Football

Michigan Football recently picked up a commitment from Birmingham Groves OL Avery Gach, the second commitment since Sherrone Moore took over as head coach. Today we give him the proper Hello: 

GURU RATINGS 

Gach is a consensus four star, ranked just inside the top 250 of the On3 Consensus and the 247 composite. Rivals and 247 are the highest on Gach, putting him inside their top 200 and ranking him among the top 15 IOL prospects nationally. ESPN is a bit lower, just inside the top 300, but all three of those sites consider him a top three prospect in the state of Michigan. On3 is the rather bizarre outlier (something that their own EJ Holland heavily disagrees with in his pieces), ranking Gach as an irrelevant three star and 7th in the state of Michigan. According to Seth's five star scale, Gach overall grades out as a solid four and in the middle of the pack among all IOL prospects that Michigan has gotten commitments from since 1990. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: what the scouts say]

Things Discussed:

• Draft Takeaways: Nice that Saban kept being like "I love this dude!" Brian: Michigan and Iowa are the best two teams at developing talent; Michigan also recruits in an area where you win a national title if you outperform like that.
• Seth: Harbaugh recruited at the same level as previous Michigan coaches but where they were getting 20% to 33% of their players to the NFL, Harbaugh is putting *60 Percent* of his players in the League:
• JJ McCarthy: Threw as many passes in the first three Qs as the other guys. Would I trade Goff for JJ, Neil? Can't break up a team on a Super Bowl run, but JJ is more valuable than Goff by far; he's gonna be under team control for a long time.
• Junior Colson: Sam shares that Minter told him to go pro after the championship because he and Harbaugh were going to the league and they're gonna come get him.
• Amorion Walker: If he'd stayed at receiver he'd be the breakout player of the year, but he burned his redshirts both years and then was at cornerback and Ole Miss—that is a hard position to play, and it's probably gonna need to be next year before he's a breakout player.
• CJ Charleston: He's here to be a veteran presence. Sinagosa brought him over from YSU. Tough sell getting receivers.
• DT? Looks like PT wasn't there for their top prospect CJ West so they're moving on to the GVSU guy (Suggs).
• Jaden Mangham? Seth: YES TAKE ALL THE FALCONS! Brian: I don't want anybody who thought it was a good idea to play for Mel Tucker. He's also against taking anyone from Belleville.
• Break: Basketball recruits.
• Post-break: NCAA has an opportunity with House negotiations to sit across the table from *somebody* and create a sustainable future. Brian: Pendulum swung too far, single transfer rule was correct. Seth: Best thing would be to create an incentive formula that gets small schools out of a huge tax bill and makes players want to stay put.

[Hit the JUMP for the player, and video and stuff]

UPDATE: Amorion Walker is back as well. Since all he missed was one semester this doesn't warrant a Hello. Since he was one of my 2022 Sleepers of the Class it does warrant a fist-pump. Now back to Charleston.

Michigan's receiver depth was bolstered today with Youngstown State transfer CJ Charleston's announcement. This one:

CAREER THUS FAR

Charleston is a grad transfer, but may have a shot at two years of eligibility; he redshirted in 2019 and lost of all of 2022 to an Achilles injury. He's an athlete, a D1 basketball prospect in high school who won state titles for the long jump and 4x100 relay. Charleston was also an ATH as a recruit, committing to Bo Pelini(!) as an RB/WR/CB. He started in the shortened 2020 season (five games), and caught three passes for 18 yards against MSU as a RS sophomore in 2021, but came off the bench for four of their last six games.

After missing 2022 Charleston was an inside-outside third option for the Penguins behind 6th year Kentucky transfer Bryce Oliver and full-time slot receiver Max Tomczak. Charleston finished 2023 with 33 catches on 46 targets for 504 yards (11 YPT) and 4 TDs, and a 64.6 (meh) score on PFF. The effects of the injury might have played a role; via local press, he was on a limited snap count up until the end of fall camp.

[After THE JUMP: Very limited scouting]