About a month ago, I updated the 2023 recruiting board. It's a useful resource, but it is rather short on hard information about specific key recruitments, as well answers to some of the questions that readers ask in the comments. That's where football recruiting bits comes into play. Today we're going to scan the recruiting landscape for Michigan's 2023 class as we enter the most crucial portion of the cycle: the summer. Victors Weekend is less than a month away (weekend of June 17) and the Big House BBQ will be later in the summer. Many recruitments will enter their make it or break it stages and by the time the summer months are over, the class and the hunt for recruits will look very different than the present. 

Addressing the elephant in the room

When I updated the recruiting board, most of the comments were something like "WHY WE NO GET RECRUITS?????", which seems to be the mood of the Michigan Football fanbase right now. I get it. When Michigan defeated Ohio State in November and then clobbered Iowa a week later to qualify for the CFP, most believed that the Wolverines would quickly be rewarded with a top five recruiting class. Getting that 800 lb. Silverback Gorilla off Michigan's back was definitely important for the narrative, but it hasn't yet produced the sort of recruiting surge that many thought it would. Michigan currently has just six commits, not all of whom are totally locked in, and rank 22nd in the country. Meanwhile, Michigan State is making decent early progress on the class, Ohio State continues to recruit like Ohio State, and Notre Dame holds 12 commits and the #1 class in America (!!!). All of these truths has led many to mash the panic button like they're playing a video game. 

So what's going on here? First off, recruiting does not have a linear relationship with winning. They are correlated to some degree, but not exactly. For example, Mark Dantonio was never able to recruit at a high level at MSU despite ripping off 10-11 win seasons for a half-decade. On the flip side, Mel Tucker might be cobbling a better class than Dantonio ever had off a record at MSU of 13-7. Recruiting is about a lot more than winning. In many ways, it's about ~vibes~ more than anything else, which can be summed up as a combination of winning, the coaches/individual recruiters, $$$$, program history/brand, and more. You could go 12-0 every season and may not get the top class in the country if you don't have charismatic recruiters, aren't willing to play NIL, etc. 

In short, the reason Michigan has had a bumpy last five months on the recruiting trail despite the glories of 2021 is that the developments of the first six weeks of the year badly damaged the ~vibes~. Recruiting has a lot to do with individual relationships between positional coaches (who are the primary recruiters) and the players themselves (as well as the head coach), and when many of the positional coaches, coordinators, and coach all leave or threaten to leave, that does a lot of damage. It shouldn't be considered a surprise that one of the few positions that didn't see the coach switch jobs, running back, is also the only one where the class already has multiple commits. 

[Patrick Barron]

Michigan's WR, TE, DL, and S coaches all either switched positions or left the staff, in addition to both coordinators. And even guys who stayed like Matt Weiss at QB and Sherrone Moore at OL both have had to take on new responsibilities in the coordinating game with Josh Gattis gone. All this shuffling fractured relationships with recruits, as recruits had to get familiar with new positional coaches and essentially start the relationship-building stage all over again. For example, Michigan was in a great spot with 5* WR Jaylen Brown from the Miami area in early January, but since have fallen behind the pack after Josh Gattis, who was the primary recruiter, left the staff. Ron Bellamy, moving from S to WR, has been working from behind other suitors in rebuilding Brown's trust in Michigan. 

And of course, this doesn't even get into the Harbaugh --> NFL speculation. I do not blame recruits' families if they don't trust Harbaugh and his word right now, to be honest. If he says to you "I am done thinking about the NFL", he may be telling the truth, but it's hard to trust a guy who took an interview with an NFL team only a couple months ago and has coached in the NFL before. Those rumors were already powerful negative recruiting tools a few years ago, but actually interviewing with the Vikings and showing interest in that gig made it 100x worse.

Recruits and their parents want to know the man who will be coaching them. There are legacy kids or Wolverine fanatics who are going to Michigan regardless of who the coach is, but for the many, many kids who don't grow up with maize and blue bedsheets, it matters who the coach is. And when there is considerable doubt about who the coach will be over the next five years, it hurts recruiting. It hurt recruiting last summer when we went into 2021 wondering if Harbaugh's neck was on the block below the guillotine, and it hurts recruiting this summer after the NFL flirtation.

[AFTER THE JUMP: Big fish worth following]

[Patrick Barron]

Those issues are the primary problems that blunted momentum. A world in which Gattis stays on staff one more year and Harbaugh never considers the Vikings (+ less assistant shuffling) is one where Michigan's recruiting class is probably far better off than it is right now. But we also have to acknowledge that there are other factors when comparing Michigan to rival schools. Michigan State and Notre Dame both have young energetic coaches with the new coach smell, just as Harbaugh did in 2016-17. That factor alone brings in recruits and is something Michigan just can't match. Moreover, despite some improvements in NIL, the Wolverines are not on the level of the $EC, which is going to play a role in any big national recruitments, the way it did with Walter Nolen last cycle. 

At the end of the day, I fully expect this class to round into a typical Michigan class. Recruiting in the Harbaugh era has leveled into a pretty consistent place recently: 12th in 2022, 13th in 2021, 12th in 2020, and 10th in 2019 (using 247's rankings). I don't see any reason to believe this class will be any different than the 10-12 range when it's all said and done right now. Is it disappointing to not be talking top five? Yeah. But I'm also not sure if that was truly attainable in the age of NIL. And ultimately, I don't think anyone should be dismayed about being in the 10-12 range, given that it was just the formula that crafted a B1G championship team. Not to mention the fact that the staff has shown good scouting acumen and has actually gotten better results out of lower ranked classes than the top 5 classes in 2016-17. Michigan has work to do this summer, but I'm much more in the "R-E-L-A-X" camp than the "call the fire department!!!" camp. 

[Matt Freeman]

Dante, Dante, Dante 

One of the big factors driving the recruiting freakout has been the fact that 5* QB Dante Moore from Detroit is not signed, sealed, delivered to Ann Arbor. Michigan has made Moore its only priority at QB this cycle, shunning all other options to show Dante how much they believe in him and want him. It's a risky strategy and right now is far from paying off. Michigan is not out of the Moore hunt by any means; many recruiting gurus seem to think they're still one of the top contenders. But a lot of fans wanted this to be easy (5* right in our backyard, no brainer!) and it has turned out to be the opposite of that. 

Moore has a lot of familiarity with Michigan, as the Wolverines offered him in middle school, but most indications have always been that he has an open mind to his recruitment. There was a healthy "Moore --> ND???" cycle of speculation a couple months back but that has cooled a bit. LSU is still a factor, as is Oregon, Miami, and MSU. Ohio State thought they had a window as Moore is originally from Cleveland, but haven't made a ton of headway. I'm not sure who the leader is at this point, to be honest, reading the dialogue. 

Moore made a visit to Ann Arbor last weekend which lit up the front pages of the On3 and 24/7 type sites, and it seems to have gone decently well. Moore doesn't yet plan to do an OV with Michigan ($), which sounds bad, but you have to realize that he's been on campus tons of times already and knows the program extremely well given that he lives 45 minutes away and they've been recruiting him since middle school. He doesn't need to take an OV to Michigan to figure out what the program is like or gain familiarity.  

Reporting seemed to indicate that Michigan prioritized positional coach relationships on this most recent visit ($), particularly Matt Weiss and Sherrone Moore, who Moore isn't as familiar with. Still, it feels like it will be on Harbaugh to finish the deal, as head  coaches should with the biggest fish. I would not expect a conclusion to this saga any time soon based on the reporting, and some seem to believe the longer it goes, the better for Michigan. I suppose it's not inconceivable that Moore could essentially try dating many different suitors before deciding to marry the girl he's known since grade school. The approach to this QB class has been very risky from the start, but it's still too early to decide if it was a massive blunder or not. 

Joseph Mupoyi [247Sports]

New commitments coming soon? 

It's been a bit since Michigan picked up its last commit, but I would not expect the drought to last too long. 3* Joseph Mupoyi is an EDGE prospect that the Wolverines have been making steady progress with recently and is slated to attend Victors Weekend in June. Many of the sites have had predictions in for some time, and that is an obvious date for Michigan to potentially seal the deal and pick up his commitment. Mupoyi remains an attractive target due to his friendship with teammate and 5* prospect Nyckoles Harbor, a freak athlete at the EDGE position. Michigan has been heavily recruiting Harbor and seems to be among the top candidates, but that battle is likely to last a while. Having Mupoyi in the class would be a nice advantage that Michigan can add to its pitch here. 

Corner is one of the other spots on the team that didn't see a positional coach change, although Steve Clinkscale did pick up the co-DC title in the offseason. It may be a surprise that there are no players yet in the class at this position but that should be changing soon. Michigan took a huge DB crop in the 2022 class and so 2023's will naturally be smaller, which has led them to be a bit more cautious and selective when recruiting this position. 4* Aaron Gates is a Florida commit but Michigan has been hammering away for some time and is a clear flip candidate at this time. He will be on campus for Victor's Weekend, and is one of those names I'd be watching in the next month.

Likewise, 4* Jyaire Hill has been a favorite of the staff and some experts have had predictions in for Hill to Michigan for some time now. The fact that it still hasn't happened is perhaps a little concerning ($), but most are standing strong with their predictions, as Michigan loves Hill and the staff feels he's severely undervalued by the rankings. Hill be on campus June 10, which will present the Wolverines with a chance to seal the deal.  

Michigan offered 3* DT Saadiq Clements not that long ago but have since made good progress. He's a Kentucky native and the Wildcats are obviously still a factor, but Michigan has been gaining. He was on campus a month ago and has an OV set up for June ($). Clements fits the Brooks Bahr mold as a long, athletic three-tech prospect and seems like he could be a candidate to be the next commitment too. 

Nyckoles Harbor [Sam Webb/247Sports]

Top targets to follow 

Those next commit targets are all fine prospects, but I would not describe any of them as big fish. Michigan is after several of those outside of Dante Moore, and they are names to follow. The previously mentioned Nyckoles Harbor is the most prominent name to keep your eye on. He's an otherworldly athlete ranked in the top 15 overall nationally and fits the profile of a Michigan kid. He's also from the DC area, so not really true SEC territory, which makes this an easier lift. Moreover, the top competitors at this time are schools that Michigan can win recruiting battles with, like Maryland and PSU. Other national hawks will circle, but Michigan is among the top two or three players right now. This one won't be wrapping up any time soon, though ($).  

Top 100 OT Charles Jagusah is essentially a two-horse battle at this point between Michigan and Notre Dame. He's a Midwest kid who fits the profile of both schools and after seeming to be fading, Michigan has gotten back in the hunt and booked a visit for him in June ($). The sense I get reading the reports is that Michigan would have to do crush it at the visit to wrestle him away from the Irish, but stranger things have happened. 

Raylen Wilson [247Sports]

Keeping existing LB commit Raylen Wilson in the class is a top target battle in and of itself. Wilson was originally recruited by Mike Macdonald and was affected by the departure of Mac from the staff. He was always going to be tough to keep in the class even without the staff turnover, given that he's from SEC territory and has real interest from Georgia. It's best to consider this one less like "protecting against a flip" and more like a top prospect Michigan is interested in who has yet to commit anywhere. 

Michigan made the top group for Top 100 athlete Jaxon Howard, along with Minnesota, Miami, and LSU. Howard is from the Twin Cities and is the son of former NFLer Willie Howard, which fits the mold of past Michigan prospects like Chris Hinton. The recruitment is pretty wide open with no favorite right now, but Howard has a visit booked for Victors Weekend. They've made him a top priority, but there still seems to be some question where he'd play, with TE and EDGE both having been mentioned by different prognosticators. 

These are the foremost names at the moment, but there are plenty of other highly rated guys Michigan is in on, with varying degrees of success. Jaylen Brown was brought up earlier and Michigan is still interested, as they are with several other top notch WRs. There are dozens of EDGE/DL names I could throw out there, but I think we'll let that go until I do the pre-Victors Weekend update in a couple weeks.  As said at the top, the recruiting board and landscape is going to change considerably over the next few months.