Time to talk about Michigan Football recruiting. The perennial "national champions" of recruiting are seeing their incoming flow of 4-star and 5-star players dribbling to a trickle after their record-setting season of failure. How bad is it? Let's take a look.
Brady Hoke made his name at UM by attracting hordes of highly-ranked high-school football players, racking up so many "recruiting victories" that those folks had his statue in the design phase, just waiting for the results to play out on the field. His incoming classes have been ranked, #21, #7, #5,and #31, for a Top 20 average. Three of Hoke's four classes have been ranked higher than Mark Dantonio's recruits in the same year.
But this year may be different. The Wolverines opened the 2014 season with 11 verbal commitments, including nine 4-star recruits. Three players have de-committed, including the top two players from that group, while four more are flagrantly violating what Hoke said was a Michigan Football rule; that a player committed to the Wolverines MAY NOT take visits to other schools and hold his UM scholarship offer.
Below is a screen-shot of the 2015 Michigan Football Commitment List from Rivals, as it looked at the beginning of this season. The list is organized by the "Rivals Rating", which is found in the eighth of ten columns. So the players are listed in "rank order" from top to bottom:
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| MICHIGAN FOOTBALL VERBAL COMMITMENTS AS OF SEPTEMBER 1, 2014 |
The top three players on the list have identical rankings of "6.0", which is just below "5-star" status. Roseboro and Taylor have de-committed, while Clark, Cole, Kinnel, and Kirkland are in the process of breaking the "Michigan Rule". (Meanwhile, several of the lower-ranked players are considered "locks", such as legacy recruit Jon Runyan.)
Let's summarize the status of the 11 players who were committed to UM before the Irish rout in South Bend. All of the players listed below are "4-star" recruits except Runyan (3-star) and David (2-star):
CHRIS CLARK - TAKING OTHER VISITS. Clark has not yet publicly de-committed, but he has three trips scheduled to other schools in November (North Carolina, Texas, and Southern California). He holds an MSU offer, along with offers from 45 other schools.
DARIAN ROSEBORO - GONE. Roseboro politely de-committed after Minnesota beat UM. He holds 22 other offers, and after sifting through them, he re-selected a school closer to his home (North Carolina State) on October 11.
GARRETT TAYLOR - GONE. Taylor dropped out after MSU beat UM, choosing to review his other 32 offers. He has trips scheduled to Ohio State and Penn State, and he does hold an offer from MSU.
BRIAN COLE - TAKING OTHER VISITS. Cole visited Wisconsin last month. From Saginaw, he holds an MSU offer, along with offers from eight other schools.
MIKE WEBER - TAKING OTHER VISITS. From Detroit Cass Tech, Weber has not publicly wavered from his UM commitment. However, he said last month that he will be "exploring his options". Current reports indicate he will visit Ohio State, Miami, and Southern California. He holds an MSU offer, and he's planning an official visit to East Lansing as well. He says he's unsure where he will take his fifth official visit, meaning that Michigan is apparently his "safety school". Weber has about a dozen total offers.
TYREE KINNEL - TAKING OTHER VISITS. From Ohio, Weber has not publicly wavered from his UM commitment, claiming he is "still a UM commit", but he is at West Virginia this weekend for a look-and-see. He holds an MSU offer, along with five other offers.
DARREN KIRKLAND, Jr. - GONE. Kirkland was at Ole Miss this weekend and has scheduled a trip to Oklahoma next weekend. He also has trips planned to Texas, Oregon, and Southern California. He holds 27 total scholarship offers. Kirkland de-committed 12 days after the Spartans beat the Wolverines. (MSU did not offer him.)
ALEX MALZONE - Malzone committed to UM in May, and has not wavered. Most observers consider him to be solid to Michigan. He has a dozen total offers. (MSU did not offer him.)
GRANT NEWSOME - Newsome committed to UM in June, and has not wavered. However, he has said that if Brady Hoke was fired, he would have to reconsider the decision. MSU has offered him, along with 30 other schools.
JON RUNYAN, Jr. - As a "legacy recruit", Runyan is considered by most observers to be the most solid UM commitment. He has stated so publicly. He had one offer to play college football (from Michigan).
ANDREW DAVID - No word from David either way. He had one offer to play college football (from Michigan).
Since the firestorm of Notre Dame hit Michigan football in September, three recruits have de-committed, four more are taking other visits despite their "commitment", and two others are putting up a committed front while leaving some wiggle-room with their actual plans. So eight out of eleven players who were verbally committed to Michigan two months ago are either on the fence or have left UM behind.
Michigan seems to be in strong shape
with only three verbally-committed players
for their 2015 recruiting class.
Comments from ATownAndDown:
U of M recruiting is in a tough spot. Hoke is essentially a lame duck at this point. With Brandon's exit it is quite clear based on the timing that the first thing on the new AD's plate will be to hire his guy to fill the role of head football coach. So how does Hoke go into a kids living room and tell that kids mom that he will take care of her son for the next 4 years when he might not be there in the next 4 minutes?
I have heard the adage "You commit to the school and not to the coach" but that is just noise. The fact is kids today have more information when making their decision then they did 10-20 years ago. They not only know who is on a roster already but what system the coach runs and how those guys fit in that system. If that coach leaves, so does the security that you are going to be a fit for the next guy coming in. When you are talking about top ranked high school recruits generally they want to display their talents as much as possible in order to move to the next level. And even those that don't have aspirations of the NFL, still want to play and not be stuck buried on the depth chart. Maybe the guys on the list that are looking around will be a fit for the next guy. Or maybe they won't. At this point, I think you have to understand why they would do their due diligence and look around so that if they are not a fit, they are not scrambling to find a place.
This type of thing is not unprecedented. John L. Smith coached that entire last year but it was announced on November 1st that he would not be coming back. Coach D was hired at MSU on November 27, 2006. MSU had 22 commits in that first class of his and 20 of them committed after Coach D was hired. I am willing to guess that John L. had more than 2 guys committed before the start of November but only 2 remained. Going back to when John L. took over, only 3 guys that committed to Williams remained on signing day.
The long and short of this is I am not surprised by the fact that guys are looking around and/or decommitting. Also reading into this being a U of M thing is overlooking the fact that U of M is not unique in seeing this response from commits when you have a lame duck in the driver's seat.
-ATown
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U of M recruiting is in a tough spot. Hoke is essentially a lame duck at this point. With Brandon's exit it is quite clear based on the timing that the first thing on the new AD's plate will be to hire his guy to fill the role of head football coach. So how does Hoke go into a kids living room and tell that kids mom that he will take care of her son for the next 4 years when he might not be there in the next 4 minutes?
ReplyDeleteI have heard the adage "You commit to the school and not to the coach" but that is just noise. The fact is kids today have more information when making their decision then they did 10-20 years ago. They not only know who is on a roster already but what system the coach runs and how those guys fit in that system. If that coach leaves, so does the security that you are going to be a fit for the next guy coming in. When you are talking about top ranked high school recruits generally they want to display their talents as much as possible in order to move to the next level. And even those that don't have aspirations of the NFL, still want to play and not be stuck buried on the depth chart. Maybe the guys on the list that are looking around will be a fit for the next guy. Or maybe they won't. At this point, I think you have to understand why they would do their due diligence and look around so that if they are not a fit, they are not scrambling to find a place.
This type of thing is not unprecedented. John L. Smith coached that entire last year but it was announced on November 1st that he would not be coming back. Coach D was hired at MSU on November 27, 2006. MSU had 22 commits in that first class of his and 20 of them committed after Coach D was hired. I am willing to guess that John L. had more than 2 guys committed before the start of November but only 2 remained. Going back to when John L. took over, only 3 guys that committed to Williams remained on signing day.
The long and short of this is I am not surprised by the fact that guys are looking around and/or decommitting. Also reading into this being a U of M thing is overlooking the fact that U of M is not unique in seeing this response from commits when you have a lame duck in the driver's seat.