UM Football Recruiting - by WM Wolverine

[Rocky Bleier]

Does anyone know if Willie Henry has officially verballed? I don't see him on any list yet.

Also, interesting to note that Royce Jenkins-Stone said in a DetNews article today that he wouldn't be a Wolverine if Rich Rod were still head coach.

[Hannibal]

Sorta puts things into perspective, disappointing finish and all. Last year at this time, RJS wasn't a lock and Ross and Richardson were tossups, at best. Meanwhile, Farmington Hills Harrison still had a green and white padlock on its front door. I still wish we had a couple more stud skill players, but for the most part, our losses the past six months were with house money. The class will end up on the high side of my expectations (which were high to begin with).

[iam416]

Also, interesting to note that Royce Jenkins-Stone said in a DetNews article today that he wouldn't be a Wolverine if Rich Rod were still head coach.

Dantonio is the guy Hokatisson is beating up on. They may have sporadic success against UFM in Ohio, but they're going to generally beat MSU...

Hoke has a similar relationship with HS coaches in ohio as I understand it. I think those relationships were ignored for three years under Rodriguez but they've been reestablished if I'm reading the news correctly. To what extent, I don't know .... I'll defer to talent here.

Hoke knows what he's doing in Ohio and, more importantly, he's a good recruiter. It will be interesting to see if he can hold on to Dymonte Thomas. Also, UFM just offered a couple kids that M presumably has a decent lead on: DeVeon Smith and Ben Gedeon. Whether these are "commitable" offers, I dunno (Smith is RB, and UFM also has offers out to Ty Isaac and Derrick Green). But you could see a scrap for those players.

[hack]

I've been assuming that without Cousins and Worthy MSU falls off a cliff, and particularly since the recruiting aren't now top-25ish, they're not going to be getting any higher with their record and profile likely to take a hit and UM now stabilized. But who does Dantonio have to play QB next year? Is it possible they they have decent replacements for their best players on each side of the ball?

[The Oracle]

Andrew Maxwell will be theire QB, he was an Elite 11 guy from a few years back. But that doesn't mean he'll be good his first year starting.

[hack]

Tks. I'm assuming the defense will still be excellent, and will punch above MSU's traditional weight as long as Dantonio and Narduzzi are there. They are indeed excellent defensive coaches.

[whodean]

Looks like the Big10 is back to Big 2/Little 10

http://www.buckeyextra.com/content/stories/2012/01/31/separation-anxiety.html

To Ohio State and Michigan fans, they were the good, old days. The rest of the Big Ten would rather forget them.

The conference was derided as the Big Two and Little Eight when Woody Hayes and Bo Schembechler duked it out during their Ten-Year War starting in 1969.

When Gerry DiNardo of the Big Ten Network interviewed new Buckeyes coach Urban Meyer recently, he compared the competition that Meyer and Michigan’s Brady Hoke have already had in recruiting and will have on the field in November to the Woody and Bo era.

Each program is emerging from unexpected depths. Michigan floundered during Rich Rodriguez’s three years as coach. Ohio State just finished its first losing season in 23 years and endured an NCAA proctology in the process.

But if league rivals hoped for extended fallout from the Buckeyes’ and Wolverines’ problems, they’ve been disappointed.

Rivals.com and Scout.com rank Ohio State’s recruiting class as the third-best in the country. Michigan is fifth in Rivals.com’s rankings and fourth in Scout.com’s.

What might be more striking than that is the gap between the Buckeyes and Wolverines and the rest of the conference. No other Big Ten school ranks in the top 25 of either ranking. Ohio State and Michigan combine for 28 four- and five-star recruits in Scout.com   rankings. The other 10 Big Ten schools have a combined 20 four-star recruits and zero five-stars.

“Right now, Ohio State’s and Michigan’s recruiting classes are so much better than the other 10, it’s absurd,” DiNardo said.

The recruiting chasm is emblematic of a trend in the Big Ten.

Nobody is saying that this ensures a long-term shift back to the days of two Haves and the rest Have-Nots. The NCAA’s 85-player scholarship limit and revenue sharing created by the Big Ten Network have leveled the playing field too much for that kind of disparity.

But it is undeniable that most of the rest of the league’s recent contenders are in the midst of challenging transitions.

Consider: Penn State must emerge from the Jerry Sandusky scandal without Joe Paterno and rebuild under Bill O’Brien, who has never been a head coach. O’Brien isn’t even in State College yet, because he’s an assistant with the New England Patriots getting ready for the Super Bowl.

Wisconsin lost offensive coordinator Paul Chryst, who became coach at Pittsburgh, and five other assistant coaches. Bret Bielema also must replace star quarterback Russell Wilson.

Michigan State has to replace its senior quarterback, Kirk Cousins, while facing ever-harder recruiting terrain in Michigan and Ohio.

Nebraska has to find new recruiting hotspots in the Midwest after leaving the Big 12.

If these and the other Big Ten programs can improve their recruiting, DiNardo said, “All those issues are short-term issues. I would suggest that Penn State’s problems, they can get past.

Wisconsin can replace their coaches. Nebraska can reorient to the Big Ten. Michigan State can continue to do a great job with Mark (Dantonio).”

Former Ohio State linebacker Chris Spielman, now a college football broadcaster, largely agrees with DiNardo.

“Penn State, once O’Brien gets there and has any success, will again sell itself, in my opinion,” he said. “I don’t think one horrible scandal can bring 100 years of excellence to a screeching halt. It can set it back a bit, but winning cures a lot of ills. There’s a chance they’ll come back.”

Wisconsin has prospered over the years by developing players under the radar instead of relying on obvious blue-chippers. Iowa fits that model, too.

It would be a mistake to sell Dantonio short, given the way he has gotten the Spartans to overcome their enigmatic past. But Hoke has concentrated on recruiting his home state harder than Rodriguez did.

As Meyer showed in getting Canton’s Se’Von Pittman to flip his commitment from Michigan State to the Buckeyes, Ohio might not be as fertile for Dantonio anymore, either. All seven of Michigan State’s Ohio recruits are three-star players.

As for Nebraska, Spielman believes its national reputation and coach Bo Pelini’s Ohio roots will give the Corn-huskers a chance to remain an elite program.

But all these questions have to be answered, and it starts with recruiting.

DiNardo, once the coach at Indiana, knows the challenges the non-Ohio States and Michigans have. He thought the conference was well past any comparisons to the Woody and Bo years and had settled into an era of relative parity.

“But this recruiting class has made me question if it has,” DiNardo said. “You have two guys, one in Columbus and one in Ann Arbor, recruiting at — I hate to say this — the SEC level.

“A perfect storm is the only thing that could have gotten back to the possibility of the Big Two and now the Little Ten. You described the perfect storm: Penn State is having problems, Wisconsin lost six coaches, Nebraska is reinventing themselves. I never thought (that) premise would come to fruition, and it looks like it could.”

[Rocky Bleier]

Westside Cubs!!!

http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=7523099

[whodean]

Does anyone know if Willie Henry has officially verballed? I don't see him on any list yet.

http://www.freep.com/article/20120130/SPORTS06/120130055/willie-henry-commits-michigan-recruit

Though Michigan has fallen short in a few recent recruiting battles, it appears they?ve won one.

Three-star defensive tackle Willie Henry of Cleveland Glenville verbally committed today, becoming the 24th player in the 2012 class, according to gobluewolverine.com analyst Sam Webb, who tweeted the news.

Other recruiting Web sites, including thewolverine.com, spoke to Henry, and he said he hadn?t committed yet. But the sites indicated all signs pointed to U-M.

Henry, a 6-foot-3, 273-pounder emerged late in the recruiting process. He took his official visit to U-M this weekend.

?He?s a kid who can play the three-technique on U-M?s defensive line, and that?s important in their scheme,? rivals.com Midwest analyst Josh Helmholdt said. ?They need to add depth there, with Mike Martin leaving and no clear heir apparent. He?s from a great program at Cleveland Glenville and shows good potential with a quick first step. That?s the first thing you notice. If he?s as big as he?s listed, he?d be plenty big enough. It?s just whether he can add strength and bulk. But from everything I see on film, he could be really solid.?

Henry had mostly MAC- and Big East-level offers from schools such as Eastern Michigan, Illinois, Hawaii, Louisville, Pittsburgh and Syracuse, among others.

Henry?s commitment stems the tide of recent runner-up finishes for the Wolverines, who were finalists for Washington offensive lineman Josh Garnett, who chose Stanford, Ohio tight end Sam Grant, who chose Oklahoma, Massachusetts cornerback Armani Reeves, who chose Ohio State, and Colorado offensive lineman Alex Kozan, who is heading to Iowa.

?They had a string of big commitments in May,? Helmholdt said. ?Now they?re on a string of misses. It?s more a coincidence than anything. I don?t read into it that anything is amiss.?

U-M is still awaiting a decision from Chicago Simeon offensive lineman Jordan Diamond, who is expected to announce his choice Friday, two days after National Signing Day.

[Jeff Buchanan]

From the article above:

"Nobody is saying that this ensures a long-term shift back to the days of two Haves and the rest Have-Nots. The NCAA’s 85-player scholarship limit and revenue sharing created by the Big Ten Network have leveled the playing field too much for that kind of disparity."

This is utter bullshit. The only thing the scholarship limits have done on a measurable basis is to make CFB recruiting dirtier and more cut-throat.

Getting elite HS talent into your program is a huge deal given what is at stake both for football programs and the schools that offer them. Every indicator points to a return to a set of haves and have nots ..... those two sets roughly representing what CFB looked like in the early 70s.

Frankly, I don't have any problem with that. There are, what, 120 CFB programs now in the FBS? Way too many. Programs in the second tier can either take an Ivy League approach to football or they can drop football and get back to doing what they are supposed to be doing: educating.

[hack]

Make no mistake about it though, Michigan has and will continue to do a great job educating in part because the football program is a great recruiting tool for all types of university participants and builds lifetime loyalty and therefore alumni contributions. You can't blame all those others for trying to copy what's worked.

[WM Wolverine]

Most of these 'misses' can be excused in a way;

Dunn was always a Buckeye, never flipped to being committed to M though he likely was leaning that way pre Urban... Disappointing but can be overcome with one really good signing in '13...

Joshua Garnett was a west coast recruit and was overly impressed by the pre-med at Stanford. Him staying in his home region is again disappointing but recruiting against Stanford academically is a tough task...

Yuri Wright tweets imo indicate a very low level of maturity, people like that imo get into 'issues' when they are 18-22 years of age. Glad they passed on him as did a lot of other programs...

Armani Reeves chose to play with his 'brother', Camren Williams at OSU. Another disappointment, would've been nice to have a run at Camren as he was a favorite of mine before M added Ringer, Ross, Jenkins-Stone, Bolden & Ojemudia... In the end, I believe it was Williams who chose where Reeves would end up more than anything M missed the boat on...

Agree with talent on Alex Kozan's talent level, which isn't particularly high. Guys labled as centers usually are undersized and when those guys don't work out, they usually struggle to find a place on the two deep; e.g. think Rocko Khoury.

Sam Grant - He would've been the third tight end in the recruiting class, I liked his talent level but not a doomsday situation where M has nobody to replace him with...

Willie Henry's highlight film is a hell of a lot more impressive than all of those that many here or at rivals cried over (& over) about that M didn't recruit; Schutt, O'Brian, Sheldon Day, etc... He's got an explosive first step that those guys don't have, he doesn't have near the size/strength of those guys to maul his opposing lineman but M won't be asking him to do that as they'll want him to do what he does best; get penetration into the opponents backfield by getting by his man rather than through him.

I REALLY like the rest of M's OL recruits; Kalis, Magnuson, Braden are favorites of mine and Bars is pretty highly rated and has impressive enough of an offer list. Depth will be a concern down the line if they don't add quality and numbers here in '13 and the class of '12 has a poor batting average but they are in okay shape even if Diamond doesn't choose the Wolverines.

[whodean]

Here's a nice tidbit:

If Diamond commits UM will have 9 of the top 20 of ESPN's Midwest recruits.

[entropy]

whodean.. interesting article. it would be interesting to seen the Class rankings over the last 10 years and the teams records associated with those classes.

imo, recruiting rankings are less than interesting. Coaching, recruiting for system, building a team chemistry, physical development and believing in the scheme are just as, if not more important.

[The Oracle]

When did ESPN start scouting the Midwest?