty sure we can be happy, excited and hopeful without sounding like completely delusional idiots, right?

I'm all of the above but I am in no way, shape or form ready to declare Hoke a beast that is tearing up the recruiting trail.  Hoke's action that prompted this comment was Hoke handing an offer to a kid.  This level of hyperbole wouldn't even be justified if the kid was a 5 star and committed on the spot.  Our class has like 11 dudes in it and needs significant improvement at this time.

To CWoodson - waiting until signing day to make a judgment on Hoke's recruiting abilities is stupid?  Explain that one to me.  Verbal commits mean nothing until the kids sign, especially in turbulent times like these.  We are being poached and poaching other schools' commits (nothing wrong with that).  Until we know who is in the fold for good, it's pretty dumb to judge his recruiting skills.  In fact, I'd say we have to wait until signing day 2012 to make an intelligent assessment of his recruiting skills.  It's not like he was given any time to assemble anything other than a really, really bas class for 2011.

CWoodson

January 20th, 2011 at 2:31 PM ^

Only stupid to the extent that we live in an era of making verbal commit-by-verbal commit analyses of recruiting prowess.  If Hoke pulls the first 4 guys on Tom's weekend visitor list (and he may well do so), let's talk about him tearing things up, I'm down for it.

Of course, we don't REALLY know anything until we see what he does recruiting next year, and in fairness you want to see how those recruits pan out because star ratings don't mean everything, so we're on a 4 year timetable if we're being totally fair.  But that doesn't mean that we should only count signatures on paper in making soon-to-be-forgotten assessments of Hoke's recruiting, particularly in January when there is nothing else to talk about.

Captain Obvious

January 20th, 2011 at 2:40 PM ^

Go ahead and discuss recruiting, I don't care.  The problem is with labeling it good or bad before signing day.  A lot of people declared our upcoming class to be great when RR was coach and we had a QB, Crawford, Hart, a kicker et al committed and people like Walls, Zettel, Frost, Lucien, etc etc just waiting to make their "committments" a formality.

How did that turn out?  Not so good.  Everyone is now going back and declaring the class a disaster.  I bet Pitt thought they had a good class going till a few weeks ago.  I bet PSU was ready to off themselves a few weeks ago.  ND's class wasn't looking so top-5 a couple months ago.  And so on.

There are a lot of coaching changes and people switching committments right now.  Let's wait till signing day to kill Hoke or praise him to the heavens.