casey phinney

We missed the news because I had a holiday this weekend. On Saturday afternoon 3* LB commit Casey Phinney decommitted from Michigan and quickly flipped to hometown Boston College.

Phinney was one of three low-ranked Northeastern players, along with TJ Guy and Dominic Giudice, who joined Michigan's class in the early weeks of the lockdown. While Guy appears to be a Kwity Paye-level discovery, and Giudice is an already-275-lb DT who's still being evaluated as an outside pass-rusher, the sites continue to rank Phinney barely inside top-1200, which would put him behind eleven current Michigan State commits. Even when he committed we were tactfully wondering if Phinney would get moved to fullback, a position that's being phased out of the program. Phinney probably wondered as well. Since Phinney pledged, Michigan has added three 4* linebackers, the NCAA gave everyone—notably the four LBs in Michigan's 2020 class—an extra year of eligibility, and recently the Wolverines secured another Massachusetts linebacker for 2022 who's basically a four-star version of Phinney. Both parties should be fine.

The timing leads to speculation that Phinney was dropped when he didn't help reel in high-4* teammate Drew Kendall, but that's been largely debunked; if Kendall chose Michigan for a friend it would have been TE commit Louis Hansen, not anyone at Nobles, and Michigan was well aware. There were some rumblings that BC was trying to poach Hansen, but these appear to be all from BC's side.

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Previously: Offense, Defensive Line, Hello posts for WDE/SAM Kechaun Bennett, SAM/WLB/MLB Tyler McLaurin, MLB/Viper Junior Colson, MLB/WLB Jaydon Hood, and WLB/FB Casey Phinney.

Michigan's mostly set at linebacker, with four or five commits already in the class depending on where you put recent commit Kechaun Bennett (he's here for now but headed for DE). Many of the guys in this class are like that. A brief overview of all of Michigan's positions on the spectrum between pure defensive lineman and pure defensive back can be found at post's end. 

The fellas again:

Icon	Name	Meaning
	Sad Josh	The genre of player with unrequited interest in Michigan. Unlikely to receive offers; most will eventually fade off the list and go to Duke or Michigan State or something.
	Nefarious Eduardo	Player is a longshot. Either they've declared someone else a leader publicly or popular opinion holds that they're likely to go to another school.
	Data	Either no opinion or Michigan is one of a fairly even group of chasing schools. Players in this category maintain no leader or change their leader frequently. The default category for players that we don't know much about yet.
	Happy Teeth	Players who have Michigan in a small leading group or have Michigan as a tenuous favorite. Should be regarded as a good shot, not a slam dunk.
	Mr. Blue	Player is either a verbal or is expected to be one sooner or later. Players with this designation are 65%+ to be Michigan commits.

To to the dudes!

SAM/WDE/Edge

Commit
Player	State	Stars	Schools	Y/N	Previously
Kechaun Bennett	CT	****	Michigan		Hello. Discussed on pod.
Tyler McLaurin	IL	***.5	Michigan		Hello
Targets
Player	State	Stars	Schools	Y/N	Previously
Darryl Peterson	OH	***	Wis leads Michigan, WVU, Bama, PSU
James Wilborn Jr.	CT	***	BC, Michigan, ND

Needs: Major. Josh Uche left for the NFL and none of the explicitly DE prospects Michigan has a good chance of landing seem like impact edge rushers. The guy on the roster getting talked up like he'll take on the role is Luigi Vilain, who's two injured season and another season of not playing away from the last time he was generating hype on the field.

Commits: Michigan recently picked up CT 4* DE Kechaun Bennett, who's already 6'4"/220, and who we believe will ultimately grow into a hand-in-the-dirt guy. That Hello ran too late to catch an excellent piece by MnB's Jonathan Simmons where he breaks down some plays from Bennett's film.

Don Brown is transitioning into a positionless scheme where standard positions are gone and everyone falls along a spectrum.

…

As mentioned above, Bennett is still pretty lanky. He does have room to pack on 30 to 40 pounds, which would put him around Josh Uche territory and a little lighter than Kwity Paye. The best thing about Bennett’s frame is that he is all limbs. His arms are really long, which is essential for pass rushers to keep separation from blockers.

This play from his highlight reel (no full games available) displays the advantage of his arm length well. Bennett shoves the tackle back, extending his arms out to keep him at bay, then swipes over the top to disengage and gets to the quarterback.

Given the state of the class it's reasonable to assume Michigan plans to use Tyler McLaurin like Noah Furbush. That role leans more coverage, with some pass rush and lots of taking on lead blockers. Since his commitment McLaurin went on EJ Holland's podcast and described himself as really fast downhill player who excels against TEs and H-backs. He didn't talk specifically about how he'll be used except the coaches love his length and want to see what he looks like after weight training. Allen Trieu also caught up with McLaurin and talked at length about how his recruitment played out.

Prospects: I wrote this section before the flood of commitments so might as well keep it, but for the record I think Bennett's pledge rules out anyone else.

It's hard to see them giving up on 3* DE/OLB Darryl Peterson however. EJ Holland confirmed that getting Ohioans Markus Allen and Rod Moore helps put Michigan back in the race for Peterson, an Akron (Archbishop Hoban) prospect the staff thinks was critically underrated by the sites. Unfortunately Wisconsin has been making Peterson a priority too. He's visited there multiple times, and talked to the UW 247 guy Evan Flood about committing the same day as friend/IA 4* LB TJ Bollers, a heavy Wisconsin lean. Flood thinks if the pair aren't Wisconsin's next OLB duo it's because they're Alabama's($). Peterson still plans to visit Michigan in late June if possible. Former teammate Nolan Rumler might be of assistance.

Last is James Wilborn Jr., a Connecticut prospect who rose into various top-250s after strong camps at ND and PSU last summer($), and fell back to obscure 3* over the winter. He loves Don Brown, but pursuit from all the big schools seems to have dried up.

[After THE JUMP: Things that didn't make it into recent Hellos, who plays what position, Seth adds a Viper to the board just because].

The third and final commitment in Michigan's mini-run last week was Marshfield (MA) Noble & Greenough School linebacker Casey Phinney. As you may have guessed given the position and location, Phinney is a Don Brown recruit. He'll come in as an inside linebacker with some positional versatility, according to his high school coach:

Phinney is heading to Michigan to play inside linebacker, but he also has fullback/h-back skills.

“He’s very versatile,” Voulgaris said. “He can certainly do that (play on offense). My sense is once he gets there, they will fit him in where it is appropriate, but it is as a linebacker to get things started.”

Phinney is a virtual unknown to the recruiting services. He's using that as motivation:

Thank you to the Michigan faithful for the support on my commitment and an even bigger thank you to the doubters, can’t wait to prove you all wrong. Go Blue 〽️

— Casey Phinney (@caseyphinney) April 4, 2020

Thanking the haters is a power move.

Phinney is the seventh commit in Michigan's 2021 class, which currently ranks 14th at this relatively early stage in the cycle. He's the only linebacker in the class for the time being.

GURU RATINGS

Phinney's junior film didn't go public until mere hours before his commitment, so take these rankings—or lack thereof—with a grain of salt. Rivals and 247 at least had rankings and profiles up for Phinney before last week; the same cannot be said for ESPN, surprise surprise.

As a result, Phinney would've been merely a middle-of-the-pack recruit in Michigan State's 2020 class. In related news, he'd be the Spartans's top commit for 2021. We'll see if there's any upward movement when the sites do their next re-rank and evaluators have more of a chance to go over his tape.

Phinney is listed at 6'1" and in the 225-230 pound range by all three sites. He's already got most of the size you want in a modern inside linebacker.

[Hit THE JUMP for scouting, video, and the rest.]