micah kaapana

It's time for another wholesale recruiting update! Three weeks ago I set the stage for all the official visits, now with 3/4 of the big recruiting weekends in June done, I felt it was time to check back in, especially with a handful of more commitments in tow. This time we're not going to do a full position by position breakdown, but merely check in on the big races and talk about various updates across the board that have occurred in the past three weeks. This should quench the thirst of our readers for recruiting content and provide more context for the upcoming commitment dates in early July. 

The Aaron Chiles Saga and what it means for LB recruiting 

Let's start with the bad. Saturday night saw the most surprising development of this recruiting cycle, when 4* LB Aaron Chiles, who had long been a strong Michigan lean, committed to Florida while on a visit. Apparently there had been a few murmurs about Chiles and Florida in the days beforehand (I didn't see these until after the fact), but certainly nothing to suggest that anything like this was remotely possible. When I saw the news tweeted out by Chiles, I was completely shocked, and it seems like the coaching staff ($), and by extension the insider class ($), were as well. Even those who were familiar with Chiles' nibbling on what Florida was selling before the visit felt it was extremely unlikely that Chiles would commit on a visit. The surprise was so great that two Rivals national recruiting experts deemed Chiles --> UF the biggest surprise of the 2024 cycle nationally. 

The experience of Chiles choosing Florida out of the blue seems to have outraged the Michigan staff and inevitably the next question fans had was "will they keep recruiting Chiles?". Not to get too far into the "haha, we'll see what Chiles does when Florida goes 4-8 and fires Napier!! 🤣🤣" discourse, but you have to plan for all contingencies and yes, Florida is not exactly slated to be a juggernaut this fall. A kid who makes a (seemingly) rash decision like that is also one who profiles as likely to reconsider, so there are plenty of reasons to keep poking around, but at this time it's not clear if Michigan will do so. 

[EJ Holland/On3]

Insiders have been divided on what comes next, from some saying that the Chiles decision has burned all bridges and has rendered him persona non grata to the coaching staff ($), while others have said that they may continue to keep an open dialogue ($). Regardless, my reading of the reports makes it clear that they aren't expecting anything and are planning to take the commitment of 4* in-state LB Jeremiah Beasley and then call it a day. Beasley is set to commit next week and all signs are pointing to the Wolverines on this one. He would technically be the only true ILB in the class, but Michigan has a number of LB-ish athletes in this class and theoretically you could move one to ILB.

I wrote in the Cole Sullivan Hello that they plan to start him at MIKE, while I've also heard that Jaden Smith could be an ILB candidate too. Reporting suggests they like these raw balls of clay enough to stick with them + Beasley and wrap it up at LB in '24. It sucks to lose Chiles, because he was an awesome prospect, but given the presumption that a massive NIL offer was what tipped the scales and the manner in which the player conducted that process, perhaps he was not a great fit for Michigan and the culture they're building. Alas, we may never know. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: Happier discussion]

Michigan landed a commitment from 3* RB Micah Ka'apana over the weekend, the second RB in their 2024 recruiting class after Ohio's Jordan Marshall. Ka'apana hails from Bishop Gorman HS in Las Vegas, Nevada, and is a recruit that Michigan and Mike Hart have keyed in on for some time, hence their willingness to take him in the class in mid-June. Who is this masked man and why are the Michigan coaches so intrigued by his talent? Let's see: 

GURU RATINGS

At this time the scouting services view Ka'apana as a consensus 3* prospect, with Rivals and On3 being on the higher end of the evaluation while ESPN and 247 are on the lower end. Every site but ESPN has Ka'apana as a top four player in the state of Nevada, with ESPN rating him 7th. On our five star scale, Ka'apana ranks as a 3.70 star player out of 5 and 44th out of 61 RBs in our database since 1990. Rather ho-hum, but we will learn shortly why Mike Hart believes Ka'apana is much better than the public sites believe. Size-wise there is broad agreement, Ka'apana is likely 5'11 and somewhere between 185 and 195 lbs., with the weight discrepancy likely attributable to recency of update. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: #SpeedInSpace meets Mike Hart 2.0]

Michigan Football has picked up their second 2024 commitment of the weekend today in earning the pledge of 3* RB Micah Ka'apana from Bishop Gorman HS in Las Vegas, NV: 

Committed!! 〽️ #GoBlue @Hayesfawcett3 pic.twitter.com/Lap2t4pNqg

— Micah Ka’apana ✞ (@MicahKaapana) June 17, 2023

Ka'apana is a player that the Michigan staff considers to be grossly undervalued, and their willingness to take his commitment now speaks to that. Ka'apana has not gone to many camps and thus has flown largely under the radar, but a staggering 1,000 yards on just 70 carries as a junior(!) suggests he could fly up the rankings with a larger role as a senior this fall. Mike Hart sure thinks so and views him as an ideal complement to existing RB commit Jordan Marshall, a 4* from Ohio. Whether the commitment of Ka'apana takes Michigan out of the hunt for top 100 4* RB Taylor Tatum remains to be seen, but it speaks volumes about their afinity for Ka'apana to add him to the class as a take right now. 

Like I'Marion Stewart yesterday, Ka'apana will have his Hello this upcoming week. There is no content after the jump.