Hello: Drake Harris

Carr had great classes (especially after 97) and, in fact, had possibly the best recruiting class in UM history in the Henson/Fargas/Terrell/etc class that even a budding recruiting business universally named the top class in America. I remember being a mid-teenager and reading Parade Magazine from a Sunday Toledo Blade. They did (still do?) a yearly recruiting round-up at signing day and listed the "Parade All Americans & Overall National POY". The amount of kids going to Michigan that year was astounding. Every other kid was going to Michigan and, IIRC, either Henson or Fargas was the POY. The issue with Carr was that later in his career he became lazy in a few positions, OL being the worst. For every Long or Schilling he'd offer and land 3 absolute no name kids with either a NR-2* ranking who never saw the field here but would get the "recruiting service bump" just because they assumed if Michigan wanted him he has to be at least a 3-4*. High ranked OL turned out to have health issues we only found out about after NSD, career ending shoulder issues we ignored BEFORE offering (KZ), etc. That was the downfall as he consistently brought in enoug talent that could and a few times SHOULD have won a NC if not for atrocious OC/DC combos. He basically failed to adapt and open up a bit when CFB was clearly going that way. We had the talent to do it (see Carr's last game) but "off tackle left" to start each game was a given. Even Pete Carroll, in genuine warning to us or arrogant pride, openly spoke of how absolutely predictable we were to the media. Players of many schools, win or loss, would say how they knew what was coming before the ball was snapped. Yet, we still had the talent to be a decent team (and NC level great in 06, IMHO). So, whether one staff is better at recruiting than another is too early to say, IMO. All I know is that our HC, DC & OC are not the type to coach by the motto of "here is what we're doing, try to stop it" as they all know those days are over aside from playing absolute scrub teams and having overwhelming talent. Bo had that mentality and rightfully so at the time, it carried on all the way to Carr and still largely worked until the spread era hit. Yet, he didn't adapt and what happened happened. This current staff, when they have their players, should have great talent and NOT be as predictable as those late Carr/DeBord teams. That matters more than recruiting as long as the kids you get are good players, IMO. *Sorry I cannot make paragraphs as the Android app is a billion times better now but it still doesn't allow that.*