UM Football Recruiting - by WM Wolverine

[lineygoblue]

I guess I trust Greg Mattison more than Rivals and Scout.

[SeattleLionsFan]

I trust Mattison to coach, but he didn't buy the groceries in Baltimore. No doubt he knows what NFL talent looks like, but can he project it from juniors in high school?

[lineygoblue]

I think so.

I think he's a good evaluator of football talent, no matter what their playing level is right now. The man has been in the business longer than a lot of us have been alive. He's coached national champions in the NCAA, and coached a Super Bowl team. He's coached some of the finest talent to ever play the game.

I trust his judgement more than any recruiting service.

[Hannibal]

I think this is a year where the "stars level" of the recruiting services can be thrown out the window. Rivals and Scout are horribly biased against the midwest anyway.

If Greg Mattison is "excited" about a player's commitment, (as he has been about most of these recently) then I'd value his opinion over Rivals, Scout, ESPN, or any other recruiting gurus.

For what it's worth, everyone but rivals is pretty high on our guys and the guys expected to commit (Diamond, Wormley, etc).

[lineygoblue]

That's why Rivals is pretty much worthless when it comes to actually evaluating talent. I continue my subscription there only because I like seeing the videos of the players in action. If I could view recruiting videos for free, I'd probably discontinue the service.

Rivals and Scout are drinking the SEC Kool-Aid pretty heavily these days.

[WM Wolverine]

I've got Godin listed as a DT for now, where he'll end up depends on the other players in his class and isn't important...

He was recruited to play SDE, which is where he'll be for at least a couple years which is when he has a chance to grow into a DT. Not a whole lot differentiates a SDE and a DT; in Mattison's defense he's looking for 280+ lb SDE's and DT's ~295.

[Rocky Bleier]

U-M v.s MSU recruiting:

http://genuinelysarcastic.blogspot.com/

[paul daugherity]

Mattison has a much longer coaching history than his last stop at Blatimore. He was DC at UM in 95 and 96, and was DC at Florida with the D that destroyed OSU in the national title game. He was DC at ND before his stop at Florida and he was on UM's defensive staff for a number of years before he was DC. So, by his history alone, he has a fairly extensive history of evaluating hs talent and seeing where it would fit in the college game. And by the way, the 95 and 96 defenses were both very good.

[Hannibal]

It's not just Mattison and Hoke's ability to evaulate talent that you are trusting. Nebraska, ND, Penn State, Wisconsin, MSU, North Carolina, Iowa, and Ohio State have all offered some (and in MSU's case, most) of our commits. Either the head coach or the DC at all of those programs has a pretty good track record when it comes to defense. This is in stark contrast to Rodriguez, who in his last two years hardly got any guys that the Big Ten wanted. Under Rodriguez, we were splitting guys with the likes of Iowa and MSU. Can you believe that? And, as I said earlier, scout is very high on our class thus far, and they love the guys favored to go to us (Diamond and Wormley, in particular).

[Jamie H]

Yeah, the difference is that the 3-stars Rodriguez was filling the program with were choosing Michigan over Ball State and Toledo. At least these guys are choosing Michigan over other BCS schools, and some good BCS schools at that.

I trust a kid's offer list from schools that have had them in camp a lot more than some recruiting "guru" who watches a few minutes of film on a kid and gives him a ranking.

[Rocky Bleier]

According to Rivals.com, Godin is now one of eight verbal commitments to Michigan that also had scholarship offers from Michigan State, joining offensive lineman Ben Braden, defensive end Pharaoh Brown, tight end Devin Funchess, linebacker Royce Jenkins-Stone, defensive end Mario Ojemudia, linebacker James Ross and tight end A.J. Williams.

The Spartans have four commitments for the class of 2012 and none of them had offers from Michigan.

[Hannibal]

Yeah, the difference is that the 3-stars Rodriguez was filling the program with were choosing Michigan over Ball State and Toledo.

Don't forget about Air Force, Bowling Green, and Vanderbilt!

[SeattleLionsFan]

I hope you guys are right. I like Hoke and Mattison so far but color me a little bit skeptical after the last debacle.

[Hannibal]

I'm still highly skeptical as well, but recruiting is off to a pretty good start.

[Jamie H]

Agreed, I'm not counting chickens before they hatch. But I agree with Hannibal that this recruiting seems to have a lot more upside than the kids Rodriguez was bringing in, who all seemed to either be slot receivers or tweener guys who had no position.