taylor groves

Michigan is after a number of high-ranking safety prospects for 2022, including longshot elites Bryce Anderson, Domani Jackson, and Chace Biddle, has a good shot to land S/CB Jaeden Gould and Sherrod Covil, and leads for a couple of in-state 4-star athletes in Dillon Tatum, who’s expected to commit soon, and Jaden Mangham, who would be the first Michigan scholarship player from my alma mater of Wylie E. Groves High.

In the meantime they lost a pledge from ATH Taylor Groves, one of the pair of Tennesseans Mo Linguist recruited shortly after his hire. Groves, a four-star Brad Hawkins-like safety prospect who might have also grown into a receiver, announced on Twitter that he’ll be reopening his recruitment.

First I would like to thank @UMichFootball and @CoachMo15 for the opportunity, with that being said, I will be 100% opening my recruitment back up!!

— taylor groves (@iamtaylorgroves) March 30, 2021

Both Groves and the fellow Tennessean he committed with, Kody Jones, have yet to visit Michigan. Jones is planning on taking his official soon and has been working on super 5-star DT Walter Nolen, who grew up with Jones in Memphis. Groves, who’s from Cross Plains, an exurb of Nashville close to the Kentucky border, doesn’t seem particularly connected to Jones beyond their close commitments, so this is not expected to affect Michigan’s efforts in the Volunteer state. Linguist is also after fast-rising Brentwood (Junior Colson) CB Myles Pollard, who recently took a self-guided tour.

Don’t get me wrong—it’s a bummer, particularly because Groves has been moving up the 24/7 rankings—he was up 19 spots and closing in on top-150 overall in a re-rank after his commitment to Michigan. However if the Wolverines were going to suffer any attrition to their 2022 class, at least it’s at a spot where they seem to have more good options than available scholarships.

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We’re past Signing Day for 2021, so it’s time to go through the 2022 board. Since CORNERBACKKKKAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH we’ll start with defense.

Operation Coverage

In case the one-off exploits of Ricky White didn’t make it abundantly clear, Michigan needs defensive backs, particularly corners. Mo Linguist was brought in to fix cornerback recruiting, and has already been instrumental in securing commitments from two Tennessee athletes, Brad Hawkin-ish safety Taylor Groves (Hello!), and Jourdan Lewis-ian CB/nickel Kody Jones (Hello!).

Touch the Banner got his scout in too late for the latter so here's his take on Jones:

To me he looks like a nickel corner in the mold of former Michigan cornerback Blake Countess (who played well at Michigan before transferring and playing safety at Auburn and then in the NFL). He’s compact and packs a punch, with very good change-of-direction skills and good top-end speed.

On the negative side, Jones is perhaps a little lacking in ball skills. He’s great with the ball in his hands, but his hand-eye coordination is sometimes a little lacking. He also needs to improve his tracking of the ball in the air. 

Magnus admits a lot of guys look like Blake Countess when they're 15 years old and playing low-level competition. Rivals’s EJ Holland knows Groves’s mentor from the Junior Colson recruitment, and got some exciting (and FAKE) scouting($):

"He's as elite as it gets as far as a safety prospect. He has everything you're looking for. He's 6-foot-3, 190 pounds and runs a low 4.4. He has amazing ball skills because he's a damn good wide receiver. He's physical. He's smart. He's the type of guy and DNA to be a very high draft pick one day if he stays healthy and everything goes well. His ceiling is wide open. He can literally play anywhere in America, but he's raw because he's been a wide receiver. His upside is unlimited. He checks the boxes as an elite defensive back."

Woooo!

Michigan’s #1 target all last cycle was in-state RB Donovan Edwards, who did, to our horror, lead West Bloomfield to a state title and become a 5-star (the new MGoBlog tagline is a reference to our own uncertainty if the 5-star curse is a joke or real). For 2022 that guy is Grosse Pointe South’s Will Johnson, son of Moeller-era safety Deon. As with Edwards, there was a concern at one point that Ohio State was going to yoink this guy then murder our loved ones and make us eat them in front of Radiohead. According to Sam Webb on their recent Michigan Insider podcast, everybody can breathe a tiny sigh of relief about the Johnson part:

“I think Michigan has taken a lead... maybe a slight one... but a lead. […] Was it the cornerback coaching change? He actually told me that was not the issue. He said that, frankly, it helps Michigan in his eyes. […] But when things just seemed to get worse, and they just couldn't find any rudder after that... when all the uncertainty about the coaching staff hit, and just really feeling like this wasn't going to improve. That's when his eyes really started opening to other possibilities that he did legitimately like. Like Ohio State.”

It’s a long way to go, but this is very good news. Keep sharing stories about how Coombs-coached kids show up in the league with no skills, everybody. Also call your mother.

If anybody’s happier about the Linguist hire than President for Life of the Michigan Fans Panicking About Cornerback Depth Club Seth Fisher, it’s Rivals’s EJ Holland, who comes from Linguist’s stomping grounds and has many of the same relationships in the 7v7 world:

If you are a top defensive back in Texas, chances are you train with Christian White aka Coach Flight. White worked with Michigan defensive backs Gemon Green and German Green as well as the aforementioned Jones, Richardson and Brian Williams, yet another big 2019 signee for Linguist and A&M.

It’s a free article and a good way to familiarize yourself with a scene that could be key to a key recruiting role. Jones is the first commit from that world—his Texas-based 7v7 coach runs a satellite in Memphis—the first Texan who could follow Linguist is 4* S Chace Biddle, who sounds like a Daxton-ian:

He’s going to hate me when I say, but I think he can play corner at the next level. If you’re talking about guys that go to the league, they’re big and long like he is. He’s a finesse player. He’s fast and athletic. He’s a cover guy more so than a physical guy. Anything you want him to do in coverage, Chace Biddle can do.”

[After THE JUMP: Hey attorneys, can we sue Stanford?]

Maurice Linguist: popular in Tennessee. The first of two four-star Tennessee DBs to drop today was Taylor Groves. Let's play the feud!

GURU RANKINGS

ESPN has not evaluated Groves yet; the two sites that have are looking at a relatively big divide. 24/7 thinks he's a safety inside the top 200; Rivals has him a fringe four-star WR.

[After THE JUMP: scouting, video, and no otters]