One of the most stunning turnarounds in college football’s 2008 season was that of the Minnesota Golden Gophers. After winning but a single game in 2007 (over a Miami team that didn’t make a bowl out of the MAC), Tim Brewster managed to lock down a top recruiting class and led his team to 7-5 and a bowl game. So how did the Gophers do it, and why can’t Michigan do it like that?

The biggest problem for Minnesota in 2007 was defense, and they ranked last in the nation in stopping their opponents. So what caused the turnaround? Minnesota recruited several JuCo players in the class of 2008, at least a couple of whom (Traye Simmons and Tremaine Brock) played key roles on the defensive unit. Also, Minnesota got Willie VanDeSteeg back after he was hampered by injury throughout the entire 2007 year.

One thing that this year’s Wolverines had in common with last year’s Gophers was turnover margin. The Gophers were 114th in the nation in 2007 in net turnovers, and Michigan’s team this year was 105th. Adam Weber reduced his interception total from 19 to 8 over the course of one year. With Michigan either returning Steven Threet or starting a true freshman, how much can the interception total (12) be expected to decrease. No, it wasn’t throwing picks that hurt Michigan this year, it was fumbling the football. Michigan lost 18 this year, so how can we expect that number to drop next year?

Minnesota’s offense in 2007 was actually pretty successful at moving the ball when it wasn’t coughing it up. In this way, the Gophers differed from Michigan 2008 in a pretty significant way. Michigan will have to rely an an upgrade at the quarterback position (Steven Threet staying healthy plus Tate Foricer entering should help) and along the offensive line (the group, which improved over the course of the year, returns all starters, plus adds a few redshirt freshmen who may be ready to contribute).

Minnesota last year may actually be the closest analog to Michigan this year. A new coaching staff installing new schemes on each side of the ball didn’t really have enough time with their team to get everything put together for a successful run in their first year. Michigan’s recruiting haul on the whole may not be quite so ready-to-play as MInnesota’s was last year.

Of course, Minnesota was vastly overrated this year, on the basis of a weak non-conference schedule and a soft schedule overall toward the beginning of the year. Toward the end of the year, they were exposed as something of a fraud. This will probably be what Michigan is like next year.

Posted under Analysis, Coaching, Football

Recruiting Boards can always be found on the left sidebar. 2009 & 2010

First things first: it’s quite obvious that, this late in the recruiting process, there are only a few realistic prospects left on the board. There may be other guys that end up wearing the right colors, but it’s more likely that they come out of the woodwork. So, a lot of prospects came off the 2009 board in the past week (unrealistic though some of them may have been). Let’s review:
MS S/WR Dennis Thames. Mississippi State Commit.
TX CB Demontre Hurst committed to Oklahoma State, but may still visit the Canes.
FL DB Jonathan Scott picks WVU.
AL LB Tana Patrick is now only considering Bama, Auburn, USC, MIami of Florida, and Tennessee.
FL CB Jayron Hosley is going to USF, whether he has publicly committed (yet) or not.
CA OL Michael Philipp, who hadn’t really been considering Michigan in quite some time, commits to Oregon State.
NC OL Travis Bond picked UNC over Michigan, adding to the ridiculously large recruiting class in Chapel Hill.

SC OL Quinton Washington is one of the few remaining targets that Michigan has a chance with. The Sporting News’ The Recruitnik blog gives an entirely uninformative update on his recruitment. Phil Kornblut says he visits South Carolina, which is Michigan’s main competition for his signature. Considering he came out of that visit not only uncommitted, but also unwilling to say USC was his leader, chances here don’t look dire. However, he did leave the visit “knowing what he wants to do,” which may be bad, considering it probably means “my last visit rulzed.” Regardless, he does not plan to publicly commit until signing day.

LA LB Barkevious Mingo, who visited LSU this weekend, does not plan to commit anywhere until signing day.

LA WR Travante Stallworth is still “committed” to Auburn, but has a top 3 of Michigan, South Carolina, and Auburn. RichRod has his in-home tonight. Stallworth seems a little more effusive about Michigan than his other choices:

“At Michigan, it was different than any other college campus I’ve ever been to,” he continued. “They have outstanding facilities and the academics are top of the line. Coach (Rich) Rodriguez wants me to come in as a slot receiver and even said I could try quarterback. If it didn’t work out, I could switch to receiver. They just want to get the ball in my hands in the open field.”

RR will also be in the home of DE Sam Montgomery, who has taken 2 officials without committing anywhere. He wants to go to business school, which means Michigan is by far the best option out of his current choices in that regard. He’s still going to LSU, Tennessee, and Oregon.

Freep fluff on the visit by PA WR Je’Ron Stokes (along with a general discussion of WR recruiting). If Stokes gets through his PSU visit without committing, Michigan’s chances in this one aren’t bad. Stokes didn’t really appear to be enjoying himself too much at the hoops game though (photo of Darryl Stonum, Stokes, and Jeremy Gallon by Matt Pargoff in the Detroit Free Press).

Tennessee has hopped in on OK DT Commit Pearlie Graves. The likelihood he ends up in Ann Arbor is ever-dwindling.

FL QB Austin Dantin is practically begging for an offer, though if he’s stooping that low this late in the process, that probably means he’s unlikely to get one. He’s added to the board regardless.

The Palm Beach Post ranked the area’s top 25 seniors:

6. Brandin Hawthorne, LB, 6-1, 181, Pahokee, Enrolled at Michigan

8. Vincent Smith, RB, 5-9, 180, Pahokee, Enrolled at Michigan

11. Brendan Gibbons, K, 6-0, 215, Cardinal Newman, Verbal to Michigan

Hooray South Florida guys.

MI QB AJ Westendorp appears likely to accept a scholarship offer at a D-II or DI-AA school, rather than accepting a walk-on offer at Michigan.

…And this update is getting enormous, so I’ll drop the 2010 knowledge on you later this week.

Posted under Football, Recruiting

With another big loss, this time on the road at Penn State, Michigan’s hopes of making the NCAA tournament are rapidly dwindling. I’ll save the actual bracket/schedule analysis for another day, but let’s talk about the embarrassment at the home of the Nittany Lions.

Coming into this game, Penn State appeared to be one of the few teams that Michigan actually matched up well with. No big inside presence, most of their scoring done by little guys. Of course, like the Indiana game, that meant the Nittany Lions shot the lights out, regardless of how open they were. Michigan, on the other hand, couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn (requisite Stu Douglass/Zack Novak “Hoosiers” joke here).

Originally, I thought that the great shooting for Michigan opponents in every game must have been a weird statistical anomaly. As the evidence mounts however, it’s become clear: this Wolverines squad just lets opponents make a lot of shots. I don’t really get it either, as if you watch the games, most of the shots that are going in aren’t great looks, and many of them are downright horrible. I think part of it is a confidence thing. Opponents know Michigan won’t score (the great shooting games by opponents are always matched by horrid shooting nights for Michigan), and they can throw up any shot without fear that missing it will result in points the other way. Combine that with slightly demoralized defense carrying over from the offensive side, and opponents can see defeat in Michigan’s eyes, and know they can score at will.

Speaking of Michigan’s shooting, it was god-awful this game. When DeShawn Sims doesn’t get things going inside, and neither Harris nor any one of the assortment of other guys can get to the basket, the offense basically consists of jacking up a bunch of threes. Of course, not all of these are bad looks, but this team has proven that they really can’t hit the threes unless other areas of the offense are moving as well. This team badly needs another scorer who doesnt rely solely on the three-point shot.

Manny Harris is getting very frustrated by not getting any calls, and I really can’t blame him. Did the refs have an offseason seminar where they determined that they had called too many fouls on guys guarding Manny last year? He couldn’t get a call if somebody punched him in the face. Compunding that issue is the fact that really soft fouls get called pretty much everywhere else (on both ends of the court), which Manny sees and gets more frustrated/demoralized.

And so, unless Michigan can right the ship very quickly, it’s NIT-bound very soon. Of course, based on last year, how bad is that, really? It seems like a good start to the year really caused expectations to be adjusted into the realm of “unrealistic.”

Posted under Basketball

Greg Robinson, recent ex-headman at Syracuse, will reportedly be named Michigan’s Defensive Coordinator. GERG comes to the Wolverines after a failed 4-year stint in upstate New York. Prior to that, he was Texas’s Defensive Coordinator in 2004, preceded by stints with two NFL teams.

NFL DC
Robinson was the Defensive Coordinator of the Denver Broncos from 1995-2000, and served the same position with the Kansas City Chiefs the next 3 years. In Denver, Robinson’s defenses ranged from stellar to middle-of-the-pack. Of course, Robinson won Super Bowls in Denver in 1998 and 1999. His defenses there had a bizarre trend of alternating years being good against the run or against the pass. In Kansas City, Robinson’s defenses could be described as little other than abject failure. The Chiefs organization decided to focus on drafting and exceeding on offense, while somewhat neglecting the defensive side of the ball.

Texas DC
Robinson spent only 1 year as the defensive coordinator at Texas, and therefore it is important to compare that year (highlighted in burnt orange below) to the preceding and following year. Robinson slightly improved the defense overall in his year as defensive coordinator, but the year after he left, the defense suddenly became awesome. However, it is important to look at everything in context. The Longhorns’ offense was the Vince Young-led terror in 2005, and in 2004 Young was still developing as a quarterback, giving the opposing offenses more opportunity to possess and move the ball.

Syracuse HC
Following his tenure in Austin, Robinson became the head coach of Syracuse. His 4-year run in upstate New York was terrible (10-37), and it became clear that perhaps his skill set was not cut out to be a college head coach. Robinson was criticized for being a poor communicator and all-but-refusing to take the recruiting aspect of coaching seriously. However, Robinson was sent out with a bang as his Orangemen defeated the heavily-favored Irish of Notre Dame in a snowy affair in November.

Michigan DC
Wolverines fans hope that Robinson’s shortcomings as a head coach do not translate to his ability to be a defensive coordinator in college. His pedigree as an X-and-O guru (the NFL doesn’t hire just anyone, I promise) certainly is welcome. However, ex-DC Scott Shafer, coincidentally the new DC at Syracuse, was also known as a solid defensive theorist, but he was doomed by a lack of chemistry with the existing coaches on Michigan’s staff. If Robinson has similar issues, will Rodriguez realize that maybe his assistants from West Virginia aren’t the best position coaches for Michigan, or will the clocik have run out on his tim in Ann Arbor.

Pros: NFL experience (recruits love it, even if you can’t coach in colege to save your life: see Charlie Weis), history of success in NFL and (briefly) in college as a DC.
Cons: Epic fail as Syracuse HC, poor DC with second NFL squad, reportedly lacks great communication skills, not much of a recruiter, age.

Posted under Analysis, Coaching, Football

Dan Wetzel on the Rich Rod at Michigan and Nick Saban at Alabama analogy. I’ve done posts before where I analyzed why Michigan’s popular comparisons to other teams was a little off, if not completely bogus. Ohio State 2004=Michigan 2005 was one, and so on. Essentially, the point is that you shouldn’t, on the basis of all the available evidence, expect Michigan’s 2009 season to be the success that Alabama’s ’08 ended up being.

In 2007, Alabama had a season that can only be described as “trying.” In Nick Saban’s first year, the Tide went 7-6, which was not exactly a historical low in comparison to other recent years, but was far from the expectations among fans in Tuscaloosa. However, Saban righted the ship in 2008, blistering out to a 12-0 start before succumbing to Florida in the SEC championship game and finishing 12-2.

Saban, however, had a much better framework in place for second year success than does Michigan (perhaps through no (or little) fault of Rodriguez). First, let’s take a look at the most obvious: the way season 1 turned out:

Saban’s Crimson Tide started 6-2, before losing their next four. In the bowl game, they got a bit of redemption by beating Colorado. Michigan, on the other hand, started 2-4 through the easy part of their schedule. The rest of the year would have been a scramble just to make a bowl game, whereas Saban’s team had one locked up a little more than halfway through the year. Of course, both Rodriguez and Saban failed in their first attempts against the team’s #1 rival in the last game of the regular season. Making a bowl at all, however, is a huge positive for a first-year coach. It establishes a baseline of success, and more importantly, it give him another month to install his system to the team. Rodriguez doesn’t have that luxury, and from the offense’s performance over the course of the year, he could have desperately used it. Alabama, while disappointing, was more ready for success the next year than most acknowledged coming into this season.

Another key factor is that of personnel. Both Rodriguez and Saban fielded fairly young teams in their first year at their respective schools. However, it looks like Saban may have the edge here as well:

Rodriguez will return a redshirt sophomore quarterback who started most of 2008. However, Steven Threet is regarded to be an imperfect fit for the Rodriguez offense, and two highly-touted freshmen are coming in for spring ball, and are expected to challenge for playing time, if not a starting role. Saban, on the other hand, returned a two-year starter (who also got playing time his freshman year) in senior John Parker Wilson. The Tide’s offense also returned four starters along the offensive line. While Michigan also returns several starters along the offensive line, their performance through 2008 certainly indicates that there will be changes, likely including some redshirt freshman starters next year. Alabama had highly-recruited players ready to step in, whereas Michigan lost nearly all of its best linemen (including the #1 overall pick in the NFL draft).

Defensively, the Tide returned few starters in 2008. Two players in the secondary and one each in the linebacking corps and along the defensive line is nothing to champion. Michigan, on the other hand, will likely lose at least 3 of its defensive linemen (the undoubted strength of the team), one linebacker, and its #2 corner. It appears as though Michigan’s defense, though it is looking to experience significant losses, may be depended upon to carry the team again next year. Of course, with a change in the defensive coordinator position, a sense of continuity from the defense cannot carry the team.

Regardless of returning personnel, Saban was more able to recruit immediate help with junior college players, a luxury Rodriguez will have in a much more limited capacity, if at all.

Aside from perhaps John Parker Wilson (a returning multi-year starter at QB – the most important position on the offense) or freshman phenom WR Julio Jones, Alabama’s MVP in 2008 was Terrence “Mount” Cody, a junior college transfer who stepped in and played a huge role for Alabama on the defensive line. Michigan may have some instant-impact players in their 2009 recruiting class, but they are undoubtedly less proven commodities than Cody, and are all but guaranteed to be less productive.

Coaching philosophy plays a role as well. Saban and Rodriguez have their similarities, but there are key fundamental differences as well.

Rodriguez is a believer in his system above all else, and believes he can win with whomever is on his team. Down the road, this may work well, especially once he gets some of his recruits in place. Saban, on the other hand, is a strong believer in “recruit, recruit, recruit” as a method for achieving success. Saban’s philosophy is less dependent on developing players and (especially when combined with the JuCos mentioned above) is more ripe for achieving instant success. Rodriguez’s different philosophy may in fact be more sound for long-term success, but it doesn’t mean the same thing for quick turnarounds that Saban’s does.

Alabama’s 2007 was less difficult than Michigan’s 2008, and the Tide were far more primed for second-year success than are the Wolverines. Don’t expect a miracle turnaround next season in Ann Arbor.

Posted under Analysis, Coaching, Football

Bill Martin brought a request for permission to get going on a practice facility for the basketball teams. For a mere $23.2 million, the AD wants to put in two practice courts, private locker rooms, sports medicine areas, strength and conditioning areas and offices. The plan calls for it to be built on the East side of Crisler and will remove 150 parking spots temporarily and 60 permanently.  This is prime tailgating area, so those people will still get spots, just somewhere else.

The Athletic Department will now get a design and come back to the Regents for approval.  We’re not very far into this project, but it is exciting that it’s getting going.

This is obviously a good thing for both basketball programs as it should help with recruiting and ease the scheduling conflicts of having 3 sports using Crisler.  It also signals that the Athletic Department will likely renovate Crisler as opposed to creating a new facility.  Crisler has sort of grown on me since they put in modern lights.

The document is very vanilla and doesn’t have very many memorable quotes, but there is one part that is kind of interesting:

The proposed addition will temporarily displace approximately 150 parking spaces during construction and will permanently displace approximately 60 spaces upon completion. This loss will be accommodated as part of the strategic parking and transportation plan for South Campus.

Emphasis mine. I’m not exactly sure what is involved, but I hope it involves an offensive into North Campus. Take that BFE!

Posted under Basketball

Frequent commenter and friend of blog(er) formerlyanon and I are were talking yesterday about how successful the athletic department has been in terms of coaching hires, facilities improvement, profitability, program success, etc.  While there have been some historically bad seasons in football and basketball, many of the non-revenue sports experienced a lot of success.  The current programs are fairly strong and there doesn’t seem to be issues with revenue streams, so we figured it’s about time to add more varsity sports. If my memories serves me, the last new varsity sport is Woman’s Water Polo which got started in 2001.

Obviously creating a varsity team or even promoting a club varsity team to full varsity status has a lot of strings attached. Obviously there is the cost of equipment, coaches, conference affiliation (if the Big Ten doesn’t have a championship in the new sport) as well as travel to teams that aren’t in the area.  Beyond cost, there is the Title IX issue requiring roughly equal scholarships that also needs to be factored into the equation as well as countless other issues that I am omitting.

The Unofficial Varsity Blue Position

Admittedly this isn’t thinking too far outside of the box, but adding Men’s and Women’s Lacrosse seems to make the most sense to me.  Some reasons why I think it’s a good idea in bulleted list form:

• Facilities already exist
• Men’s Club Varsity team has experienced a lot of success on its current level (National Champs!). Information is a bit hard to find on the Woman’s club team, but in 2007 they went 15-5 in the regular season, which seems good.
• Natural rivals in the area: Northwestern, Ohio State and Penn State all have programs.
• Growing interest in the sport.  It seems as though ESPN is pushing it rather hard, and ESPN really shapes the viewing market.
• At least for men, a major league exists.
• Just what we need to put some heat on Stanford for the Director’s Cup*
• Equal scholarships/teams added, so maybe there won’t be an issue with Title IX?

But there are some issues:

• Seemingly most fitting conference, the ECAC, has a pretty large footprint. In 2010 it will go from Massachusetts to Colorodo.
• The Big Ten doesn’t have Lacrosse.
• There are some real power houses in Lacrosse, so the teams may not have much initial success.
• Despite ESPN trying to make it cool, Lacrosse is still a niche sport.
• It would cost a lot of dollars.

Obviously there are a lot of things that I haven’t thought of in these lists.  Additionally there may be other sports that may be a better choice.  There’s a list of official Club Varsity level sports on MGoBlue for your (brief) perusal.  So if you have suggestions about my idea or your own idea, leave it in the comments.

*Adding another sport will not help much at all to wrest the Director’s Cup away from Stanford. Unless adding that additional team causes all the other teams to win national champioships.

Posted under Other Sports

Action since last rankings:
1-9-09 Indiana gains commitment from Aaron Price.
1-10-09 Notre Dame loses commitment from Marlon Pollard.
1-11-09 Illinois gains commitment from Walt Aikens.
1-12-09 Wisconsin gains commitment from Conor O’Neal. Purdue gains commitment from Eric Williams.
1-13-09 Michigan State gains commitment from Dion Sims.

Movers & Shakers
The Big Ten has a newly-minted 5-star prospect in Ohio State’s Corey Brown. He had a good Army All-American game (consisting of one big touchdown catch and little else), and Rivals deemed him worthy of the coveted 5th star. Surprisingly, a similar honor was not bestowed upon Michigan’s Justin Turner, who was called by various outlets the top athletic cornerback in attendance, despite being the biggest of all. His physique makes him more of an outlier (in a positive way) at the corner position, and if Rivals ever moves him (as it is painfully clear they should, especially given the distribution of defensive backs in Michigan’s class), he could garner 5-star status there. If you compare Brown to Turner, absolute consensus (save Rival’s rankings) would have Turner far, far ahead of Brown. Notre Dame’s Cierre Wood lost his 5th star, and understandably so, as he looked entirely pedestrian in the Army game. In the Under Armour game, all three of Michigan’s commit had strong showings. I’m surprised to see Isaiah Bell not pick up a 4th star, though I can understand Craig Roh not getting another star (ESPN did, however, move him into the position of #67 prospect in the country). Penn State’s Glen Carson picked up a 4th star, and the remainder of changes were generally unevaluated (1-star) players getting ranked (2- or 3-stars).

New Rankings:

Up: Corey Brown (from 4*)

Down: Cierre Wood (From 5*). Up: Jordan Cowart (From 1*)

Up: Glenn Carson (From 3*)

Up: Tommie Hopkins (From 2*), Tom Kynard (From 1*)

Wisconsin has 2 commits with the same name. How’s that for a mindtrip?

Up: Cooper Gerami (From 1*).

Up: Najee Tyler (From 1).

Posted under Football, Recruiting

Or: Tim’s foray into tempo-free statistics.

Tonight, for the second time in 10 days, Michigan will take on Illinois in Big Ten basketball action. The game is a 8:30 PM Eastern  tonight in Urbana-Champaign, and can be seen live on Big Ten Network.

Tempo-Free and efficiency comparison (if you need an explanation of what any of these things mean, head to KenPom’s website):

Differences of more than 100 places in the rankings garner two-letter advantages, differences of more than 200 get a third.

Ohio State is a pretty good team, despite not getting a ton of love from the polls right now. Their offense depends on hitting their shots, and the defense is reliant on forcing opponents to miss their shots, as well as getting them to turn it over. Surprisingly, they don’t have a huge rebounding advantage over the Wolverines like I would have expected. Ken Pomeroy predicts a 66-64 Michigan win in a 62-possession game. He gives the Wolverines a 59% chance of winning the game.

Ohio State has had a rash of injuries and player defections this year, making them somewhat thin (depth-wise) outside the paint. Inside the paint, they have 7-1 freshman BJ Mullens. If the Illinois game is any indication, Michigan should have plenty of trouble matching up with Ohio State’s men inside. Fortunately, the Buckeyes don’t have nearly the depth in big men (the next tallest player is 6-9, and Kyle Madsen gets very little playing time). The most-used players for Ohio State are Evan Turner and Jon Diebler, two sophomores who play nearly the entire game for OSU each time out.

The Wolverines face another tough battle, and hopefully the home-court advantage can propel them to a win.

Posted under Analysis, Basketball

Recruiting Boards (2009 & 2010) can be found anytime in the left sidebar.

LA DT Commit DeQuinta Jones visited Arkansas last weekend, and seemingly enjoyed himself.

Jones is set to visit Michigan this weekend and plans to visit either Mississippi State or Ole Miss the following weekend. He said he isn’t certain when he’ll make a decision.

“I might wait until signing day and surprise a lot of people.” Jones said.

Given the conventional wisdom regarding his recruitment, a reaffirmation of his Michigan commitment might be the most surprising thing possible. I’m still super-leery of a guy who is (nominally) committed being unsure of when he’ll make a decision.

Michigan and Florida are likely to be the final 2 for FL QB Denard Robinson. Florida is out in the lead, but the Wolverines are making a strong push:

One interesting dynamic could be his teammate, defensive back Adrian Witty, who will visit Florida on the weekend of Jan. 23. Kansas State is offering the pair the chance to play together on the next level, and Michigan may follow suit. If that happens, especially in the case of the Wolverines, it will be interesting to se e if the temptation to play alongside his high school teammate proves too much for Robinson to pass up. That said, I still feel Florida is the team to beat here.

Michigan has indeed offered Witty (by far his biggest offer), so that could certainly help with Robinson. The two had (and enjoyed) their official visit to Ann Arbor last weekend. If Witty doesn’t get offered by Florida, that would be a very good thing for Michigan. There’s also a mini-scouting report on Denard:

One other quick note on Robinson: Photographer Tim Casey and I visited him at practice for the Dade-Broward All-Star Game this weekend, he certainly has a big-time arm. While his size isn’t the greatest (even 6-0 might be a little generous), Robinson is an incredible athlete and deserves every opportunity to play the position on the next level.

Speaking of Witty, Michigan has stopped recruiting 2009 FL CB Jayron Hosley. They apparently feel good enough about cornerback recruiting to take a pass on Hosley, which means they probably feel that they are likely to land Witty, or are likely to offer other prospects that they like their chances with.

Michigan’s last couple (realistic) offensive line recruits for the 2009 class are thick in their recruitments. NC OL Travis Bond visited ECU last weekend, and the author of that article strangely thinks it’s a foregone conclusion that Bond will eventually be committing to the Pirates. I don’t think that’s even close to the case. According to MGoBlog’s TomVH, Bond will announce next week. SC OL Quinton Washington has all sorts of visits going on, and Rich Rodriguez will visit his house next week.

2009 LA WR Travante Stallworth was an official visitor last weekend, and he offered a bit of reaction to Phil Kornblut:

“The Michigan trip went pretty well,” Stallworth said. “I liked the coaches and players. Everything was top of the line with the facilities. And the academics, I liked that, too.”

He enjoyed the visit enough that the Wolverines have pulled even with the schools at the forefront of his recruitment (info in header).

Miami of Florida is the favorite for 2009 TX CB Demontre Hurst. He’s apparently become a hot prospect of late, as several schools seem to have ratcheted up the intensity on him. I would be surprised if he ended up committing to Michigan.

2009 FL LB Mike Marry doesn’t sound like he’ll be visiting Michigan, and he is close to being crossed off the old list. He has visits to Ole Miss, USF, and Duke.

Added to the 2010 board: IL LB Rickey Simpson. He is “Hearing from several.” Hmm, that article was posted on the front page of the Michigan Scout affiliate. I wonder if the Wolverines are one of the teams in contact with him. Info, quite obviously, in header.

2010 FL WR Chris Dunkley has received an offer from Miami. Michigan offered in the fall, but the Canes at least have a hometown advantage.

2010 TX DT Jay Guy has reportedly been offered by Michigan (info in header).

Despite apparently growing up a Michigan fan, 2010 OH RB Erick Howard (the state’s Mr. Football for the 2008 season) currently favors Ohio State (info in header). Obviously, Michigan has some time to make up the gap.

2010 FL CB Lorenza Wood has received his Michigan offer, and the Wolverines have long been his established favorite. Might he pick the maize-and-blue soon?

Posted under Football, Recruiting