UM Football Recruiting - by WM Wolverine

[iam416]

Dan:

It's interesting you'd pick Peppers and Lewis as well as relying on Mgo. That blog had a man-crush on Peppers and fully believed he deserved to be B10 Defensive POTY. I think Mgo would rate Peppers ahead of Lewis. And, eventually, so did the NFL. Finally, Lewis was a high-ish 4*. He was #115 in the national composite. To compare, he was slightly higher rated than Myles Sims.

If you want to make the 5*/3* case with someone from JL's class, how about Reon Dawson vs. Peppers?

M landed a great WR class last year. DPJ should be a future first round pick. The other 3 are all solid 4* players or better. That's really good. If you wish to talk OSU WRs we can do that in OSU thread.

[Hannibal]

I don't expect Harbuagh to ever be at the level where Meyer is now in recruiting. Meyer's Plan B guys are 98% of the country's Plan A guys. That's not a reasonable expectation for a program like Michigan, but steadily recruiting at the same level as the 2016 and 2017 classes is. But in order to do that, we need to beat OSU a couple of times and win some championships very very fast, or else Harbaugh will start to lose credibility on the recruiting trail.

I'm much more concerned about Harbaugh's scheme on offense. We will never have a Lamar Jackson, Cam Newton, or a Deshaun Watson - a guy who an almost singlehandedly take over a game and make up for what is otherwise a big talent deficit. Last year OSU had no conventional running game against us and they had probably the worst day passing against us since the 1970s. But they still beat us, because the QB ran for 152 yards on 22 non-sack carries. By my count, Barrett runs accounted for 7 OSU first downs and 1 TD. We aren't going to have that kind of guy, which means that we will have to dominate in other ways, and that's never going to happen except in occasional OSU rebuilding years that coincide with Michigan having a bunch of fifth year seniors.

[WM Wolverine]

Just a really quick explanation of 5-stars vs 3-stars...

5-stars are solid or better B1G starters 70% of the time... 4-stars are solid or better starters say 50% of the time... 3-stars are solid B1G starters 25% of the time...

However here are 1000+ 3-stars and only ~30 5-stars and ~250 4-stars; 3-stars can and do perform at the level of many 5-stars but that's just because there are so many 3-stars that by chance many of them will be good football players. The likelihood of a 3-star being a NFL draftee, all B1G, All American is much, much lower than that of a 5-star.

Yes, there are some coaches who are superior at scouting, recognizing talent better than others and coaches who can develop that talent much better than others. I think HARBAUGH!!! is one of those, thanks to him assembling to an excellent supporting staff. But the issue is Urban is excellent too at these things and he's smart enough to hire excellent coordinators and position coaches & support staff.

Like Talent stated, Jourdan Lewis was a near 100 overall talent. If he were a couple inches taller, he would've been a near 5-star. To compare fairly, you'd need to compare Lewis' first 3-years to Peppers' career.

[iam416]

To put some sort of numbers on 2016-17 recruiting:

FSU: 587.36 -- 91.43 (49)
LSU: 581.75 -- 91.44 (50)
Georgia: 581.3 -- 91.84 (48 )
Michigan: 576.06 -- 90.56 (58 )
USC: 569.38 -- 91.47 (45)
Clemson: 510.35 -- 91.04 (35)

M's average is a little "low" because of the huge numbers they took which included some fliers. So, I actually don't think it's "low" but very good for a two-year class of 58. No one is hem-hawing about FSU or LSU recruiting as being insufficient to capital "w" Win.

Hanni's second point is one JB and I have discussed at some length. I tend to agree with Hanni, but in the context of recruiting, it's Clemson. When you have a superstar "college game" QB, you can get by with lesser talent in spots. Clemson's OL had a couple fantastic players and a couple kids who were shit. But, they had Watson (and stupid good skill players). And they are able to land hellaciously good DL.

So, HARBAUGH!!!! is recruiting plenty good to WIN. An elite QB can paper over smallish talent gaps. HARBAUGH!!!! is a proven QB genius. So, I mean, I don't think it's a particularly big problem (unless you view 2018 as trend-setting -- which it isn't).

For 2018, M will have lots of young talent playing. IF Speight takes another step or two, then that "covers up" the inherent inexperience in that talent and pushes M into CFP contention.

[iam416]

To compare equally too, you'd need to compare Lewis' first 3-years to Peppers' career.

Yeah, this is a really good point.

[hack]

I don't expect Harbuagh to ever be at the level where Meyer is now in recruiting. Meyer's Plan B guys are 98% of the country's Plan A guys. That's not a reasonable expectation for a program like Michigan, but steadily recruiting at the same level as the 2016 and 2017 classes is. But in order to do that, we need to beat OSU a couple of times and win some championships very very fast, or else Harbaugh will start to lose credibility on the recruiting trail.

I'm much more concerned about Harbaugh's scheme on offense. We will never have a Lamar Jackson, Cam Newton, or a Deshaun Watson - a guy who an almost singlehandedly take over a game and make up for what is otherwise a big talent deficit. Last year OSU had no conventional running game against us and they had probably the worst day passing against us since the 1970s. But they still beat us, because the QB ran for 152 yards on 22 non-sack carries. By my count, Barrett runs accounted for 7 OSU first downs and 1 TD. We aren't going to have that kind of guy, which means that we will have to dominate in other ways, and that's never going to happen except in occasional OSU rebuilding years that coincide with Michigan having a bunch of fifth year seniors.

OSU beat us because every single 50/50 call went their way, and no less than six of those were on 3rd or fourth down.

Recruiting level will never reach that, agreed. Don't know what to say, though, ultimately, what cannot go on won't.

[Da Geezer]

Hannibal:

I'm much more concerned about Harbaugh's scheme on offense. We will never have a Lamar Jackson, Cam Newton, or a Deshaun Watson - a guy who an almost singlehandedly take over a game and make up for what is otherwise a big talent deficit....

Why do you feel it is so unlikely that Michigan will recruit a game-changer at QB? Do you figure the scheme prevents the kind of numbers that Jackson or JT Barrett will put up this year?

[Hannibal]

OSU beat us because every single 50/50 call went their way, and no less than six of those were on 3rd or fourth down.

You are being very generous calling them "50/50". They got a few that were 0/100.

But we can't really complain about it. This type of outcome should be built into our expectations. We'll never see it happen in reverse.

Hannibal:
Why do you feel it is so unlikely that Michigan will recruit a game-changer at QB? Do you figure the scheme prevents the kind of numbers that Jackson or JT Barrett will put up this year?

It sounds like McCaffrey is a great athlete, but one who will still be a pure dropback guy most of the time. I can see a guy like that running a read option once or twice a game or breaking the occasional scramble, but I just don't see Harbaugh ever building the offense around the running ability of the QB as so many teams have successfully done.

[WingsFan]

OSU beat us because every single 50/50 call went their way, and no less than six of those were on 3rd or fourth down.

Exactly

'Barstool Sports' Michigan/osu came up on my Youtube last night as 'recommended for you'. That guy Dave is a U of M grad/fan - thought it might be rather humorous.

Big fucking mistake! What a bunch of shit! I forgot how bad we were jobbed, got mad all over again.

[hack]

It'll be interesting to see what happens. Harbaugh isn't here to silently do nothing about the, um, ethical gap. He knows it exists. Too competitive to shrug it off. But he won't get it done by consistently being outrecruited. I don't belive in Hanni's 20% of the time thing; I think it's overstated. But getting to 50/50 will be a challenge.

[WM Wolverine]

Every pass interference call went in favor of the Buckeye's, 3 or 4 of them. The 'spot' shouldn't have been an issue, there were two really bad holds, pushes in the back on that play just for him to get past the line of scrimmage.

[WM Wolverine]

Sammy Faustin S (3-star, Florida) is a Wolverine.

[Detroit Dan]

Talent (and others) make some good points about recruiting, as usual, but missed the point of my Lewis / Peppers comparison. Peppers may have been drafted higher by the NFL, but Lewis provided more value to Michigan football. The point somebody made about comparing Lewis' first 3 years to Pepper's career reinforces that point.

Anyway, perhaps I'll have a chance to read all the comments more fully later on.

Michigan's best chance at beating the Buckeyes regularly probably involves NFL style passing. The big disadvantage to UFM style offense is that the QB is running around and not concentrating on the passing game.

[Detroit Dan]

Lots of discussion about recruiting stars over at mgoblog today. Of course, you guys are right that more stars are better, ceteris paribus.

On the other hand, Ace and the commenters make the good point that the star rating at the end of the day depends quite a bit on the offers a recruit gets from coaches such as Harbaugh and company. Any Michigan recruit will get a significant ratings bump.

The more important point is that recruiting depends upon the quality of the program, just as the quality of the program depends upon recruiting. Rome wasn't built in a day.

[AlabamAlum]

That used to be called "The Alabama Effect". A little known player to the recruiting sites gets a visit from Saban and goes from 2-stars to 4 or 3-stars to 5 or whatever.

The thing is, it's not that a visit from Saban made the sites "fluff up" a player; rather, it's that a little-known and unheralded player gets a visit from Saban and the experts look at the previously ignored kid and accurately rate his skill set and metrics.

As always, your mileage may vary.