UM Football Recruiting - by WM Wolverine

[lineygoblue]

Michigan will have a "wafle" playing the DL soon.

https://www.mlive.com/wolverines/202...q1JMFVT6WxVPFg

Owen Wafle, formerly a ND recruit, decommitted from the Irish in May, and today announced his verbal commitment to Michigan. He's a 6'2" 290lb DL from Princeton NJ.

Not sure how 'big' this might be, but he's rated a 4-star by 24/7. DL is a position of need, and the more candidates there are, the more likely they'll end up with someone good.

WM probably knows more about him.

[WM Wolverine]

I don't follow recruiting all that close anymore, liney. I get the majority of what I know from mgoblog & twitter.

[Mike]

Sounds like a good get. Can never have too many 4* recruits in the trenches.

[Hannibal]

This class looks like it's headed for a #2 finish if we end up landing the remaining blue chippers that we are favored to land.

[iam416]

Zero chance it finishes #2. ZERO. I'd be really surprised if it's top 5.

Georgia, Alabama, Ohio State and, I think, Florida, will all be ahead of them.

Ohio State, e.g., is looking really good to sign Eddrick Houston out of Georgia. If that happens, they are ahead of M with 7 fewer recruits.

It's a nice, deep class for HARBAUGH!!!! -- but top 5 probably requires 7-8 top 100 kids.

[lineygoblue]

Yea, .. we're back to "Michigan Sucks" ... nothing to see here...

woe is us...

[Hannibal]

Zero chance it finishes #2. ZERO. I'd be really surprised if it's top 5.

Georgia, Alabama, Ohio State and, I think, Florida, will all be ahead of them.

Ohio State, e.g., is looking really good to sign Eddrick Houston out of Georgia. If that happens, they are ahead of M with 7 fewer recruits.

It's a nice, deep class for HARBAUGH!!!! -- but top 5 probably requires 7-8 top 100 kids.

You might be right but rivals has us currently at #2 with lots of guys left on the board.

[iam416]

I go by 247 composite, which also has M at #2.

But M has 22 commits. They may be in a more good players—in fact, they are. But so are a lot of other teams.

I could be way wrong. But that post isn’t getting deleted. If I’m wrong I’ll be here, as always, to take the heat. My best guess as of today is 5-7. And I’d be really surprised if OSU doesn’t finish ahead of them.

We’ll see.

[Hannibal]

Where's that 5-star CB from Glenville going to go?

[lineygoblue]

The recruiting rags will put Michigan as low as they possibly can, and still maintain an iota of credibility. Because, Michigan.

As long as Michigan is getting people to fill the spots that need to be filled, they'll be fine, be that by recruiting, the portal, or a bit of both.

Harbaugh and his staff will probably never recruit a top five class, because they're not recruiting by how the recruiting rags say they should be recruiting.

Recruiting results for Michigan over the years.

Braylon Edwards = 3 star out of HS
Aiden Hutchinson = 3 star out of HS
Mike Hart = 3 star out of HS
Hassan Haskins = 3 star out of HS
Ronnie Bell = 3 star out of HS

---

Derrick Green = 5 star out of HS, .. played 1 year .. transferred, played part of one additional football, and quit football.
Shane Morris = 5 star QB, #3 player in the country out of HS - never won the starting job at Michigan. Finished a 5th year at Central.
Aubrey Solomon = 5 star DL, #12 player in the country out of HS, played 2 seasons, had 19 tackles and 2 sacks. Transferred to Tennessee and was never heard from again.
Marques Slocum = 5 star OL/DL out of HS, #34 player in the country, played 2 seasons, had 8 tackles. Transferred to a JUCO due to grade issues.
Boubacar Sissoko = 4 star CB out of HS (Cass Tech) - 44th best player in the country - was dismissed from the team for off field issues, and later went to prison for theft and armed robbery.

Oh, and lets not forget Dylan McCaffery. 5 Star QB out of HS, "can't miss". Couldn't win the starting job, got beat out of it by Joe Milton in his final season at Michigan. Transferred to Northern Colorado to play for his dad. His dad benched him in favor of another kid. Hasn't been heard from since.
----

So, recruiting services don't have a sterling history when predicting team success via their rankings.

[AlabamAlum]

The recruiting rags will put Michigan as low as they possibly can, and still maintain an iota of credibility. Because, Michigan.

The kids are rated before they commit to or sign with any school. Yes, there is occasional movement upward, but it’s rare and never downward that I’m aware of.

Further, the math isn’t secret. 247 and Rivals are pretty much open on it.

I don’t think this is a “recruiting rags are out to get Michigan” thing.

[lineygoblue]

We've seen Michigan sink in the rankings after commitments more often than not.

As I said, I don't think the recruiting rankings are an accurate indicator future successes. Especially when the playoffs go to 12 teams. There's going to be more chances for upsets.

3-4 years ago, I doubt that any non-Michigan fan here would have predicted that in 2023, Michigan would be the two time defending Big Ten Champion, with a real shot at a 3rd. I don't think that even Michigan fans saw this coming. The recruiting rags certainly didn't.

[iam416]

Where's that 5-star CB from Glenville going to go?

Bryce West is OSU. Aaron Scott is probably OSU -- maybe M.

[iam416]

The kids are rated before they commit to or sign with any school. Yes, there is occasional movement upward, but it’s rare and never downward that I’m aware of.

Further, the math isn’t secret. 247 and Rivals are pretty much open on it.

I don’t think this is a “recruiting rags are out to get Michigan” thing.

This is pretty much indisputable. You can dispute it if you're an adherent to the Worldwide Anti-M Conspiracy, but otherwise, no.

You can compare CFB team success, NFL draft position for a player and NFL success for a player, and recruiting rankings are predictive for all of them. And that ranges from highly predictive to moderately predictive, but they are predictive nonetheless. Anyone who wants to tell you that a 3* kid has just as good a chance at being drafted in the first round as a 5* kid is flatly denying facts. Anyone who wants to tell you that a college roster with 2 and 3 star kids has a better chance of winning the CFP than a roster with 4 and 5 star kids is flatly denying facts.

[iam416]

247 Sports does a "Roster Composite" where they rate the team's overall roster based on HS rankings. In the last 5 years, the lowest ranked team in that rating to win a CFP was LSU. At #5. And that was their highest rating, by far, of the past 5 years.
.
Here are the composite rankings for the CFP from 2015-22. It's worth noting that with "conference champions" and such, lower rated teams were able to sneak in -- I mean, no one thinks TCU was better than UAT last year and I would think most people think OSU was way better than Sparty in 2015, but bedshitting being what it is, gotta roll w/ DISRESPEKCT!!! And for that matter, any number of teams over UC.

Georgia (2), OSU (3), M (13), TCU (32)
Alabama (1), Georgia (2), M (15), UC (54)
Alabama (2), Ohio State (3), Clemson (4), Notre Dame (8)
Ohio State (2), LSU (5), Oklahoma (8), Clemson (9)
Alabama (2), Clemson (6), Notre Dame (10), Oklahoma (11)
Alabama (1), Georgia (4), Clemson (9), Oklahoma (16)
Alabama (1), OSU (5), Clemson (9), Washington (24)
Alabama (1), Clemson (13), Oklahoma (16), Sparty (23)

The scores for any team ranked 15 or lower:

17-37
0-38
7-24
48-54
11-34
6-27
51-45
7-65

A team ranked 15 or lower has won one time and that's only because they played a much more comparable roster in M at 13 (and some dubious coaching, but whatever). When that shitting #32 roster was matched with #2, it wasn't pretty. Baker Mayfield's Oklahoma was probably the best, by far, of the teams in this category.

So, they're 1-7 and getting outscored 40-18. Seems like recruiting rankings are fairly predictive in that regard. Not definitive -- upsets can still happen -- and sometimes teams have a great QB that makes up for a lesser roster. And, for that matter, in 5 of the 8 years, the two highest rated teams played in the CFP. The exceptions were last year when the two highest rated teams played the epic semifinal game and when OSU lost to Clemson -- twice, once egregiously and once a total asswhipping.

Anywho, if you wanna win the CFP, you will need, way more often than not, a top 5 roster per recruiting rankings. That's just facts. Nothing anyone can really argue.