Thursday Recruitin' Welcomes Jehu Chesson
Usual request: please contact me via email or Twitter (or leave a comment) with any suggestions, tips, or links you think should show up in the next recruiting roundup. I will be taking a vacation starting, oh, just after this gets posted, and I'll be doing my best to stay away from my computer over the holidays, but if something big breaks I should be able to address it. Since it's a recruiting dead period, it's unlikely that will be the case, but you never know.
Hello: Jehu Chesson
Oh, hey, new commit! Jehu Chesson became the 24th member of the class of 2012 yesterday, and you can find much, much more on him at his commitment post. Chesson's senior highlight reel also came out yesterday, unfortunately after I did the "Hello" post, and I think you'll be impressed (though you might want to turn your sound down/off):
Check the 2:27 mark if you want to see him go into full-on beast mode. Welcome to the fold, Jehu.
Chesson's commitment probably closes out Michigan's receiver recruiting for this class, but just in case it doesn't, here's the latest on recruiting at the position. Jordan Payton has Cal on top of his list ($), which now includes Arizona State and UCLA along with Michigan and Notre Dame, and signs point to him staying out west. He will make his decision at the Army All-American Game on January 7th, and he's currently trying to figure out if Notre Dame is too far away from home ($, info in header)—I think it's safe to assume Michigan is in the same category. With a recruiting dead period for the holidays and an early January decision, I'd be very surprised if he didn't end up at Cal.
As for Monty Madaris, he's narrowed his list to Michigan, MSU, Cincinnati, and Kentucky—he plans taking an official visit to Ann Arbor the weekend of January 13th, but it's unsure if that will be affected at all by Chesson's commitment. We'll have to wait and see there.
While the immediate need at receiver looks to be filled, offensive line is still a priority for the coaching staff, and Michigan is still right in the thick of things for Josh Garnett. Garnett has narrowed his list to three schools—Michigan, Notre Dame, and Stanford—and says they are all tied at the top for him ($, info in header). It sounds like Michigan has some extra incentive to perform well in the Sugar Bowl:
All three programs are set to face off in bowl games this season. Notre Dame will face Florida State in the Champs Sports bowl on Dec. 29, Stanford faces Oklahoma State in the Fiesta bowl on Jan. 2, and of course Michigan plays in the Sugar Bowl live on ESPN against Virginia Tech at 8:30 p.m. EST on Jan. 3. Now that the hectic visits of the regular season have come to an end, Garnett will use the bowl games to further evaluate the product on the field at each school.
"After all the bowl games I'd have a little more perspective," he said. "I'm going to be able to watch them on TV now, and see how they fare against great opponents. So I can definitely watch all the schools and watch the O-line play, because I really couldn't do that during the regular season."
Garnett is also a very serious student, and he's looking towards medical school down the road, as you can read about in this column by Chantel Jennings ($).
Meanwhile, Jordan Diamond has established a top five of Ohio State, Auburn, Wisconsin, Arkansas, and Michigan ($, info in header)—he claims no leader at this time, though he had a glowing review of his recent official visit to Auburn ($, info in header). Michigan will have another chance to make an impression when Diamond takes his official visit the weekend of January 27th, making the Wolverines his last visit before he makes a decision.
Alex Kozan is still narrowing things down, but says he is approaching a decision, though he doesn't have a specific timetable ($). While Michigan appears to have a decent shot at landing one of the three aforementioned O-line recruits, they're also still contacting other prospects, including four-star Las Vegas Desert Pines OL Jeremiah Poutasi, whom the coaches stopped by and talked to last week ($). He says he'd consider a visit, so we'll see if things pick up on that front soon. Michigan is also still in the running for a visit from current Wisconsin commit Kyle Dodson, who's also looking at Ohio State, Auburn, USC, and MSU ($).
Sam Webb discussed the recruitment of cornerback Armani Reeves in last week's DetNews feature, and the four-star Penn State commit gave him an update on where things stand:
"I just want to see what Penn State's going to do as far as bringing in a new coach and what his plans are and what he's going to do before I set anything official up," Reeves said. "(Penn State) has expressed that they're going to hire a coach towards Christmas. That's the dead period, so it gives me a lot of time to think about everything — where they're heading and what direction they're going. "If they hire a coach before Christmas, that really gives me a good indication if I need to take the visits or if I'm going to stay committed.
"If I do take any visits, it'll definitely be Michigan and Notre Dame, those will probably be the only two schools."
We'll have to wait to see what happens with Reeves, but there's also top-ranked corner Yuri Wright, who will be taking his official to Michigan on January 13th after placing them as co-leaders along with Colorado. I expect the Wolverines to be able to land at least one of those two prospects—they're in strong position for both, and if Reeves decommits from PSU it looks like Michigan would be in the driver's seat there.
Quickly: Tight end Sam Grant—a current Boston College commit and HS teammate of Kyle Kalis—is looking to end his recruitment as soon as possible ($, info in header)—he's taken official to Michigan, Arkansas, and BC, and just landed an Oklahoma offer; Michigan is showing interest in four-star ATH David Perkins as a running back, but they still have to make a push to get him to schedule an official visit—he's got all five planned, but late January visits to LSU and Tennessee are tentative at this point ($); Bri'onte Dunn will, in fact, enroll early at Ohio State ($, info in header), so if you haven't taken the many signs that his recruitment is over to heart, well, it's over. Best of luck to Bri'onte.
Michigan Commits Make All-America Lists
SI and ESPN both released their high school All-American teams this week, and several Michigan commits and targets earned mentions. Condensed into handy bullet form:
- Kyle Kalis made the first team on SI; he's also a finalist for the Anthony Munoz Offensive Lineman of the Year award, which will be handed out during the Army Bowl dinner on January 6th.
- Devin Funchess is the second-team tight end for SI, while his teammate Mario Ojemudia earns honorable mention on the D-line.
- Chris Wormley and Royce Jenkins-Stone also earn honorable mention by SI.
- Speaking of RJS, he's a first-team linebacker to ESPN after recording 145 tackles and five sacks this season.
- Terry Richardson earns ESPN second-team AA honors at corner, incidentally alongside Yuri Wright.
Congratulations to all of the commits above.
Chantel Jennings caught up with linebacker commit Joe Bolden to talk about enrolling early ($, info in header):
For his final winter break, Bolden is focused on spending time with friends and family, what he calls "the important stuff." But he's still remembering the long-term goal while he's packing for college and getting ready to move in, and that outweighs the negatives of leaving high school early.
"It's weird thinking that I may not have a winter break again," Bolden said. "But if we're playing in bowl games and hopefully national championship games, then I have no problem with it at all."
Bolden is quickly compiling a lengthy dossier of awesome quotes; file the last bit under that category.
After many commits took recent official visits, there's a slew of paywalled articles out there documenting their excitement to get to Ann Arbor. Kyle Kalis tells 247Sports his favorite NFL player is none other than Steve Hutchinson. Sam Webb interviewed Tom Strobel, who told his coaches to let Urban Meyer know "to not even bother. I've made my choice," which is all kinds of fantastic. Erik Magnuson, whose first offer was from San Diego State back when Hoke was their coach, tells Chantel Jennings he's "always wanted to play for Coach Hoke."
2013 Stuff
I wish I could just blockquote the entire article, but just go now and read Sam Webb's latest on 2013 Peoria (IL) Manual OL Logan Tuley-Tillman, who shows maturity well beyond his years as he works to give himself and his family a better future:
"Coming up in this city I had a lot of friends that were on the right track and had opportunities like me, but got killed or wound up in jail," said Tuley-Tillman. "For me, (failure) is not an option. Not working hard is just not an option. I will do whatever it takes to send myself to the next level. Every time I'm at home and I see my niece, I just look in her eyes and I just know that she depends on me to do something for her — (something) to better (our) future. I want success as bad as I want to breathe. It's not something that won't happen for me. It's something that will happen because I'm doing all the things in order to get there."
He's not kidding around when it comes to doing whatever it takes—Logan talks about scraping together the money for a train ticket so he can go work out in Chicago at Core6 Athletes on the weekends and spending extra time after school with a tutor to make sure he's prepared for college academically. There's recruiting news in there too—Michigan is still on top for Tuley-Tillman, despite a recent push from Notre Dame, and he's thinking of making a decision on March 20th, his 17th birthday—but I can't recommend enough reading the whole article to get a sense for the type of quality young man Michigan is recruiting.
Last weekend the Pontiac Silverdome hosted the Maximum Exposure camp, and a couple of recognizable names stood out. Shane Morris ran a 4.7 hand-timed 40 and was reportedly outstanding throwing the football, but the big standout was Berkley Edwards—younger brother of Braylon and currently a Chelsea Bulldog—who ran a camp-best 4.35 40-yard dash ($). If Michigan is interested in Edwards—likely as a receiver—he'll be listening. Both Morris and Edwards also were standouts at the Sound Mind Sound Body combine, and there's a free 247 article detailing their exploits.
Quickly: Tim has a rundown on many of the recent offerees over at the Free Press; Michigan offered top safety prospect Su'a Cravens ($, info in header), Ashburn (VA) Stone Bridge DE Jonathan Allen ($), and Yuri Wright's Don Bosco teammate, DE Alquadin Muhammad ($, info in header).
Hope you all have a wonderful holiday season, and I'll be back to run down film on Virginia Tech before the new year. Thanks for all your support as I continue to settle in to the new job. It's been an incredible four months, and I have a great appreciation for the job, my co-workers, and the readers—I'm having a blast, and I hope you all enjoy my contributions to this great site.
December 22nd, 2011 at 2:59 PM ^
Would the coaches take 2 more OL if Kozan commits and Garnett/Diamond were the "any position best available" for the last spot late in the game?
To me it sounds more and more like Wright (or maybe Reeves), Grant, Kozan, Garnett.
December 22nd, 2011 at 3:08 PM ^
At this point, I'm not sure it's clear what that coaches are going to do with that fourth spot (besides probably taking the best player available), but I think it's more likely both Wright and Reeves end up in the class than Garnett and Kozan.
December 22nd, 2011 at 3:16 PM ^
Thanks for the reply. And I agree with below, happy holidays and keep up the great work Ace!
December 22nd, 2011 at 6:47 PM ^
I don't think the coaches will take two more linemen. As important as it is to get a good number of linemen on campus, it's also important to spread the scholarships over several classes. If you put 7 linemen in this class, it's going to be a huge senior class of outgoing linemen in 2016. Of course, it's almost a certainty that a couple of them will transfer, get injured, or quit football by then, but you'd still have probably 4 or 5 senior linemen and have to replace a huge chunk in 2016/2017 recruiting classes.
Anyway, I know that's getting a long way down the road, but if the coaches take 5 or 6 this year and then take another 4 or 5 next year, that should put them on solid footing to take 3-4 per year from that point onward.
December 22nd, 2011 at 3:05 PM ^
Your efforts are appreciated. Keep up the good work.
December 22nd, 2011 at 3:11 PM ^
I think you meant to say "You may want to turn the music UP DOWN UP DOWN UP DOWN".
December 22nd, 2011 at 3:17 PM ^
Didn't you get those Chesson highlights from mspeedkills' twitter feed?
December 22nd, 2011 at 3:19 PM ^
Someone mentioned them on the board, and I did a YouTube search. No idea if they came from mspeedkills or not—I don't follow him on twitter.
December 22nd, 2011 at 3:18 PM ^
But do Wright or Reeves have potential at playing both sides of the ball?
December 22nd, 2011 at 3:23 PM ^
I can't really answer that definitively—all these guys are great athletes—but both appear destined for corner. Wright is 6'2" (Reeves is only 5'9"), so he could conceivably be a receiver, but he's one of the best in the country at corner and I'd be surprised if he ended up elsewhere.
December 22nd, 2011 at 4:47 PM ^
Very early on in the process, I remember some analysts talking about Reeves being able to play receiver.
December 22nd, 2011 at 3:32 PM ^
Do you know why Michigan doesn't seem to be pursuing Rushel Shell in the wake of Dunn reaffirming his commitment to Ohio? He seems to be a premier back who can carry a load like the coaches are looking for.
December 22nd, 2011 at 3:44 PM ^
He seems like a pretty firm Pitt commit. The most recent Rivals article on him ended with him saying ($): "Hail to Pitt," he said. "I'm not going anywhere."
That was a couple weeks ago, before Graham bolted, but I don't see anything to suggest he's looking around. I think the coaches were either going for landing a premier back or addressing other positions—if they don't get Perkins, I think they're done at that position.
I'm off to spend some time with my family, so I trust that the board can handle answering any other questions. Happy holidays, everyone.
December 22nd, 2011 at 4:06 PM ^
Thanks!!
December 22nd, 2011 at 4:48 PM ^
Even after Graham bolted, he said he was a solid commitment to Pitt.
December 22nd, 2011 at 3:36 PM ^
December 22nd, 2011 at 3:53 PM ^
That part was a little strange to me in regards to ND. Do you really need to see the bowl game to evaluate them? They were so erratic this year, much like their coach.
December 22nd, 2011 at 3:50 PM ^
outstanding get for the Wolverines! I loved seeing those catches over the middle ... not afraid of going to the middle. Good size and speed. Should become good friends with Shane.
Go Blue!
December 22nd, 2011 at 4:41 PM ^
For those non-twitter types, Logan just sent out the following picture via twitter:
http://twitter.com/#!/LoganTillman/status/149960726457483264/photo/1/large
To say that the coaches want him would seem to be an understatement. And considering his picture is him and Jake Long at the OSU game and he just told Shane Morris "I got your blindside" I would say that the feelings are mutual.
December 22nd, 2011 at 4:44 PM ^
Just saw that too...I wouldn't mind hearing him verbal right about now.
December 22nd, 2011 at 4:55 PM ^
Damn that is a good amount of mail we are sending him. I'm glad we were offered him early. Hoke and Funk have an eye for the big uglies.
December 22nd, 2011 at 6:04 PM ^
i also see on his twitter page. he tweeted shane morris. "i got your blind side."
December 22nd, 2011 at 6:37 PM ^
December 22nd, 2011 at 10:55 PM ^
I love reading about kids like Tuley-Tillman. He is the kind of person I want my young kids to read about to understand what it takes to overcome obstacles and succeed. If he sticks to his plan, he will be successful in life no matter what. I'd hire a person like him any day.
December 23rd, 2011 at 12:27 AM ^
Me thinks you've "Aced" it!
Tremendous job! Happy Holidays to you as well!
December 23rd, 2011 at 11:25 AM ^
"Reeves said. "(Penn State) has expressed that they're going to hire a coach towards Christmas."
Unless they mean Christmas 2012, they are just saying whatever they can in order to keep commits in the fold. There is no solid rumors coming out of un-Happy Valley right now...nothing. There was a bit of talk a week or two ago about some B-list coaches such as Tim Murphy (Harvard) and the like.
It's a given now that no A-List coach would want the job anymore. The program is going to be gutted to get it back into "perspective" since the perception is that it became bigger than the university under the previous coach.
If Michigan wants this kid, they can get him...especially when the dead period ends and PSU still doesn't have a coach or makes their "Amaker" hire.
December 24th, 2011 at 4:38 PM ^
I'm not sure what wolverine you would compare him to, but first person I thought of was Desean Jackson. A bit taller, but fast skinny kids can be productive...
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