UM Football Recruiting - by WM Wolverine

[iam416]

Hoke couldn't regularly get the top 75 overall types to visit Ann Arbor, not that I see JH doing a much better job (so far).

He landed 3 top 75 players in his first recruiting season. I wanna say he at least had visits from Diggs, Adolphus Washington and Yuri Wright. Maybe Eddie Goldman? Darius Hamilton?

The following season he landed 4. The visits I sort of recall include Kendall Fuller, Vanderdoes, Treadwell (all top 20 players). Not sure if Jaylon Smith ever visited, but that wouldn't surprise me if he at least visited AA from Indiana. Anzalone, Pocic and Ty Isaac visited.

Hoke never had a problem recruiting in a macro sense. He was actually very good at it. His recruiting problems were narrowly limited to outside talent. His problem was obviously after they arrive on campus. So, I really don't the get the totally daft slamming of Hoke's recruiting.

There are a lot of talented kids on the roster that have, unfortunately (or unfortunately), suffered from relatively poor coaching -- some more than others depending on position. The same group of kids under a good staff should be much further along. Hoke, in effect, managed to take 4* HS talent and reduce it to 2.5* CFB talent. JH is sorting through the lost causes and trying to find the 2.5* kids he can reclaim

[Hannibal]

A lot of the talk about Hoke's recruiting and just going after stars instead of quality football players is a tad bit of revisionism. Maybe he had more than his share of overrated recruits, but some major programs wanted a lot of his guys. Just about every one of his stud O-linemen had an offer list to match his star rating. His three star guys like Braden and Samuelsson had good Power 5 offers. The OSU fans were pissed that they botched the recruitment of Dymonte Thomas. He was a mega stud that lots of people expected to contribute immediately. Alabama tried to lure Terry Richardson and Henry Poggi away from us late. Ian Bunting had a 4* offer list. Derrick Green was clearly overrated but he had a pretty good offer list too. Deveon Smith had an OSU offer and Talent said he wished that OSU could have gotten him. Jarrod Wilson is solid. Jordan Lewis is too. Devin Funchess was easily worth more than his star rating and if you look at some of our other relatively strong 3* guys like Henry, Clark, Hurst, Wormley, Chesson, and a few others you can see some athleticism and why those guys also had some decent Power 5 offers. James Ross was a good contributor as a freshman. Darboh clearly has talent in line with his low 4* rating.

Put the blame where it belongs. Shitty coaching, game planning, and development. Terrible QB regression, turnovers, and terrible special teams. Situations that may be salvagable in the short term.

[WM Wolverine]

I'm not, I just don't think Hoke landed enough elite (top 75 overall) kids. He landed a ton of guys in the 100-300 range that M should be excellent shape with JH.

[Hannibal]

One huge thing to remember -- Michigan was -16 on turnovers last year. -16. That's huge. Set that to zero and Michigan goes at least 7-5. Take away the 10 men on the field play against Utah and the penalty on the return against Maryland and we at least go 8-4. Set it to +10 or more and we have a Northwestern type year where we have a shitty football team with a great record. Remember how we went from 7-6 to 11-2 a few years ago. The team went from -10 in TOs to +7 and we won the bowl game with special teams. That's why I have become increasingly expecting of at least an 8-4 season. It's not unheard of for turnovers to be bad two years in a row (God knows with RichRod it was really bad three years in a row), but with all of the experience returning and a responsible QB, it has got to get a lot better.

[iam416]

OSU very much wanted Deveon Smith.

I stand by my general assessment of converting 4* HS kids into 2.5* CFB kids. But the singular overarching problem for Hoke was his complete and total destruction of the QB position. In particular, his inability to fully utilize either Denard or Gardner was shameful. I think Gardner would have been a very solid QB for UFM and I think Denard would have been an slot back destroyer (think how he uses Jalin Marshall). In any event, the QB play was just poop. Good QB play obviously makes a world of difference -- e.g., I don't think Oregon is particularly great up front, but Mariotta and a great offensive scheme put up gads of points.

[Hannibal]

I have gotten my ass reamed in this forum and at mgoblog for saying this, but arguably the biggest mistake that Hoke ever made was in not retaining Calvin Magee, Rod Smith, and Greg Fry, all of whom have gone on to further success after Michigan. He should have just focused on the defense and let those guys run their show. Everyone who he brought in to replace them was a massive downgrade.

[iam416]

In actual recruiting news, Tony Butler will not be attending OSU.

[Hannibal]

No offer?

[The Oracle]

I have gotten my ass reamed in this forum and at mgoblog for saying this, but arguably the biggest mistake that Hoke ever made was in not retaining Calvin Magee, Rod Smith, and Greg Fry, all of whom have gone on to further success after Michigan. He should have just focused on the defense and let those guys run their show. Everyone who he brought in to replace them was a massive downgrade.

Who would dispute that? Hoke's offensive hires were awful.

[Hannibal]

Who would dispute that? Hoke's offensive hires were awful.

People who have cherry-picked the results of the games in RichRod's last year, specifically pointing out the lack of points scored against OSU and Missishitty State.

[iam416]

No offer?

Yeah, I think they feel good about the DBs higher on their board.

[Hannibal]

He's probably going to end up at Michigan.

[iam416]

It looks that way.

[Wellington_beefhouser]

Butler is almost certainly going to be a wolverine. He will announce August or September per his twitter feed...even the European Council President Donald Tusk uses twitter to announce Greek Debt deals.

[Wellington_beefhouser]

One huge thing to remember -- Michigan was -16 on turnovers last year. -16. That's huge. Set that to zero and Michigan goes at least 7-5. Take away the 10 men on the field play against Utah and the penalty on the return against Maryland and we at least go 8-4. Set it to +10 or more and we have a Northwestern type year where we have a shitty football team with a great record. Remember how we went from 7-6 to 11-2 a few years ago. The team went from -10 in TOs to +7 and we won the bowl game with special teams. That's why I have become increasingly expecting of at least an 8-4 season. It's not unheard of for turnovers to be bad two years in a row (God knows with RichRod it was really bad three years in a row), but with all of the experience returning and a responsible QB, it has got to get a lot better.

Responsible QB play, that's what Harbaugh brings. Minimize mistakes and turnovers and manage the game, that's all our Qb's need to do. Can they? IMO, Ruddock is the starter and has the ability. He will be grooming Morris, Gentry, Malzone.