Post UA Game '16 Crooting Swim Lanes

Submitted by alum96 on

I'll do a new diary on the whole situation post Crawford commitment decision 1/9 but until then we'll stick to shorter swim lane posts.  In light of the two No's on the OL today we remain with 4 obvious swim lanes - this assumes 27 commits - which assumes 11 attrition from current roster.

http://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/football-scholarships-s-w-27-player-class

I didn't hear the comment but I saw in one of the threads overnight someone said Harbaugh said there would be "10-11" attrition in the post game comments? Seems like a weird place to say such a thing - if anyone else heard that would be nice to see it confirmed.

If you want more than 4 in the class there are potential ways to open that up at bottom of chart.  My presumption is we really have about 7 openings in this class (maybe 8).

  Top Target Backup Backup Result?
$$$ Rashan Gary - NSD Nooobody   Rashan Gary
WR Dylan Crawford - 1/9 π Young - NSD   Dylan Crawford
TE Isaac Nauta - 1/9 Chase Allen Jacob Mathis Chase Allen
LB Dontavious Jackson - NSD Jonathan Jones - NSD Joel Dublanko Jonathan Jones
CB David Long - mid J Lavert Hill Chris Brown Lavert Hill
S Jordan Fuller Khaleke Hudson   ??
OL   Stephen Spanellis   none
DE Levi Onwuzurike* Connor Murphy* Joshua Uche ??
ETC Quinn Nordin (PSU) Victor Viramontes Elysee Mbem-Bosse Quinn Nordin
         
Nope Mecole Hardman Jr Caleb Kelly Donnie Corley n/a
      Velus Jones  
         
  Other potential lanes      
1 Rashad Weaver Temple visit    
2 Kiante Enis Indiana visit communication stall  
3 Sir Patrick Scott communication stall vague grade rumors  
4 Dytarious Johnson vague grade rumors    
5 grayshirt(s)      

 

alum96

January 2nd, 2016 at 4:19 PM ^

  • Gary - Seems to be UM vs the world, mom says UM vs 1 team - we presume Ole Miss.
  • Nauta - everyone says GA.
  • Levi O - don't know if he is favored over Murphy but I needed to make room for new offer to Uche whose offer sheet is a lot better than his 3* ranking.  Levi seems to be a UM vs Washington battle.
  • Long - UM v Washington (may decide before Italy trip mid Jan after he returns from WA visit, or may decide NSD - conflicting data)
  • Hill - we seem to have solved the Durkin be gone angst and we should be back in great standing if not a silent type of thing
  • Young - still seem like we can have him if we want him and other guys fall out of class. Today's action with the 2 OL helps Young's chance for a spot.
  • Jones - UM v ND
  • Jackson - many players involved, no one knows who the leader is.  Texas kid.
  • Dublakno - not offered yet, visiting January - backup plan maybe if Jones/Jackson both fall through
  • Fuller - very quiet recruitment, visiting UM in January along with OSU and one other I can't recall.  Seems like a 4 horse race.
  • Hudson - totally blowing up at Semper Fi, 4 horse race with UCLA, Pitt, PSU.  UM is in his top 4 despite him never visitng.  UM has work to do on visit in Jan as a bunch of crystal ballz to PSU this week.
  • Spanellis - just offered this week, would appear if we miss on other skill positions you go after him to fill a positional need/desire sort of thing (tackle)
  • Allen/Mathis - lots of conflicting reports on if we'd take a TE if not a Nauta
  • One wildcard - front page story speaks about a friend of Gary flipping which would seal him to UM blah blah; the obvious one there is Upshur which was a UM lean for a long time and is a TE.

Ghost of Fritz…

January 2nd, 2016 at 4:57 PM ^

crushing the SEC east champs Florida in a New Year's Day bowl is FAR better than qualifying for the playoffs and being emabrassed in a shutout by SEC champ Alabama in the first round of the playoffs.

There is no 'plus' just for making the playoffs when the first round embarassing loss establishes beyond doubt that other teams were much better (Stanford, for example), but merely beneifited from fewer lucky bounces all fall. 

MSU had 6 games decided on the last play and/or last drive,  They were 5-1 in those games.  They just as easily could have been 1-5 in those games.  What Alabama did to them shows that they were not really one of the top 4 teams. 

JayMo4

January 2nd, 2016 at 7:28 PM ^

Which makes OSU losing to them - with Cook out, no less - that much more inexplicable.  If it wasn't for the fact that they only just won the national championship last year, that would be the kind of loss that would haunt their fans for decades.

Franz Schubert

January 2nd, 2016 at 6:11 PM ^

MSU was embarrassed and humiliated. That loss was not just a loss, in fact, the whole conference is being judged by how horrible MSU and Iowa played. Florida was not a mediocre team as they won the SEC East and played Alabama a helluva a lot more competitively than MSU. What happened to MSU was an exposure of the luckiest team in the country.

evenyoubrutus

January 2nd, 2016 at 5:00 PM ^

It does seem strange. If you're a recruit like Corley and you have a chance to go to a major program, why would you go to a place like MSU where the best you can hope for is to barely make the playoff and get creamed?

alum96

January 2nd, 2016 at 5:18 PM ^

Not going to neg but it is sort of outdated thinking.  MSU wont recruit at UM/OSU/Bama/LSU/USC level but this year's class is not any different than what oregon has been pulling in the past half decade.

They have two top 100 DL guys in this class - we have 1. (so far)  We wanted King badly, he is going to be a Spartan.

They have 3 top 250 WRs in the class - UM will likewise have 3 if we land Crawford.

Vance is a Cass Tech safety I am sure UM would have loved to get - MSU has him.

They took the best RB in the state of OH out from under Urban last year...and yes Urban wanted him and was trying to flip Scott until the last minute.

They have seven or eight 4* in this class I believe so the meme about it's all being done with 2 and 3* is just a meme now.  And they'd had high 4*/5*s with Burbridge/Malik/Thomas in the past 3-4 years as well - granted those were all Michigan kids but that was before their recent string of success has really flown through to recruiting.

A lot of this stuff is relationships - UM failed to build a relationship with Corley because of Hoke early.  Came back to hurt them in that regard.

Its sort of silly to mock kids and say "what 4* would want to go to a program that had four 11 win seasons in the past 5 - that's a lowly ceiling" when it probably is among the top 5 records in all of CFB over that 5 year time frame.  You can make the same claims about Oregon - why would someone want to go there when their ceiling is geting blown out in a playoff and they just win a lot otherwise. 

So now people can neg me instead.

Save Us Mel

January 2nd, 2016 at 5:45 PM ^

They had a chart on Big Ten recruiting during the Under Armour game today.  OSU, Michigan and PSU each have 9 ESPN 300 kids committed, MSU is next at 3.  That's a big difference and not what you would expect from a team that has had the last 5 seasons MSU has.  Dantonio is a great coach, but their time as a "national power" is over.

alum96

January 2nd, 2016 at 7:24 PM ^

I recommend using 247 composite which rolls up the rankings of the other services along with its own for 1 stop shopping.  I do think generally ESPN is the least "admired" individual service.  But I wouldnt use any 1 alone anyhow - use the composite to make life easier go forward.

More broadly people mocking kids for going to MSU for football purposes due to limited ceiling of conference championships and playoff appearances but no NC should be mocking kids for going to Oregon and Stanford just the same. (for football purposes, not academics in Stanford's case)  MSU has all the same positives of Stanford and Oregon the past half decade but I am sure people here would not say it's dumb to go to those 2 programs.  Those same people should have been mocking anyone who chose Clemson the last 5 years as well.

  • Stanford 54-14, 3 conf championships, no playoffs
  • MSU 54-14, 2 conf championships, 1 playoffs
  • Clemson 55-13, 2 conf championships, 1 playoffs
  • Oregon 57-10, 2 conf championships, 1 playoffs

Those 4 programs seem pretty similar to me the past half decade.

JayMo4

January 2nd, 2016 at 7:32 PM ^

If I'm a recruit, I weigh results on the field over recruiting rankings.

 

Of course, I also notice that Harbaugh has only been here a year and Michigan just doubled their win total.  And Michigan has a better school, better facilities, better stadium, better fans, better national alumni base, more tradition, and better uniforms.  So the choice is still an easy one in our favor.

alum96

January 2nd, 2016 at 4:48 PM ^

Lots of fog of war on the TE front.  Maybe the OL miss on Delance opens door on TE again - Sam has been off for vacation from radio so we'll get more intelligence next week on that front.  Also he is down at the UA game so should have more intel.

Some recruitniks seem to think its Nauta or bust for the position due to a limited spots.  My takeaway from Sam's comments are it's a "room in class" type of thing.  i.e. it could come down to Young vs a Mathis for the last spot, depending on which way the staff wants to go position wise. 

Or say you get both Long and Hill.  If that sacrifices a non Nauta TE ...then you don't have the room.  Etc.

RobM_24

January 2nd, 2016 at 4:25 PM ^

Gary seemed so shy and timid that it was hard to tell if he was playing dumb or if he truly has no clue where he's headed. It's also weird that his Mom is very open to talk, but he acts like he doesn't know what she said.

Jon06

January 2nd, 2016 at 5:01 PM ^

I haven't seen any video or anything, but I wonder about this. If he seemed oddly quiet, it could be that he disagrees with his mom and doesn't want to air it out in public. That would be bad for M. Anyway, we'll find out when the time comes. No need to read the tea leaves.

alum96

January 2nd, 2016 at 5:08 PM ^

His best friend is Kareem Walker and half his state's top players in this class are leaving NJ to play at UM.  I don't think you have to worry about him being forced to be here.  He has never had a clear #2 that was obvious to outside observers the whole time - meanwhile UM has always been in his "top group" (however large that group is at any point in the process).

alum96

January 2nd, 2016 at 4:53 PM ^

Absolutely.

Also I just noted Chris Brown has turned "cold" from "warm" in 247 warm interest category so he might not be someone the staff is pursuing that much anymore.  So those could be the last 2 corners UM pursues.  (Hudson and Fuller seem to be recruited at safety)

Also keep in mind Sir Patrick Scott may not end up in this class so Hill could take his spot and then Long (if he wants to be here) would just take one of the open 4 slots. etc