2023 recruiting

The Profiles: 2022’s Last Take, K Adam Samaha, K James Turner (Tr), S Brandyn Hillman, CB DJ Waller, CB Cameron Calhoun, CB Jyaire Hill, CB Josh Wallace (Tr), HSP/LB Jason Hewlett, LB Hayden Moore, LB Semaj Bridgeman, LB Ernest Hausmann (Tr), OLB Breeon Ishmail, DE Aymeric Koumba, DE Enow Etta, DE Josaiah Stewart (Tr), DT Brooks Bahr, DT Cameron Brandt, DT Trey Pierce, OT Evan Link, OT Myles Hinton (Tr), OT LaDarius Henderson (Tr), OG Nathan Efobi, IOL Amir Herring, OC Drake Nugent (Tr), TE Deakon Tonielli, TE Zack Marshall, TE AJ Barner (Tr), WR Semaj Morgan, WR Fredrick Moore, WR Karmello English, RB Benjamin Hall, RB Cole Cabana, ATH Kendrick Bell, QB Jack Tuttle (Tr)

I'm half a year behind our normal schedule for this series, but I managed to get the last three written up in February. Now it's time to wrap. Because this is coming so late however, I think we need to contextualize some relevant dates for this cycle.

• 2019-'20 (freshmen in high school): COVID starts in March. 7v7s and spring camps canceled, sophomore summer camp seasons interrupted.
• 2020-'21 (sophomore): Pandemic. Seasons canceled or delayed. Visits and scouting are off. This is when most players would have normally been scouted so evaluations are lacking. Michigan retains Harbaugh on the cheap but overhauls staff with Hart, Bellamy, Mac, Helow, Linguist, Sherrone promoted to OLs. In May Linguist leaves for Buffalo, Clinkscale hired. Supreme Court issues its opinion on NCAA vs Alston in June.
• 2021-'22 (junior). NCAA issues its "Interim Policy" on NIL in September, opening the floodgates. By December most large programs are openly using NIL as pay-for-play. Michigan beats Ohio State, loses to Georgia in the Playoff Semis. Courtney Morgan leaves for Washington in December. Nua leaves for USC in early Jan. Mac to Ravens. Harbaugh interviews with Vikings. Gattis leaves for Miami-YTM in February, M hires Minter, Newsome, and Elston; Sherrone and Weiss made co-OCs. Rise of collectives. Harbaugh: "We're transformational not transactional."
• 2022-'23 (senior). Michigan goes undefeated in regular season, wins B10 again. Class signed in December. M loses to TCU in Semis, Weiss fired. Harbaugh flirts with NFL: "Can't out-happy happy." Helow, Weiss replaced with Partridge & Campbell.

IT IS A B+ CLASS WITH AN 'A' FOR TRANSFERS

This class was more spray than the relatively laser 2022 class. Despite two straight trips to the Playoff, this class was hampered by a new NIL era,the recruiting market's own overreactions, and a lack of available playing time on a roster stacked for a national championship run (it was a success), but also by themselves.

The result was Michigan stocked up on as many high ceilings as they could get their hands on:

It moves up to an 'A-' class if you count the transfers, though. I was pretty high on all of them but Tuttle (Wallace joined too late for a writeup), and perhaps too high on Henderson only.

This was really hard to grade though because there are so many projects. A positional rundown, with transfers in parentheticals:

• QB: F (C). Bell moved to WR immediately, Tuttle a 6th year career backup. Would have been nice to have a JJ successor in the wings, or just another competitor.
• RB: A-. No superstars but both guys expected to be major contributors.
• WR: B+. Smallish except for Bell, but all expected to play above their rankings.
• TE: B- (A). Far be it from me to question Michigan TE recruiting but Loveland sets a new bar. I claim the title of blog chief of saw it coming with Barner.
• OL: C+ (A). Two high floors (Link, Herring) and a ceiling (Efobi) is a small class for the 2x Joe Moore winners. I thought the transfers were outstanding.
• DT: B. I really like Pierce. Even if you file Brandt and Bahr here, I wanted another pure DT because OMG and KG aren't gonna be here 4 years.
• Edge: B+ (B+). Etta should get more talk, the rest are DE/DTs (Brandt) or high-upside projects. I thought Stewart was Mike Danna.
• LB: B (A+). Everyone loves Hewlett's ceiling but Hayden Moore seems like a find. Bridgman, eh. Hausmann's gonna be a star.
• S: C+. Brandyn Hillman was a good pull, but needed more than one high-upside positional convert.
• CB: A- (B). Jyaire Hill is a future 1st rounder, DJ Waller is a wild card, Calhoun didn't stick around; I thought he was more of a floor than a catch. Trying to grade Wallace on what I thought when he committed; he'd be an A from what we know today.
• SP: B+. Samaha was born to go to Michigan, but the history of #1 Kornblue Ks is encouraging.

[After THE JUMP: A lot of upside, a few whiffs].

You thought the 2023 cycle was over? Well you were WRONG, just like Notre Dame was WRONG to think that they're allowed to have safeties. Sorry, Notre Dame! You're Notre Dame! You don't get to have safeties. Go drink Donovan Edwards's wake with Ohio State, the other school with an empty chair they thought Hillman would be sitting in.

Hillman was a late mover up the rankings who wasn't on radars until the middle of his senior year. Notre Dame—in mid-October(!!)—was his first major offer, and led from then to a commitment shortly before the December signing day. Hillman was expected to enroll early, so the timing of this, and reports of an "admissions hiccup"($), suggest the breakup was related to, or at least made possible by, that rushed early enrollment. Jay Harbaugh was in contact within minutes of Hillman going back on the market, quickly followed by Ohio State and USC, who were expected to get visits after the one to Ann Arbor. Instead he committed on his Michigan visit. Let's see what we stole.

GURU RATINGS

Hillman is still listed as an Athlete to 3/4 sites because he played quarterback for a high school in Virginia.

Rivals is the big outlier, with ESPN also dragging him down the composite lists. If you're picking which two services would see a top-150 player, these are the two. They're also the most reactive. 247's composite ranking saw him rise from unrated to top-250 in 4 months.

That was mostly fueled by On3 and 247, who had him an 88, #576 overall, and the 39th ATH, which equates to a 3.7 on my 5-star scale. It's a massive jump, explained by the fact that Hillman wasn't putting safety tape out originally. Going into his senior year he had one D1 offer, to Norfolk State.

One of our longstanding rules in recruiting is guys who move up late don't move up enough, and vice versa. That Hillman rose so quickly is an even better sign that Notre Dame's very well respected scouting department believed in him.

[AFTER THE JUMP: There's 5-star potential. It's also a few years away.]

The freshman class that Michigan signed last week is ranked 17th in the 247 composite rankings, 17th to Rivals, and 19th to On3, The class has, pending their pursuit of 5-star Nyckoles Harbor in the later signing period, zero top-100 players. This is quite clearly below the level Michigan normally recruits at.

To have a class like that after a second straight year of beating Ohio State by three scores, winning the Big Ten championship, and going to the Playoff is, without question, a disappointment. I'm one of the people who kept saying over the first half-decade of Harbaugh that beating Ohio State was the key to unlocking a higher level of recruiting. So far, it has not.

This has led to two major questions about the 2023 class, which might be seen as the optimistic and pessimistic versions of the same question:

• Pessimist: Why is a 13-0 Michigan recruiting like 8-5 Michigan?
• Optimist: Is this class like the 2018 class?

Every other question is another form of what this all signifies. Is Michigan doing something wrong? Is Michigan systemically disadvantaged in a new pay-for-play world? Was this wound self-inflicted, bad luck, overstated, or even worth discussing? Is Warde Manuel a second Fritz Crisler who's too cheap, too conservative, and too obstinately attached to outdated ideals of amateurism to keep up in a landscape rapidly reshaping to a new more capitalist order, while simultaneously too revered to be dispensed with?

I can't answer all of that. But I can tell you what happened with the 2018 class, and what that means for the very similar 2022 class.

[After THE JUMP: the 2018 recruiting tag is revived]