louis hansen

Previously: Podcast 14.0A, 14.0B, 14.0C. The Story. Quarterback. Running Back. Wide Receiver.

TIGHT END: IT'S BEEN FOUR YEARS AND I HAVEN'T COME UP WITH A GOOD REFERENCE

RATING: 4.5

Depth Chart

You write about things on the internet and you're like "oh dude this guy's last name is a common English word" and then absolutely nothing comes to you. Nothing good, anyway.

This position group has two established senior starters who are on NFL radars, plus a couple of sixth-year guys who will chip in and a horde of younger folks lifting weights and biding their time. The only thing separating this spot from a 5 in our ratings is the lack of an out-and-out All-American sort. Seth thinks Michigan has one but that's an opinion that's not (yet) shared by others, who consistently rank Michigan's tight ends in the 6-15 range nationally.

That's still pretty good. Michigan can go five wide when that's advantageous and they can beef up when that's advantageous. It's all about flexibility.

ALL IN THE FAMILY?

moment of the season [Patrick Barron]

Bah. That sucks, unlike ERICK ALL. When you do the UFRs you find guys, and then you bang on the table for your guys. My first guy was David Molk, who reached all those mofos in the Rodriguez years. Seth's guy was All. He was already pleading for All to get All Big Ten nods after the Ohio State game…

… it’s a crying shame that people are looking at Peyton Hendersot, who does not block, and Barry Alvarez’s grandson, who had a terrible season, over Erick All for the all-Big Ten tight end. I would hear you out if you talked about Nebraska’s guy, but Erick All has done more for Michigan’s running game this year than any lineman, the last bit of it while injured.

…and then he was more or less the only Michigan player who looked like he could whoop Georgia's ass if he just had ten clones:

All's UFR numbers are eyepopping.

Previously: Last year’s summary. The 2021 profiles: P Tommy Doman Jr. S Rod Moore. CB Ja’Den McBurrows. LB Jaydon Hood. LB Junior Colson. LB Tyler McLaurin. DE Kechaun Bennett. DE TJ Guy. DE/DT Dominick Giudice. DT George Rooks. DT Rayshaun Benny. NG Ikechukwu Iwunnah. C Greg Crippen. C/G Raheem Anderson. T Giovanni El-Hadi. T Tristan Bounds. TE Louis Hansen. WR Cristian Dixon. WR Xavier Worthy. WR Andrel Anthony Jr. RB Tavierre Dunlap. RB Donovan Edwards. QB JJ McCarthy.

I guess I’ll keep this now-three-year-old tradition alive as well, since I have stray remaining thoughts after this exercise. Now that I’ve watched all the tape, read every take, and scraped the internet for information in a year that had less of it than ever, I’ve got a few takeaways about the class.

It is another B+ class

I may just be more of a homer than Brian—which comes from inexperience at this—but I rated this class slightly higher than Brian put the 2020 class, despite 247 ranking them on average about 100 spots lower. Mathlete converts our “General Excitement Level” ratings into a 10-point scale that you can effectively halve to get a 5* scale we’re used to. Here are the two classes against each other, and the MGoBlog take versus the industry (247 Composite also converted to 5* scale).

I think in a few cases this was mostly the program itself relying on their evaluations more than they have in the past. They had huge Signing Day victories in December (Donovan Edwards and to a lesser degree keeping Hood & McBurrows) and February (the three DTs). I don’t think losing Xavier Worthy changed things; picking up Daylen Baldwin makes that sort of a Josh Christopher-for-Chaundee Brown situation. Grading by position group:

• QB: A+. Got the cornerstone
• RB: A+. Got their Dude of the Year plus a really underrated proto-Haskins.
• WR: B-. I really like Anthony. Was an A- with Worthy in it. Could go up to a B+ if you include Baldwin.
• TE: B. Love Hansen, wanted at least one more.
• OL: B+. Were handed an excellent situation and came in under the expectation, but El-Hadi is the surest thing, Bounds is the highest of upsides, and two real centers is nothing to sneer at.
• DT: B. Reverse of OL: Situation was dire when they needed a big haul, Nua & friends rescued the class late. Benny the only impact guy.
• DE: B-. Trusted Don Brown.
• LB: A-. Love Colson, like McLaurin more than I thought I would, Hood fits the doom squirrel mode.
• S: C. Moore is pretty good considering they didn’t have a coach, last year had three 4*s. Wanted more.
• CB: D. Nothing against McBurrows. Needed a lot more.
• SP: A. Can Tommy redshirt in Australia?

The end of 2019 and terrible 2020 season were big hurdles to overcome, and keeping this class together while the fans fell into the BPONE took a lot of doing. That alone was one of the greatest upset victories yet for a Harbaugh tenure that hasn’t had many of them. I mean, Harbaugh went through Early Signing Day without a contract! Starting with Gio El-Hadi and J.J. McCarthy and then adding Junior Colson is a big part of the reason there was a class to worry about losing last winter. Only one of these guys did I conclude was a flier, which is not how we felt this class would turn out at the end.

The big miss is at cornerback. While I like the guy they got a lot more than the scouting services did, they needed two more guys who could come in and compete immediately. This was circumstances—they were fighting uphill for most of their top prospects even before you factored in the ease with which opponents could sell instability. Michigan also addressed some of the issues they could affect. Mike Zordich wasn’t able to close on guys like Tyreek Chappell, Ceyair Wright, Prophet Brown, Ishmael Ibrahim, and Omarion Cooper, and was replaced with Mo Linguist and then Steve Clinkscale when it was already too late. They lost Cass Tech’s Kalen King (and his LB brother) to Penn State because Tim Banks has very strong relationships [with the bagmen] in Detroit that Harbaugh angered. Banks is still going to hurt us in Knoxville, but Michigan emphatically mended Detroit connections, and then hired Bellamy, Hart and Clinkscale.

That happened in time to rescue Rayshaun Benny from a life in East Lansing. It will make a big difference in the future.

[After THE JUMP: Superlatives, those who got away.]

Previously: Last year’s profiles. P Tommy Doman Jr. S Rod Moore. CB Ja’Den McBurrows. LB Jaydon Hood. LB Junior Colson. LB Tyler McLaurin. DE Kechaun Bennett. DE TJ Guy. DE/DT Dominick Giudice. DT George Rooks. DT Rayshaun Benny. NG Ikechukwu Iwunnah. C Greg Crippen. C/G Raheem Anderson. T Giovanni El-Hadi. T Tristan Bounds.

We HAD A DEAL, Rivals dot com. Michigan or Penn State unearths these super tall tight end athletes from places that half the country can’t find on a map like “Eldorado” or “Dudley” or “Burke” or “Hamden” or “Newburyport” or “Massachusetts.” You take half a look, shrug at a highlight reel of this giant running over the children more likely to have descended from John Adams than a modern Patriot, give him a 3-star ranking that’s nowhere close to the 4s, and then when he starts doing the same to Big Ten players, we pedantic nerd bloggers get to be all smug while the star-gazers act aghast.

247 did their job, keeping Hansen out of the top-500 because New England highlights are ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. ESPN took care of business with a cursory post-commitment “meh” before going back to not watching film on SEC recruits. All Rivals had to do was sneer at the offer list, write “5.6, #34 TE, #2 MA”, and we all could have gone about our 2021 surprised that Luke Schoonmaker’s light came on as the three-star mafia whines on our message boards that we always come in second for the Isaac Nautas while settling for some neighbor’s cousin of Don Brown.

But that’s not what you did, Rivals dot com. You didn’t even just go 4-star. You went 5.9. You went ranked. You went top-100. You even pushed the composite into 4-star range.

What’s next, are you’re going to start telling people that safeties should be boring, speed isn’t that important for a running back, Jay Harbaugh wasn’t a nepotism hire, and acknowledge angry [Midwest school position]-hating gods exist? WE HAD A DEAL!

[After THE JUMP: It’s the same deal.]