UM Football Recruiting - by WM Wolverine

[Jeff Buchanan]

Quality poster at mgoboard, this is a nice recap of yesterday's events and love the pictures of each recruit. Makes them a little bit more like real people.

Linesman mentions above that Harbaugh and staff hit some key needs on defense with this class. Reuben Jones and Shelton Johnson, look the part. If Harbaugh has as much of an effect on the development on Zach Gentry as he had on Andrew Luck, Gentry could be something. 18, years old and 6,7, 230! What did they feed this boy?

Most of you know that Georgia LB, Roquan Smith, did not commit to UGA yesterday. Apparently M is still in on him and, so some pieces may still fall into place.

Despite calls that this is not a good class, I can't think of a time in the last 5 or 6 years that I actually paid attention to who was signing LOIs yesterday. Moreover, I do not think I have seen, ever at M, a signing day presser that matched the quality of Harbaugh's yesterday. JH just exudes confidence and presence.

Things are looking up for M football and that is also the first time in 5-6 years I've felt that way.

http://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/signing-day-recap-drinking-thread

[iam416]

I don't see the RBs doing much besides running through gaping holes. The O-line has been the big story under UM.

Hmmmmm. Carlos Hyde managed to become a 1st Round draft pick. I think if you watch Elliot from Game 1 to Game 15 you see a massive improvement in vision. He's developed from a guy who seemed mostly set on plowing forward for 5 yards to a guy who can find a crease, really get through it quickly and then has breakaway speed at the backend. IMO, he'll leave early next season and getting drafted very early.

That's not to say you're wrong about the OL. That's been a miracle. They should build a statue of Warriner outside Ohio Stadium. But, Hyde did and Elliot does a really good job of maximizing the OL play. I don't think, e.g., that Deveon Smith or Derrick Green would have rushed from 700 combined yards against Wisky, Bama and Oregon. I don't think many backs would have. Tevin Coleman would have, heh, but that's because he's a badass and I never miss a chance to gratuitously pimp his skillz.

[hack]

I'm a little baffled by the extreme statements. It's a small class but it's still got some very nice players. Two four-star QBs and one in particular that seems an exciting get; Kinnel and Wheatley Jr. and Cole are great prospects, there's a kicker, and I like the narrative on Washington. I also like that there are three Florida players.

Now this isn't the kind of class that carries you to great things, because it's pretty small, but it fills some holes and it's got three Florida kids. It's definitely a disappointment. I wanted to see someone flip and I wanted to see a five-star/high four come out and just pick Harbaugh. But claims of disaster are silly.

[iam416]

Buchanan:

Roquan Smith did not sign with UCLA yesterday, not UGA. I'm sure M is still pushing desperately hard, but it would take a real M homer to think they have anything other than an outside chance.

[iam416]

But claims of disaster are silly.

It's not a disaster, but it's not very good. And it's the 2nd class in a row that isn't particularly good.

Look, on any team you probably have roughly 40-45 real contributors -- kids who start, rotate in and play on the special teams. Those numbers aren't typically distributed evenly over the classes. So, 3rd and 4th year players contribute more than 1st. Duh. So you sort of need an average class to produce 10-12 contributors. Most classes, even the good ones, see a contribution rate of 50-60%.

This particular class isn't of the quality that's going to unseat Ohio State and it certainly lacks the quantity. You're looking at maybe 7-8 contributors at best from that group. David and Cole are locks. One of the QBs should be as well. And then maybe 2 or 3 others. That's not a good class, IMO. It's an average-at-best B10 class.

Your mileage may vary.

[Hannibal]

They were scrambling big-time for anything. The only two kids they really pre-existing "INs" with were Clark and Weber.

Clark is an atypical recruit. He might have ended up at UCLA even if Hoke had stayed. But, yeah, M definitely had an in with him, the staff wasn't even very far behind UCLA in terms of recruiting and Mora managed to get him. UCLA had a really nice day.

They probably would have flipped Weber back from any other school. UFM sold him on the obvious -- "looky at how we develop RBs!" -- and also, interestingly enough, used Desmond Howard as an example of a kid who could leave his home state and be very successful. I, of course, find the first point satisfying in view of the discussions several years ago about UFM's inability to produce 1000 yard RBs.

Once again, in Meyer's first class, he went from the abyss to the Top 5. He flipped back guys like Kyle Dodson and Brionte Dunn. He landed Noah Spence in less than a month. So much for "building relationships". Yeah, yeah, I know "Jerry Sandusy, those guys wanted to play for OSU, etc etc". Didn't at least one of the Michigan decommits want to play for Michigan too maybe? Are all of Michigan's targets special cases? What's the Occam's Razor interpretation of this?

[iam416]

The thing about UFM's 2012 class is it illustrates the problem with "rushing." Yeah, UFM did a rockstar job. And while PSU played into it, it probably only helped with 3 recruits. Anyway, I think in that rushed environment you're taking anyone who looks really good without building those relationships and really understanding what kind of player will be and whether or not he really fits into your program. The UFM recruits in that class largely fizzled. Spence was awesome, but likes Ecstasy. Taylor Decker is great. Schutt has proven good enough to get into the 2-deep. And then there's about 8 non-contributors.

The backbone of that class was actually already in place: Pat Elflein, Jacoby Boren, Joshua Perry, Tyvis Powell, Michael Thomas and, heh, Cardale Jones. Adolphus Washington is sort of in-between -- as you will recall, Hoke pushed really hard for him and he was considering M, but he committed to OSU when it was clear UFM was going to get hired.

2013 and 2014 and going forward is when the recruiting magic really happened.

[drok]

UFM also didn't start recruiting after a funeral procession of a season that included student rallies to get the AD fired and their dead man walking coach willingly play a concussed player that led to national headlines outside of the sports media...not to mention 7+ years of ineptitude. OSU had a one year blip of "mediocrity" - still a bowl season - preceded by 7+ years of B1G dominance. Yes the UFM and JH situations are completely comparable.

Not saying I didn't hope for a better class, but I'm not going to say the sky is falling 1 month into JH's tenure either.

[The Oracle]

NO!! Worst. Class. EVER!!!!!!!

[froot loops]

UFM also didn't start recruiting after a funeral procession of a season that included student rallies to get the AD fired and their dead man walking coach willingly play a concussed player that led to national headlines outside of the sports media...not to mention 7+ years of ineptitude. OSU had a one year blip of "mediocrity" - still a bowl season - preceded by 7+ years of B1G dominance. Yes the UFM and JH situations are completely comparable.

Not saying I didn't hope for a better class, but I'm not going to say the sky is falling 1 month into JH's tenure either.

This is the post. You've had 10 years of subpar play and recruits. Harbaugh came in late and nobody knows what the philosophy is going to look like.

The work begins now. Its been so long were your teams have underperformed, just getting the existing players to up their game should satisfy until the next recruiting class.

And we are going to see how he is as a recruiter. Harbaugh has been a successful coach everywhere he has been, but as a recruiter he is kind of an unknown quantity. The little I've read/heard about his recruiting style at Stanford was different to say the least, he will have to up his game. Your hope with the hire it was a formula of NFL, Harbaugh, Big Block M = success. That takes time, you'll know a lot more next year. You'll know what team is trying to do on the field, he'll have his system in place on the field and off the field.

[SeattleLionsFan]

Jebus. A buckeye is trying to talk you off the ledge Hanni. Maybe you should rethink your position. ;).

Do not forget that everyone knew OSU was hiring urban for a month before he was hired in November. Also don't forget that he had spent the entire prior year watching college tape (and evaluating players for the college game). Also don't forget that OSU was the #5 team in the country the year before the tire fire.

As opposed to Michigan who has not finished a season ranked since these kids were 9 years old. When you consider the state of the program it's amazing the job that Hoke and Harbaugh did recruiting anyone.

[Hannibal]

"It's not fair to compare <insert name of Michigan failure here> to the success of <insert example of success here> because of <insert excuse here>."

[froot loops]

Michigan had to be ranked after their Sugar Bowl game.

[iam416]

Truth be told, this may be M's worst class in a long, long time. I can't recall, off the top of my head, what RichGOD did, so I could be wrong. In any event, if any M fans looks at this class in a vacuum and says this is an "objectively good" class, then I say have fun winning 7 games a season. Heh. It's not.

There are some very good reasons why the class isn't particularly good. I don't think this class is on JH. At all. The mediocre-at-best class was the price of getting JH. So be it. But at the end of the day, all of those reasons don't matter when it comes to time to play the game -- what matters is the players you brought in.

Fruit:

Yeah, I'm not sold on JH as one of the uber recruiters in CFB. I'm not saying he isn't, either. As I've said before, recruiting at M is a different ballgame from Stanford. You're playing with the big boys now. I'm very curious to see how good JH is.

[Hannibal]

Jim Mcelwain, one of the least inspiring major hires in recent memory, just put together aTop-25 ranked recruiting class. Five guys in the class are from his predecessor. Five. All of them are 3* guys.

Mac landed 16 commits, including 5 4* guys and 2 5* guys.

But remember....

"It's not fair to compare <insert name of Michigan failure here> to the success of <insert example of success here> because of <insert excuse here>."