UM Football Recruiting - by WM Wolverine

[Chuck Mallory]

those who stay will be champions

[Rocky Bleier]

He's a mystery to me. Every year I expected Stokes to breakout, but there has never been much mention of him pre-season. Even with Stonum out there wasn't much talk of Stokes stepping up.

[SeattleLionsFan]

I wonder if some of the underachievement is related to the "early playing time" and "return to glory" sales pitch? That would tend to build the player up so they would not be primed to work to become great.

A join the excellence type recruiting pitch may have a tendency to prime the player to want to work to excel.

Or RRod recruited lazy players and couldn't develop them properly.

[Jamie H]

Stokes was highly rated coming out of high school. Top #15 WR nationally according to Rivals. At 6' 1" he should have been thrilled with the switch to a pro-set offense that didn't emphasize tiny slot guys. This doesn't make much sense.

[SeattleLionsFan]

Not it he wasn't going to play Jamie.

[Jamie H]

What I mean is it doesn't make sense that he wasn't going to play. This was his 3rd year in the program wasn't it? It's not like we have superstar WRs on the roster. He should have at least been able to crack the 2-deep.

[Hannibal]

You would think. But the dude only caught one pass last year. Which is three fewer than Jeremy Jackson.

[SeattleLionsFan]

It also doesn't make sense that Richard Ash and especially will Campbell can't beat out a walkon.

[Jeff Buchanan]

It also doesn't make sense that Richard Ash and especially will Campbell can't beat out a walkon.

Absolutely the most puzzling aspect of the M football program under either Rodriguez or Holk.

There's some decent stuff out there about Brink in that he was a very good HS player and he had plenty of offers from mid-level programs but chose, instead, to walk on at Michigan and try out. So far, so good, I guess. But this whole thing with Big Will Campbell is difficult to understand. NFL potential there and probably two of the best defensive coaches in the land getting behind him.

Ash is a mystery too ....... I can imagine there is some real consternation coming out in camp from both Hoke and Mattison over this.

[Rocky Bleier]

To beat a dead horse...Rich Rodriguez could not recruit, though he had the history and prestige of the University of Michigan to offer. His coaching staff sucked, too. He's a spread OC. Nothing more. And he's still going around saying how close he was to turning things around at Michigan.

[SeattleLionsFan]

To parlay his recruiting "problem" was his apparent inability to develop kids not named Denard, or Molk, or Martin, or Hemingway.

I'm hard pressed to name one other player who improved with RochRid. I mean at all.

[lineygoblue]

If anything, I think Rodriguez aimed too low. He was content to win recruiting battles with the likes of Miami of Ohio, and Western Michigan, rather than take on the big boys.

[Rob F]

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20110823/SPORTS0201/108230406/1462/SPORTS/Receiver-Je%E2%80%99Ron-Stokes-leaves-Michigan-football-team

Yeah, this one is a bit more perplexing to me than Posada (who, as someone mentioned above, may have possibly been suffering some homesickness for Florida as much as anything else, including his struggles to keep his weight down). Stokes, as a redshirt soph, has been there long enough to already be well past typical freshman problems such as homesickness. Were there any rumors beforehand of Stokes leaving? This one was a surprise to me.

[Jamie H]

Stokes had offers from Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma, Penn State, Tennessee, Illinois, and Iowa. This wasn't some 3-star guy we beat Toledo for.

[Hannibal]

Michigan's terrible batting average with recruits lately is very puzzling. I find myself wondering whether we got lots of our 4* guys because the other major programs backed off. Our 3* guys either suck or are rated appropriately, and our 4* guys are busts nowadays 80% of the time.