holden staes

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This will probably be my last of these for awhile as spring practice is now underway, and with it Hail to the Victors 2021. There’s also been a lot of movement, most of it pretty good news, on the recruiting front. We’ll go backwards through the roster again since that’s kind of the order of interest as well.

CORNERBACK

Pull the trigger! The 5-star in-state legacy Will Johnson announced a decision date of this Sunday, when he will choose between Michigan, Ohio State, and USC. Timing suggests the former is the choice($), but the latter is the biggest threat, especially since friend and fellow 5-star Domani Jackson committed there, and USC’s own ace recruiter Donte Williams pushing($). Jackson sounds like he’s good staying out West, so it’s unlikely this is still a “package deal” for Michigan, but the prognosticators are all coming in for Michigan($), and increasing in confidence($). Johnson and Jackson were in Miami last weekend for their 7-on-7 tournament, though Johnson was limited:

Will Johnson, the No. 4 cornerback in the 247Sports Composite was limited by an ankle injury so he played safety and still looked good moving around and covering a lot of ground. Michigan, Ohio State and the Trojans are the three battling for his signature. Johnson sported Wolverines gloves while competing on Sunday.

Sam Webb and Steve Lorenz shared on their podcast that Will was close to committing to Ohio State earlier this year but Michigan successfully talked him into pumping the breaks while they got their staff settled. It appears they nailed it with the Linguist hire, and Ron Bellamy further solidified Michigan’s credibility with the Detroit area fraternity—father Deon Johnson has been involved in Sound Mind, Sound Body for years.

It’s also a good sign that Johnson’s been interacting with other high-profile Michigan targets. If he does choose blue, he could be the anchor of this class the way J.J. McCarthy and Junior Colson were for the latest one.

[Hit THE JUMP for all the other positions, plus more elite corners who seem to like the way we trim our genoas.]

We’re catching up on the shape of 2022 recruiting, which has morphed some since the staff shakeup this offseason. I covered defense last week but there have been some significant moves on the offense too.

Summary:

QB: New board, best two options are a couple of Midwest 3-stars Cincy and Iowa were after.
RB: Hart is going to gun for some 5-stars.
WR: Bellamy’s added some long and tall prospects (one an ATH from Groves) to the longtime pursuits of Gattis-beloved targets Brown/Morris.
TE: Klein solid, the other GA prospect is now a 4-star with SEC suitors, other-other GA prospect recently decommitted from PSU.
OL: The commit may move up the rankings, one impending commit is gonna hold off to get to know Moore better, one impending commit already does, and a number of Sherrone’s top targets have replaced guys who liked Warinner.

Most Likely Warinner OL to Stick

CO 4* commit Connor Jones hasn’t wavered with Sherrone Moore taking over as position coach, and Brice Marich got us some recent scouting from Jones’s coach:

“…a point of improvement was his footwork in pass-pro. It really got better and moving lateral with quickness. He’s violent with his hands and all those things really improved significantly during last off-season through the end of the 2020 season. He’s always been a very physical run blocker and always been very demanding of himself. He punishes people and finishes blocks, but that’s how he’s always been. I think his lateral speed, quickness and violent hands in pass-pro have really gotten better.”

Colorado doesn’t have any naturally large bodies of water, so that coach can be forgiven for mangling a maritime Keynesian economics metaphor…

“He’s a guy that puts water in the harbor.”

…to say Jones is a great teammate. But he also reports Jones is up to 6-7/290, so it could also mean the kid literally lifts all boats.

We thought we’d have a second guy from the state in the class, as CO 3* Braden Miller, Reece Atteberry’s teammate and SixZero Academy partner($), was really close to committing our people tell us (and EJ’s people tell him($)). Clearly the Warinner divorce held off Miller’s announcement, which is great news for those of us who were procrastinating on that Hello post.

MN 4* Lucas Heyer is a top priority for a lot of Big Ten schools. Warinner was in early($) thanks to his Minnesota connections, but it waits to be seen if Michigan surrendered their slim lead there when they surrendered Ed. We may not have to wait long; 247’s Brice Marich put in a Crystal Ball to Michigan this week($).

[After THE JUMP: lock up yo five-stars]