in-state recruiting

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].

TUEBOR is Latin for "Pothole!" because you can't sue us if we warn you

The best players in Michigan play for Michigan, but who were the best players from Michigan to play for Michigan?

Previously:

• The 5-stars
• The Extracurriculars.
• Position-Switchers
• Ancient History: 1879 to 1968
• The 3-stars
• The Highlights

This week: We're looking to build the best possible team out of guys who grew up and played their high school ball in Michigan. Since we've covered a lot of these guys' Michigan careers already, I figured this could instead be a celebration of the programs they came from, and Michigan high school football in general. Special thanks to michigan-football.com, a highly valuable resource.

Rules: Only players recruited since 1990-on. Reasons are 1) Until the late '80s Michigan was a very regional recruiter. Quick chart of Michigan rosters (via Bentley) by state of origin, walk-ons included:

Moeller was the first coach since helmets were a thing to field a team that wasn't made up mostly of Michiganders and Ohioans. Reason 2) My database goes back to 1990. Reason 3: I was 10 that year, and kid memories aren't of much use. This gives us a pool of 171 players to choose from whose careers most of us are somewhat familiar with.

---------------------------------

Quarterback: Devin Gardner, Inkster

via AA News

Right off the bat this is a tough one, and a decision I'm personally going to get flak for because the other good candidate reads this blog. Drew, at your best you were the better player, and I promise to buy you a beer next time you're in Ann Arbor. However I'm sticking by the guy who should never have to buy a beer in the State of Michigan again. Also: 33 starts to your eight.

In high school Gardner played for UofD as a sophomore but was forced to sit out for off-field issues for five games. He transferred to Inkster, following coach Greg Carter from recently closed Saint Martin de Porres, and exploded, leading them to two straight state finals. While Devin was at Michigan Inkster was also closed, its students dispersed to four other school districts.

Backup: Drew Henson, Brighton
The rest of the field: Shane Morris, Steven Threet, Nick Sheridan, Alex Malzone, Craig Randall

[After THE JUMP: The greatest player in Michigan high school history]

I knooowww you belooooong to soooooomebody neeeeww.
But toniiiiiight you belooooong to me.

Is the state of Michigan driving kids away from in-state schools? This year Tom Izzo rode an easy bracket to a Final Four appearance with a down-year team, then put together a very good recruiting class, even if his top target went to Purdue. Since he really has no need to make excuses at the moment, his friends are doing it for him. Before the tournament it was "Tom Izzo doesn't cheat but everyone else does." Which is generally true—on a scale of "Look at our shiny Tommy Amaker" to "Ridin' this Calipari" MSU is definitely near the Amaker extremity of programs that regulate that stuff as best they can (nobody, including Michigan, would stand up to scrutiny, nor should).

The latest non-excuse excuse is MHSAA's arcane rule drives top 150 talent out of the state of Michigan, and thus away from the in-state schools. An article by Graham Couch—

Hey where are you going? Stop. At least see where I'm going with this. Yes the Couch article was exactly the paragon of crappy slappy journalism you'd expect from one of the worst journalists of my generation. He interviewed a couple of Detroit high school basketball coaches about the "parasitic" effect of AAU and national prep powers—as if anyone but the in-state schools would be helped if Miles Bridges was forced to live in Flint rather than a prep school down the street from Marshall University.

But that doesn't preclude a possibly real effect of talent leaving the state (and not looking back) due to overly stringent rules put in place by the body that controls high school athletics.

Couch cares because Michigan State in basketball is like an SEC football school (minus the cheating), in that their historical success is tied to proximity to talent. If the state of Michigan is systemically exporting more talent than it's bringing in, that's bad for the in-state schools. However if one program is suffering from greater national vagrancy because it's built on recruiting in-state talent and doesn't know how to compete for regional and extra-regional players, that's just that program falling behind the times.

Are more basketball players playing elsewhere in general? Is this state different somehow? I realized I didn't have a study to link to show this, so I made one.

And found M and MSU are getting less in-statey:

Bentley has a list of all Michigan basketball players except for 2008 (I added). For Michigan State I could only find a list of letterwinners, so I compared just Michigan's varsity:

A lot of wiggle: This isn't like football where there's over 100 players on each roster; if three freshmen from a prep school decide to attend the same college you'll get a big jump on the graph above.

There are two major national events responsible for two huge dips: World War II (1942-1945), and the implementation of  Title IX, which regulations were promulgated in 1974 and clarified in 1979. The "three-part test" comes from '79, and it's from then through '82 that the three-part standards, e.g. having as many girls on official athletic rosters as boys, truly went into effect.

That said, there's a historical mean of around 50% in-state for Michigan and about 60% for Michigan State—not enough difference on a squad of 16 players to make a difference. Both schools have recently gone more out-of-state, Michigan to a much greater degree.

What about the Wolverines?

[Hit the jump]