UM Football Recruiting - by WM Wolverine

[WM Wolverine]

Camps! These kids are going to football camps after 7th/8th grades in hopes of getting better and landing college scholarships. These camps are taught by high school coaches...

College coaches have tons of connections with the high school coaches in-state & neighboring states. Especially the coaches and camps that regularly produce Div I recruits. There is also pay for services to receive scouting info from these camps that are visited by 'evaluators' who are networked together.

College coaches rely very heavily on their connections at these high schools to evaluate these kids very early.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Thanks for that, WM .......

If you have not figured this out, Harbaugh realizes HARBAUGH!! in 2015 or M continues to play second fiddle to osu and MSU.

That tastes very bad to me IVO the fact that it's all right out there in front of the M football program (and JH) to optimize M's future by optimizing 2015.

My hope is that JH understands this and can translate the importance of it to this season's players and coaches. There is as much potential for him to not grab the ring as there is to grab the ring.

He doesn't have to say, "gee we need to win a bunch of games in 2015 to insure our success going down the road," putting a lot of unnecessary pressure on the players but I would expect him, in his leadership role, to figure out a way to translate the golden opportunity in 2015 to on-field success.

Here's a history lesson for you, talent, not applied inappropriately ...... During WWII, the best and brightest of the German Wehrmacht's Heer (army), General Staff presented a major counter-offensive operational plan targeted against Allied successes in Western Europe (Overlord). Hitler listened and in December, 1944 approved Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein ("Operation Watch on the Rhine"). You can read about it under the heading Battle of The Bulge.

Without getting into a lot detail, most will remember the names Eisenhower, Bradley, Patton and Montgomery. Their legacies were fashioned out of this battle in which the Allied forces decisively defeated the Germans over the 2 month period from December, 1944 to January 1945. Allied forces were outnumbered and suffered from extended, untenable supply lines but they nonetheless prevailed against the best German Field Commanders and best led German troops of the time. These soldiers and their leaders were good, very good.

With the Allied, 101st Airborne Division on the ropes during the siege of Bastogne, the German commander, Lt. Gen. von Luttwitz, requested Bastogne's surrender. Hearing this, Brig. Gen. McAuliffe, acting commander of the 101st, responded, "Nuts!" This was transmitted to the Germans and this line that he made famous became a huge morale booster to his troops. Moreover, the reply had to famously be explained to the Germans.

The story goes on and the Allied forces ultimately prevailed forcing the withdrawal of remaining German Forces from the Western Front and an extended period of defensive maneuvers by the Germans in an attempt to fashion more favorable peace terms. But the Allies wouldn't have it forcing the unconditional surrender of the Germans in June, 1945.

Stories of individual and collective heroism and grit abound in histories of this battle. There are lessons here, apocalyptic or not: when properly lead, men can accomplish what is otherwise impossible in the minds of doubters.

[froot loops]

Thanks WM and Talent.

I guess I got to get my son to some camps. We'll see if he is any good this year, but he's 6'4" about 310 with long arms. The little time he got in this year he destroyed some players. We'll see if he's any good this year, he'll be a sophmore this year and will start both ways. It will be the first real action he's seen, the weight restrictions limited him to middle school ball and that was not real competitive.

We generally don't see many D 1 players but we knew about McDowell his sophmore year.

[iam416]

Buchanan:

WWII is endlessly interesting. Here's another story from WWII. A splendidly talented, well-coached German team played a road game against an under-talented Polish squad as part of a creampuff OoC schedule. Or there's Germans thrashing France. If you prefer Civil War analogies, a massively talented North side with some coaching issues eventually broke the game wide open in the 4th against an undertalented well-coach South. And so forth.

I fail to see what any of this has to do with UFM and JH. I have no doubt a great coach with lesser talent can beat a mediocre coach with great talent. Hell, Guy V. Lewis never won an NCAA title. Neither did John Cooper. And many more. But you and I part ways on your underlying assumption is that JH is not only a better coach than UFM, but a WAY better coach. We really, really part ways.

[iam416]

Fruit:

That's pretty cool. Long arms. Nice. Get that boy working on footwork every day!

In actual recruiting news, Michael Jordan is off the board. That means that 4 of the top 5 in-state kids according to the 247 composite are going somewhere other than M as of today. Kareem remains undecided. Onwenu at #6 should be a M lock. And they have Falcon at #7.

[WM Wolverine]

Only one coach >>>>>> UFM. HARBAUGH!

[Dr. Strangelove]

People who compare football to WWII either obsess over a game to an unhealthy degree or are trivializing the sacrifice of soldiers and the loss of Nazidom's victims.

And yes, Woody and Bo were not immune from this.

[hack]

Yeah. Get with it already and compare football to Iraq I and II.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Football is more like blasting Michael Jackson at supersonic levels in order to force Manuel Noriega out of his stronghold

[Mike]

What I got out of this exchange is that OSU and Meyer are the modern day football equivalent of the Third Reich.

[jaadam4]

What I got out of this exchange is that OSU and Meyer are the modern day football equivalent of the Third Reich.

LOL!

[lineygoblue]

Coach Fisch out on the recruiting trail.

http://michigan.247sports.com/Bolt/Fisch-recruiting-Indianapolis--37147694

[Hannibal]

People who compare football to WWII either obsess over a game to an unhealthy degree.

So -- this whole forum?

[Hannibal]

Fruit:

That's pretty cool. Long arms. Nice. Get that boy working on footwork every day!

In actual recruiting news, Michael Jordan is off the board. That means that 4 of the top 5 in-state kids according to the 247 composite are going somewhere other than M as of today. Kareem remains undecided. Onwenu at #6 should be a M lock. And they have Falcon at #7.

Our non-QB recruits since December...

2015
Reuben Jones -- 3* DE
Nolan Ulizio -- 2* OL
Grant Perry -- 3* WR
Karan Higdon -- 3* RB
Shelton Johnson -- 3* DE
Keith Washington -- 3* DB
Tryone Wheatley -- 4* TE

2016
David Reese -- 3* LB
Kingston Davis -- 3* RB
Matt Falcon -- 4* RB

2017
Carter Dunaway -- 0* TE

Neither 4* on that list is a Top 250 recruit on rivals.

[Jeff Buchanan]

.........But you and I part ways on your underlying assumption is that JH is not only a better coach than UFM, but a WAY better coach. We really, really part ways.

urbz is a great coach. I don't think you'll be able to find a place in this forum where I have said Harbaugh is a better coach than ufm. Others here have said that either seriously or in jest.

There were two points to that post: One, Harbaugh has to harness HARBAUGH!! and win at some impressive level. I don't know exactly what that is but I would say it is at least 10 and better yet 11 wins. If he wants to turn the tables and start, and I mean just START to catch up he needs to find a way to engineer wins against MSU and osu in AA.

If he fails to do this in 2015 he risks a widening talent gap between M, osu and MSU that becomes increasingly insurmountable over time. M cannot afford to be loosing in state talent and to a lesser degree not be in on talented players nationally. The time is now, not in a couple of years.

Two, great leaders, which I EXPECT JH to demonstrate that kind of character as M's head football coach, are capable of achieving levels of performance from the units they are leading that would not be expected.

I'm pretty certain both of you that wave off as unimportant the analogies I made
regarding great leaders understand this. Right?