It appears that Michigan has chosen to part ways with previously incoming athlete recruit Amauri Pesek-Hickson, who spoke to to Rivals' Josh Helmholdt ($).

After the players that declared for the NFL draft date passed, Harbaugh called me and told me that “we might have to go to plan B”. I asked why, and he told me that the spots they have open for the 2019 class they want to fill with DT and DE grad transfers and he wants me to reclassify and come in as a 2020 prospect.

Those of you with a Rivals account can take the link to get more specifics about what Michigan told Pesek-Hickson before they changed their story to the above. Those without can ask a friend with a Rivals account (please don't post paywalled info here; I've done enough already).

UPDATE: Nick Baumgardner of the Detroit Free Press has more details after speaking to APH's father:

At the time of his pledge, Michigan put a plan in place for Pesek-Hickson – who has scored a 30 on the ACT – to bring his grade-point average up during his fall semester at Blue Valley North to make sure there was no doubt about whether or not he’d be eligible to get into U-M academically.

Pesek-Hickson was under the impression from Michigan that prep school would only be an option if his academic situation wasn’t good enough, his father said.

APH was a Ronnie Bell-like prospect, a three-star athlete from Kansas (745th on the 247 composite) and basketball player who only played football for one year, and whom Michigan was looking at as an athletic defensive prospect. Though he played safety in his one high school season, at already 6'2"/215 we expected him to grow into an outside linebacker in the way of Devin Gil.

He did not sign a letter of intent on early signing day with the rest of his class, but it was believed at the time to be only a formality. At the time safety commit Quinten Johnson told MLive that he was holding off to sign with his high school teammates but there was no indication why Pesek-Hickson had also not signed; early reporting on him suggests academics were highly unlikely to be an issue.

It appears that Michigan was in fact slow-playing him while figuring out their numbers, and did not indicate as much to Pesek-Hickson. It's certainly not a good look for Harbaugh and his staff; I'd say this is much worse than the Swenson debacle, which occurred over months and came down to a failure to communicate. In this case Pesek-Hickson seems to have been misled about whether he had a spot in this class and was given two days before Signing Day to find other options. While APH doesn't have to make a decision on Signing Day, his options at this point are probably limited as most schools that might have had interest already have scholarship commitments to the players they recruited instead.

Michigan's need for outside linebackers in the 2020 class is now even greater, and the staff's credibility with borderline recruits remains an issue of concern.