5-Star OL Braden Smith visiting soon
Jeez, the board is slacking on recruiting these days. Smith is from Olathe, KS. He's a 5-star to Scout and also will be to Rivals eventually (he's currently ranked #19 overall).
Another big timer slated to drop in for a #Michigan spring practice... Olathe (KS) South OT Braden Smith slated to vist the 19th or 20th.
He could play either tackle or either guard spot. I imagine someone will try to turn him into a LT eventually, but it might take some time to work on his pass blocking skills.
I thought a guy was either a tackle or a guard? Please explain.
-That's a joke, don't really.
Those kids are all pretty consistently large for high school.
Yes, it's Drake Harris.
But MSU still leads! lol
Do we have a legitimate shot at him? Is he leaning towards anyone? I would really like to have this guy be part of the team.
He doesn't talk much, but Michigan is considered to be in his top group.
Book end Bradens? Ben Braden at one tackle and Braden Smith at the other? Sounds good to me.
According to his Rivals page, he's 6'6'', 275 lbs, so essentially, on track to be a road grader, as people have mentioned. If Michigan is in his top group, to have another section of The Wall on offense in place for the future would not be a bad thing at all.
His current offers, per their site, includes Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Kansas St., Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, Notre Dame, Ohio St., OKlahoma, South Carolina, Stanford, TCU, Texas, Texas A&M and Virginia.
Edit: Replied to the wrong thing, so instead I will say, at what point do you think 5-stars get turned off by having 5-stars in every class before them?
Looking at Alabama, not much at all.
Ask USC. They seem to be doing a good job of continually attracting 5 stars. Maybe it's Lane Kiffin's pleasing personality.
Ask Nick Saban.
I think you have to establish a culture where kids know even if they are not "the guy," they will still get playing time through being rotated in. I would guess Hoke is going to attempt to do what he did with the dline and have guys rotate in and out on the oline. Therefore keeping people fresh. We really couldn't afford to do that much last year thanks to depth issues, but in the future, I could see that happen.
It is much less affective to rotate an OL than a DL, I believe. I've never really heard of any teams that have line changes to the front 5. Anyone else want to enlighten me?
Little Huskers did that all game...
Effective.
/that guy.
Here's some highlights of Braden at the UA Combine in January. Can get a good sense of what the kid looks like. And that sense is that he looks like he's built like a tank.
His reps in pass blocker were not that impressive, but man is he a specimen. That's a solid 275 lbs for a high school junior. I bet in a couple years he will be stonewalling those defensive ends. Good looking prospect.
Lineman generally never look that good in those drills as the advantage is slanted pretty heavily to the defensive lineman.
and his agility, his upside is going to be ridiculous. . .
Braden Smith makes alot of linemen look like chubby dough boys.
Jeebus! This guy coming at you full steam ahead = Cower.
It's good see that the highly rated guys at least seem to find Michigan attractive again. Hope we can pull them in. Speaking of highly rated prospects; is anyone familiar with Clifton Garrett? He's a 4 star linebacker out of Illinois, with offers from all of the big-time programs except Michigan. Does anybody know why Hoke & Company hasn't offered him?
The issue appears to be that Michigan has a plethora of linebackers, and Michigan already has a MIKE in the 2014 class in the form of Michael Ferns III. If Ferns weren't committed, then I think Garrett would have been offered by now.
Hey, those men worked hard for that roof over their tools! Or.....lack there of..