Mega-full week. Some stuff may be held until Monday’s update.

Added:
IN OL Kyle Koehne. Top 4 of UM, MSU, BC, UF. Wants to decide before his senior season.
VA DE Will Hill. Visiting this weekend.

New Information:
VA QB Commit Kevin Newsome. May camp at VT. :(
MI QB/S Thomas Gordon. Nearly guaranteed to commit if offered.
MS S Dennis Thames. Recruiting fluff, +visited this week and subsequently named Michigan his favorite.
IN OL Zach Martin. Top 5 of UM, ND, UVa, UK, Ill. Wants to decide before senior season (not set in stone). Visiting this weekend.
GA LB Devekeyan Lattimore. Likes Michigan and plans to visit this summer (info in header).
NV DE Keenan Graham. Michigan in his top 9.
OK CB Gabe Lynn. Michigan would let him run track in college.
CA WR Shaquelle Evans. Michigan “high on his list.” He is expected to visit Notre Dame for the Michigan game.
GA CB Darren Myles. He plans a visit to the northern schools on his list sometime this summer. Michigan is on his list but not explicitly mentioned as one of the visited.
NC WR Jheranie Boyd. Recruiting fluff.

Removed:
SC QB/S Stephon Gilmore. Michigan is out of his top group.
FL CB Brandon McGee. Has made decision plans, Michigan not among the schools considered.
IA WR Keenan Davis. Will not decide until signing day, no apparent M interest.
TN WR Marlon Brown. Trimmed list, no Michigan.
NC CB Terry Shankle. Michigan eliminated.

Etc.: TheWolverine’s Josh Helmholdt breaks down Michigan and MSU recruiting classes thus far.

Posted under Recruiting

In case you missed the update from Friday in your holiday stupor, check it out here. As always, the board is here.

Added:
MI DE Justice Akuezue. Interest, etc.
OH DE Tank Carradine. Michigan is one of his favorites.
FL CB Jayron Hosley. Drawing some Michigan interest.
CA WR Shaquelle Evans. Michigan in his top group.
FL CB Mywan Jackson. Visiting Michigan this summer, with offer.
LA LB Jonathan Stewart. Offered.

New Information:
AL CB Dre Kirkpatrick. Will decide on signing day.
OK RB David Oku. Visiting Michigan for the MSU game (official).

Posted under Recruiting

Action since last rankings:
6-28-08 Indiana gains commitments from Kenny Watkins, Jeremy Gainer, Demetrius Carr, and Ted Bolser. Minnesota gains commitment from Brooks Michel.
6-29-08 Illinois gains commitment from Steve Hull.
6-30-08 Minnesota gains commitment from Dan Orseske.
7-2-08 Indiana gains commitment from Adam Replogle. Penn State gains commitments from Adam Gress and Curtis Dukes.
7-3-08 Indiana gains commitment from Jamonne Chester.
7-4-08 Penn State gains commitment from Christian Kuntz.

New Rankings:

Huge week for the Bucks with tons of commits. Their remaining slots are probably reserved for specific guys they know they’ll get (i.e. Marcus Hall).

Michigan is waiting for more commits.

Adam Gress, Curtis Dukes, and Christian Kuntz commit.

Nothing new for Notre Dame. Is Charlie’s gravity losing its pull?

Wisconsin moves past Michigan State because I give slightly more value (up to a bonus star) to any offensive lineman that Wisconsin deems worthy (and they have 3 so far in this class).

Solid but not spectacular class thus far.

Keise, Rengel, and Michel probably low-3/high-2 guys. Kickers are rarely rated very well.

Steve Hull to the Illini.

Indiana gets a boatload of commits. Keyt will be a 2-star (he is being brought in as a greyshirt long-snapper), Gainer might end up a mid-to-high 3-star, and the rest will be in the low 3-star range.

Northwestern is still in on a couple of big-timers. Will they be able to land one?

Ferentz’s glory days in recruiting seem to be over.

Not sure where Aristide will be ranked, but it has to be a more important commit than a long-snapper. He was on the verge of becoming a big prospect before a junior year injury.

Posted under Recruiting

The new Recruiting Board is up, so I thought I should go over some of the new features.

When Tim and I were discussing what would be ideal, we started thinking something that was basically a message board with each prospect getting his own thread. The only problem there was formatting the information and making it look nice and convey the information quickly. And then there are the issues of maintenance and moderation inherent in message boards.

It seemed like a hybrid would be the best solution, so now you can comment on each and everyone of the recruits individually. Any info or articles, rumors you’ve heard, an opinion/gut feeling you have, anything that could give a more rounded picture of the prospect can be posted there. You have to register, but that is really quick and no personal information is required (the registration link is at the bottom of the board as well as under the comments section- Tim). This helps prevents spambots from doing what they do and gives troll another hurdle.

I hope everyone will contribute so we can have a super complete, informative source for the 2009 class.

Posted under Blog News, Recruiting

UPDATE: I just update the podcast feed, so if you subscribe, you might have to tell your software to check the feed again. In the future I’ll try to get it updated over the weekend. Also, I resubmitted it to iTunes, apparently it rejected it last time. If you want to manually add the podcast feed to your iTunes copy this:

http://www.panel-creations.com/varsity_blue/podcast/vblue_podcast.xml

Select Advanced>Subscribe to Podcast and paste the URL. It should then automatically update each week.

Posted under Recruiting, Video

(Tons of) Action since last rankings:
6-21-08 Illinois gains commitment from Greg Fuller.
6-22-08 Ohio State gains commitments from Carlos Hyde and Justin Green. Wisconsin gains commitment from Montee Ball. Northwestern gains commitment from Anthony Battle.
6-23-08 Ohio State gains commitments from Bradley McDougald and Corey Brown. Illinois gains commitment from Joelil Thrash. Northwestern gains commitment from Drew Moulton.
6-24-08 Michigan gains commitment from Jordan Barnes. Michigan gains commitment from DeWayne Peace. Ohio State gains commitment from Jonathan Newsome. Wisconsin gains commitment from Chris Borland.
6-25-08 Michigan State gains commitment from Micajah Reynolds. Wisconsin gains commitment from Brian Wozniak.
6-26-08 Indiana gains commitment from Nick Zachery. Wisconsin gains commitment from Travis Frederick.

New Rankings:

Huge week for the Bucks with tons of commits. Their remaining slots are probably reserved for specific guys they know they’ll get (i.e. Marcus Hall).

A pair of three-stars in Jordan Barnes and DeWayne Peace for Michigan.

Curtis Drake is being brought in as a QB unless the Nittany Lions get a top-notch signal caller in this class (in which case he will likely be a WR). Penn State has a quantity-over-quality class right now.

Nothing new for Notre Dame. Is Charlie’s gravity losing its pull?

Micajah Reynolds commits.

Montee Ball, Brian Wozniak, and Travis Frederick commit to the Badgers.

Keise will probably end up a low 3-star/high 2-star. Same with Rengel.

The Illini pick up two unrated commits.

Two unrated commits for Northwestern.

Ferentz’s glory days in recruiting seem to be over. Barrent drops to 3 stars in Scout update.

Not sure where Aristide will be ranked, but it has to be a more important commit than a long-snapper. He was on the verge of becoming a big prospect before a junior year injury.

Keyt is a long snapper/DE who will greyshirt, according to IUFootball (who deserves props: writing about Indiana football has to be among the most thankless jobs out there). Hoosiers grab Nick Zachery.

Posted under Recruiting

The recruiting board is all-new! If you have any problems with the new incarnation, e-mail me right away. If you have any suggestions, questions, etc., let me know.

Since it’s still in the buggy stages, everything is still up to date at the old board as well.

Moved to Committed:
IN LB Jordan Barnes. Commit article.
TX WR DeWayne Peace. Commit article. He may be moved to another position as word comes out about where Michigan recruited him to play.

Added:
FL LB Jon Bostic. He apparently holds an offer.
OK DE Pearlie Graves. Awesome name, Michigan offer (info in header).

New Information:
FL LB Brandon Hawthorne. We already knew Michigan and USF were his top choices, now we know that Louisville, Tennessee, and West Virginia round out the top 5.
SC DE Chris Bonds. Top 5 of USC, USC, Michigan, ND, and ‘Bama.
OH OL Chris Freeman. Article with no Michigan mention. He is teetering near the edge of being dropped.
OK CB Gabe Lynn. Audio interview in the radio, top 5 by end of summer.
OK RB David Oku. Nebraska official 9-27.

Removed:
PA CB Corey Brown. As expected, commits to Ohio State.
PA DE Juantez Hollins. Pitt commit.
MI TE Mitch Kessel. Cincinnati commit. He was a longshot to ever get an offer.

Analysis:
Losing Brown to the Bucks isn’t that big a deal, because it was expected and prepared for, and means OSU is starting to run low on scholarships to give to other ’09 prospects. Barnes is a Chris Graham-ish player, and he may see a move to MAX back. DeWayne Peace could be a good WR or CB.

Etc.:

Posted under Recruiting

As everyone likely knows by now, Michigan commit Kevin Newsome has decided to transfer from Western Branch High School, and will instead enroll at Hargrave Military Academy for his senior football season. Despite still being a high schooler, Newsome will participate on the post-graduate football team.

Most recruiting fans are only familiar with Hargrave Military Academy because of prospects who graduate from high school, but don’t have the grades to qualify for college. Hargrave has a post-graduate program for “5th-year seniors” to improve their grades enough to qualify for college, while still playing football. Newsome doesn’t have this issue because:

1. He is going to Hargrave for his senior year, not after he graduates (the first time).
2. He is a good student (NHS member, class president, etc.)

It seems like he has a good head on his shoulders, so I doubt it’s because he needs to get grade or discipline issues sorted out. I would think it’s something more along the lines of being prepared for college football (and Barwis!).

As for whether this is good for Michigan, I’m not sure. Hargrave seems to be pretty good about keeping college coaches away from already-committed players, but at the same time, they have a good relationship with Virginia Tech’s coaching staff (3 cadets moved on to Virginia Tech just last year). Obviously, since Virginia Tech is one of the main competitor’s for Newsome’s services, that is slightly worrisome. However, Newsome’s former high school coach seems to be putting some pro-VT pressure on Newsome:

“I thought when he picked Michigan, he jumped the gun a little bit, and I was disappointed,” Johnston said. “I told him that.”
“We’re very close, and I’ve told him I’d like to see him stay closer to home,” Johnston said. “I’m not going to push it, but there’s something about playing in your home state.”

It seems like Kevin might be trying to avoid those around him giving him undeserved grief for not picking their favorite school. Without knowing for sure why Newsome is moving to Hargrave, and how well-received Michigan’s coaches are at that school (Rodriguez did get a commitment from a Cadet before moving on to Michigan last year), it is impossible to know whether this move impacts Michigan positively or negatively. Of course, down the road, it will be interesting to see whether this also affects Newsome’s younger brother, Keevon.

And of course, the Free Press takes this as incontovertible evidence that Newsome’s commitment to Michigan will not be honored.

Posted under Recruiting

Completing the, uh, bi-fecta for the day, DeWayne Peace has committed to the Michigan Wolverines. Peace (6-0, 178, 4.68) is a DB/WR from South Grand Prairie HS in Texas. He becomes the 12th player in the 2009 class.

Commitment Notes
Peace was a somewhat under-the-radar prospect through much of his recruitment. Until early June, he favor the Texas A&M Aggies and the Kansas Jayhawks. That all changed with a visit to the Rich Rodriguez Football Camp, however. Peace and Michigan were mutually impressed, and upon Peace’s return, A&M was out of the picture, and Michigan was in the top 2 with Kansas. DeWayne decided to end his recruitment shortly thereafter, and gave his word to become a Michigan Wolverine.

Player Notes
Peace has been impressive at both wideout and corner, and is known for good quickness and fluid hips. He moves in and out of breaks cleanly, and uses good routes to get open. At Michigan, it is unclear whether he will be a defensive back or wideout/slot.

Video
From the Super Jayhawk camp.

Posted under Recruiting

Jordan Barnes, a three-star linebacker from Fort Wayne, IN, has given his word to become a Michigan Wolverine. The 6-0, 225 pound product of Homestead Senior High School, picked Michigan over Auburn and Alabama.

Recruiting Notes
Barnes grew up in the state of Alabama, and made it clear that the two in-state schools were his favorites early in the process. However, after attending the BBQ at the Big House, Michigan started making inroads. When he announced his intentions to have a press conference, it was clear that the Wolverines were in the running along with the two ‘bama schools. Before he could get to a press conference, however, Barnes committed to the maize and blue.

Player notes
Barnes is a quick linebacker, and he uses his speed to make plays. His combination of good speed and slightly shorter stature make him a fit to end up on the weakside in college. His film shows that he could also move to the offensive side of the ball, where he could be a big, quick FB (MAX in the Rich Rodriguez system).

Posted under Recruiting