UM Football Recruiting - by WM Wolverine

[iam416]

[mgo]Yes, but M has HARBAUGH and he'll coach anyone up. He'll beat you his and beat you with yours. [/mgo]

[AlabamAlum]

Harris was legitimately interested in M, but he never once suggested he wasn't interested in Alabama. And that's where he wanted to play initially.

In any event, when you go after those kind of players you're going to be recruiting against really strong competition, whether it be Alabama or a hometown team or whatever. It's hard to win those top 50 battles. You're going to lose a lot more than you win.

Correct.

[Whitley]

I think that is both discouraging and frustrating for program's like M's that are trying to overcome two decades of mediocrity if not down-right suck in the last decade.

Getting the best HS football players into your program if you aspire to the CFP and a shot at the NC has become incredibly important and the numbers just don't lie.

It also highlights how good Alabama under Saban and to lesser extent osu under ufm are. Seems that Saban arguably had a hell of lot more suck to overcome after Shula than ufm had when he arrived at osu following tressel.

It also demonstrates how hard it is for M/Harbaugh, USC/Helton, Clemson/Sweeney, FSU/Fisher, Washington/Peterson (programs with the capacity it seems to challenge) to get there when Alabama and osu are cleaning up ahead of everyone else. i.e., the rich just get richer.

So if I am reading this right, eventually it becomes a perpetual machine until something goes horribly wrong at Bama or OSU. But until that happens it is very likely Michigan is going into an era where they will always be an underdog to the Bucknuts both on the field and in recruiting? That is depressing.

[AlabamAlum]

Deshawn Hand (he's a backup at Bama) hurt a lot too at the time, yet M has done very well at defensive end the past couple seasons... It was thought to be devastating but he'll be a senior already this upcoming season and he wouldn't have faired much better with M's depth chart than Bama's..

Everyone is 'replaceable' in recruiting if you recruit well behind them.

I don't really think you can call him a true back-up. While it's technically true, we rotate a lot. Through his junior year, with one game left, he has played in 23 games and will be the 1a guy in 2017.

[AlabamAlum]

BTW ......despite the trolling from AA attempting to get solid M fans that post here to buy into that Harris and company creation.

Didn't work AA, head back into your place of shame. You've sullied whatever reputation you might have ever had or brought here as a "purveyor of truth and wisdom." Your gig is up. Negged into obscurity. Never to be trusted!

Haha...Oh c'mon Jeff. It worked a little. I got word yesterday (again from someone I trust) that it was done, and poked a little harmlessly here. I thought it's what it called for. Levity. It makes all things better.

To be honest, you get your o-line in order and the bluechip RBs will beg to come to M.

[Jeff Buchanan]

So if I am reading this right, eventually it becomes a perpetual machine until something goes horribly wrong at Bama or OSU. But until that happens it is very likely Michigan is going into an era where they will always be an underdog to the Bucknuts both on the field and in recruiting? That is depressing.

Yes, I believe you are reading this correctly and yes, it is depressing.

I don't know how far this goes back in the NFL but there was a point where the rich teams got richer (in a literal sense becasue they were out bidding everyone else for the best players) and then there were the also rans.

At some point, the draft and its selection intricacies came along and this was a novel attempt to level the playing field for the also rans (actually the owners of those teams who didn't like sucking hind tit on the profit trough).

CFB is never going to have a draft but there has to be some mechanism that might tend to blunt the trend (the rich get richer) which, IMO, is inexorable unless there is something done to mitigate it...... and then I'm not even sure that can be done or should be done.

[AlabamAlum]

So if I am reading this right, eventually it becomes a perpetual machine until something goes horribly wrong at Bama or OSU. But until that happens it is very likely Michigan is going into an era where they will always be an underdog to the Bucknuts both on the field and in recruiting? That is depressing.

There are more great players than USC, Bama, and OSU can take. Michigan has top 10 talent. They develop those players, they can compete.

Take Clemson, for example. According to numbers, OSU has more talent than Clemson, but they lost. Ditto Bama losing to Ole Miss two years in a row. Etc, etc.

[Jeff Buchanan]

I got word yesterday (again from someone I trust) that it was done, and poked a little harmlessly here. I thought it's what it called for. Levity. It makes all things better.

Ha ...... you started on or around December 24th but it seems at that point you were not sure yourself but you called it an M lean. The bullshit started flying in post #15768 and 15781 on January 1st. The chain pulling started then. Were you sure then or yesterday. I'm confused. Regardless, as expected, you're not to be trusted.

To be honest, you get your o-line in order and the bluechip RBs will beg to come to M.

Don't throw us any bones.

It all comes to an end when the Harris bag man talks to the Feds while Saban declares, nothing to see here, move along and then the subpoenas start flying as Bama/Saban go down in a flaming ball of shit as an incidental side show for some tax case.

It's gonnna happen. Mark it down.

Hehe.

[AlabamAlum]

Ha ...... you started on or around December 24th but it seems at that point you were not sure yourself but you called it an M lean. The bullshit started flying in post #15768 and 15781 on January 1st. The chain pulling started then. Were you sure then or yesterday. I'm confused. Regardless, as expected, you're not to be trusted.



Don't throw us any bones.

It all comes to an end when the Harris bag man talks to the Feds while Saban declares, nothing to see here, move along and then the subpoenas start flying as Bama/Saban go down in a flaming ball of shit as an incidental side show for some tax case.

It's gonnna happen. Mark it down.

Hehe.

Yesterday, I knew for sure. Before that, 100% sincerity. Well, 85%...I did pull a chain, yesterday, with the Hilton Garden Inn, then the Pinball Pete's and whatnot.

Not throwing a bone. That's the truth. The Clemson roster has a #10 roster rank iirc.

Bagmen. Heh. So, you're saying we outbid M? Anyway, honestly, and I am not gloating, we didn't have to have him. We have 4 on campus who are young and very good. Honestly, I hope this doesn't mean we lose Jacobs, who is a beast.

[Wellington_beefhouser]

This is really going to open things up for Walker and Evans. If M can hang onto Samuels, their backfield is sitting pretty. I believe Samuels was one of the highest tested athletes under Nikes Sparq rating system. DPJ won the damn thing as a Junior. If Evans can put on some muscle, he's going to be a force.

[Hannibal]

Everyone is 'replaceable' in recruiting if you recruit well behind them.

Or if you recruit well immediately ahead of them. In the case of OL and DT, we haven't done that. Lots of guys I see listed at DE who will need to add quite a bit of weight and strength to be viable. I'm counting Gary as a DE for now and he will be gone after 2018, so whatever position he is playing from now on will be vacated soon.

That's why I am not too bothered by the Harris loss, but we need a big influx of talent on the OL and the interior of the DL.

[Hannibal]

One thing that has gotten little discussion so far -- Harbaugh's Ohio recruiting has been completely nonexistent. In 2015, 2016, and 2017, rivals lists 42 4 or 5-star prospects from Ohio. Michigan has landed two of them. We've got to recruit our backyard way better than we are doing. In addition to locking down the state of Michigan, which we did nicely for 2017, we have to pull a minimum of 3-4 really strong recruits out of Ohio each year. Otherwise, our rivals get them most of the time. If you're going to take a borderline recruit, make it a guy who would otherwise go to MSU or Penn State instead of a guy who would otherwise be going to Arkansas or Georgia Tech. Henry is a terrific example of this. He is the kind of under-the-radar guy who has been routinely ending up at MSU and then becoming a star.

In our '12 and '13 classes we got Henry, Wormley, Kalis, Strobel, Deveon Smith, Wilson, Bolden, Ben Gedeon, Mike McCray, Jake Butt, Taco Charlton, and Dymonte Thomas. Some of those guys ended up not doing much, but others were huge contributors that I'm sure OSU, MSU, or PSU would love to have gotten. Now we get nothing from Ohio while MSU, Kentucky, and Pitt are pulling some pretty good players out of there. We need to beat OSU for some of their home state guys before we go looking to compete with SEC programs for SEC guys. We'll lose more of those battles than we'll win, but we've got to win some.

[iam416]

UFM isn't losing too many battles for Ohio kids. ND has got him a couple times, but that's been it. For 2018, he'll get every Ohio kid he wants unless Blue Smith wants to focus on hoops and, in that case, he'll go to Sparty. And Dallas Gant MAY got to ND, but I like OSU in that one, if they want him.

In 2018, it's Carman and Gill as the jewels and they're OSU. I think L'C Smith (Blue), Gant and Tyreke Smith are really good -- and I expect OSU to get them (Tyreke likes Penn State, too). Gillison is really good, but he won't get an OSU offer b/c they're in on better TEs. Kid can really play, though. I'm honestly not sold on Leonard Taylor, yet. I'm not sure what position he plays.

But, fear not, Nolan Rumler, 2019 OL, is all M! And he'll be a top 50 national player (these damn white, parochial-school OL always leave Ohio!)

As it currently stands, thanks largely to Kerry Coombs, OSU is more likely to go into M and get a player than vice versa.

[Hannibal]

Gotta change that. Or, at the very least, beat out ND, MSU, Kentucky, and Penn State for the leftovers. We haven't done that lately either. At all. I can't tell if Harbaugh is even trying, to be honest. Lots of our under-the-radar guys nowadays are SEC territory guys. Are those guys really that much better?

[iam416]

I think the key OSU-M battle for 2019 is Taron Vincent. As anyone who follows recruiting knows -- stud DTs don't typically end up in the B10 because, among other reasons, they mostly seem to hail from outside of the B10 footprint. Vincent is from Maryland and is now at IMG. He is an elite DT prospect.

This is a pure OoS kid for both schools. M hired his former HS coach at Gilman (almost certainly to, in part, work Vincent). OSU had/has an early lead. I think it probably comes down to OSU-M for this kid and they're aren't many fungible alternatives out there. I don't see a ton of real, honest OSU-M battles shaping up (e.g., M will recruit Gill really hard, but c'mon). This is one of them and it's for a top 10 national player -- and a DT.