In our slack chat I was making a point about how P.J. Fleck's hard pursuit of Andrel Anthony is a good sign for Andrel's prospects, and we got on to some of the meme-ish "always offer [position] if [school] is after him" recruiting rules.

The Rules: The internet has no lack of "Position U" articles. They come in three varieties: too focused on a point in the past when only a few teams threw the ball (hi Purdue), too focused on NFL careers (hi Miami), or too focused on the present because the author's real intention is Oklahoma should get an extra trophy for two recent Heisman winners they ganked from Big 12 rivals. Getting consistent stardom out of five-stars (USC) and five-star transfers is harder than it sounds, but that's soft content for sites that go for peak clicks-per-neuron ratios.

The point of this exercise is to identify serial scouting over-performance, ie schools that get more out of less at a position with such frequency that an offer from that school reflects positively on a guy Michigan recruited. Also things will be biased to the Midwest, because that's what I'm most familiar with. This is MGoBlog, where we use copious amounts of research to bring you the real, sometimes counterintuitive answers.

Like for example this one that was stupendously simple:

Oregon Quarterbacks

via NBC's twitter

Pro-Style Era: Bill Musgrave, Danny O'Neil, Tony Graziani, Akili Smith, Joey Harrington, Jason Fife, Kellen Clemons
Spread Era: Dennis Dixon, Jeremiah Masoli, Darron Thomas, Marcus Mariota, Justin Herbert

There is ONE. One damn year since Mike Bellotti came onboard has Oregon had less than awesome quarterback play, that in 2015 with a D-II transfer sandwiched between three years of Mariota and four of Herbert. Almost none of these guys were major recruits. Herbert was #659 in his class, barely higher than the highest Michigan State commit. Mariota was #491 and the #3 player in Hawaii. Darron Thomas was the relative blue-chip at #280, the #5 Dual-Threat to the composite. Masoli was an unheralded JuCo transfer. You have to go back to Dennis Dixon, the #2 dual-threat in the 2003 class (#53 overall) to find a guy who cracked a top-250. And that followed an insane streak by Bellotti going back to the late 1980s.  Onetime expected-to-be-a-Michigan-commit Tyler Shough is expected to be the next guy.

They have had their whiffs but a lot of their transfers were good elsewhere—Johnny Durocher at Washington, Braxton Burmeister [edit] transferred to VT behind a solid starter. Bryan Bennett went to SE Louisiana but made an NFL roster. Jake Rodrigues, the half-decent SDSU guy we faced, was an Oregon transfer too.

2nd Team: Jim Harbaugh Quarterbacks

It's had its moments. [Bryan Fuller]

I really tried not to do the homer thing, but after spending half a night trying to find any other answer, the guy who was the subject of a two-parter on under-the-radar QB recruiting by me in 2015 is the guy. Harbaugh really had quite a streak going before Michigan, and that's not even counting guys like RGIII, Taysom Hill, Brock Osweiller, Tanner Price and Connor Shaw who decommitted from Stanford when he couldn't get them in for some reason or another.

As for those he did get, start with two USD pros, Todd Mortensen and Josh Johnson. At Stanford he recruited Andrew Luck and successors Josh Nunes and Kevin Hogan. He drafted Colin Kaepernick. At Michigan however he's so far mostly played transfers. Grad transfer Jake Rudock worked out great, after about half a season. John O'Korn did not work out, and Shea Patterson was a mixed success. Two attempts at inserting home grown redshirt freshmen in hopes they'd take four years to dislodge were ended almost immediately by a pair of Wisconsin headshots, one to Brandon Peters in 2017 and the other issued to Dylan McCaffery in 2019, so those are mostly incomplete. Peters got recruited over by Patterson, bailed, and was a decent starter for Illinois last year. McCaffrey would be a redshirt sophomore this year.

HONORABLE MENTION

Michigan State under Dantonio. Brad Salem(?) had a string of good ones from Kirk Cousins to Connor Cook, to early career Brian Lewerke, with less-than-serviceable Andrew Maxwell and Tyler O'Connor thrown in between. NC State has more quarterbacks in the NFL today than any two schools, but they're mostly transfers and from other regimes.

[Hit THE JUMP for shorter writeups because getting bored of Wisconsin takes less time than blaming them for Harbaugh failing to live up to his quarterback whisperer prophesy]

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Rutgers Running Back Commits

The question is where do they keep finding these guys and the answer is 247sports.com/college/Rutgers/commits/?PositionGroup=BACK [Patric Barron]

Despite being putrid or worse at everything else, Rutgers has had some RBs. Look at this list: Robert Martin, Josh Hicks, Saquon Barkley (PSU), Jonathan Taylor (UW), Jonathan Hilliman (BC), Raheem Blackshear, Isaih Pacheco, Stevie Scott (IU), John Lovett (Baylor), Kay'Ron Adams.

They don't have to play for Rutgers (that would be foolish) but someone in Piscataway has been identifying running back talent and getting pledges for quite some time now. If they stick they've been awesome buggers or deceptively athletic inside runners who defy their team's ability to block or do anything else, usually.

When they decommit they become even more powerful. In case some of the names don't ring a bell (which means you haven't been reading the Fee Fi Foe Films on Rutgers that we put a ton of time into every year) the collegiate yards per carry/yards from scrimmage/TDs of the above are 5.1/2409/18, 5.3/1440/8, 5.7/5038/51, 6.7/6581/55, 3.7/2862,/34, 4.3/1722/12 (one year left), 4.6/1374/10 (two years left), 4.9/2279/22 (two years left), 5.4/1807/16 (one year left), and 3.4/208/1 (three years left). Michigan offered Kay'Ron late and has a slow burn on their current commit as well. It is always a good idea.

2nd Team: Indiana Moosebacks and Maryland Scatbacks

All the same [Paul Sherman]

The aforementioned Stevie Scott is only the latest of a long line of good Indiana running backs who've annoyed us since the moment Ryan Van Bergen didn't set an edge and freshman Jordan Kovacs was outrun by one. Before Scott was Morgan Ellison, who was kicked off the team for off-field issues after an impressive freshman season on it. Devine Redding was just so-so in 2016, but that was also the year they lined up 6'0"/270 "quarterback" Tyler Natee at RB, which was delightful. And before those guys: Jordan Howard, the UAB transfer who lit up the Big Ten for 6.19 YPC (Redding got 4.48 as his backup), who was preceded by Tevin Coleman, who supplanted Stephen Houston, who took the job when Kovacs's great enemy Darius Willis began to break down.

If scampering is more your style, try Maryland's classes, which have featured Anthony McFarland Jr., Javon Leake, Tayon Fleet-Davis, Lorenzo Harrison, and Ty Johnson in quick succession. Most of them were the work of DBs coach Aazaar Abdul-Rahim, who's from the D.C. area originally, came up through Alabama, and is now at Boston College after a year as UMass DC.

HONORABLE MENTION:

Michigan State seems to find some good ones. Iowa did well for years by emphasizing vision over speed, like Akrum Wadley, and former Iowa commit Karan Higdon.

DISQUALIFIED

Yeah, Wisconsin does okay. In fact in addition to the guys they pulled in they were first or second at the table for JK Dobbins, Anthony McFarland Jr., Trey Sermon, Devyn Ford, Zach Charbonnet, CJ Verdell, Bryce Love, Dexter Williams, Jordan Stevenson…all guys who rose to top-250 four-stars or higher over the process. But this isn't about who can reel in four-stars most of the country wants. Corey Clement was great; he was a top-150 player too. Melvin Gordon was a top-100 guy who fell to just outside the 250. You have to go back to James White in 2010 to find a 3-star they hit on. In soviet running back recruiting, Wisconsin follows you.

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PJ Fleck Wide Receiver

There! Throw it there! [Barron]

This is another position where you see the high school talent translate to the NFL; despite some of the worst WR coaching of the era, Ohio State has more receivers in the NFL now than any other school because they got the most five-star receivers to go there; Georgia, Alabama, Clemson and USC are the only other schools with more than seven.

But finding very good college receivers who may not have the NFL package is a tougher skill and surprise surprise, the Gophers took off last year behind the best two receivers in the conference, Ty Johnson and Rashod Bateman (who moved into 4-star territory late). He also was pushing hard for some of the slots I'll mention in a different section. Fleck was in on Ja'Marr Chase before he blew up into a top-100 guy who flipped to LSU. Fleck was also with us in the battles for Jeremiah Holloman and Oliver Martin before they rose, battled Penn State for KJ Hamler, and came down to the hat dance for MSU's Cody White, and Notre Dame's Jafar Armstrong and Michael Young. At WMU he recruited Tyron Arnett out of Pahokee, now-MSU receiver Jayden "Bird" Reed, very old Purdue-like chain-mover D'Wayne Eskridge, and of course Corey Davis.

2nd Team: Cal Receivers

Pulled this from an article of Sonny Dykes begging Hansen not to become the Patriot he was meant to be.

It still kills me that Michigan went after LaTerryal Savoy instead of DeSean Jackson, who ended up a top-25 player in his class, which was 2005, so he doesn't really qualify. But Cal is better known for the Northwestern types who end up on the Patriots, like Maurice Harris out of North Carolina, Chad Hansen out of nowhere, and spiritual Patriot Vic Wharton III. They also had Lions marvel Marvin Jones Jr., got Jordan Veasy out of a JuCo, and I guess include 5-star Keenan Allen and they're the only non big-baggin' school to have even seven pro receivers today. And that's not counting the productive college guys Jared Goff and Davis Webb always seemed to have at their disposal.

HONORABLE MENTION

June Jones. June hasn't been coaching college since 2014 but he's the all-timer at this. His SMU recruits Cole Beasley, James Proche (committed to Jones but didn't get to play for him), Trey Quinn, Emmanual Sanders, and Courtland Sutton are all still in the NFL. At Hawaii he found Ashley Leslie, insanely productive Jason Rivers, Biletnikoff finalist Greg Salas, All-American punter/receiver Scott Harding, also All-American Ryan Grice-Mullen, slot bug/returner Mike Edwards, punt return TD record-holder Chad Owens, and Colt Brennan's favorite target Davone Bess.

Jeff Brohm. Rondale Moore was 229th on the composite, but like: Rondale Moore! Brohm also recruited Taywan Taylor at WKU, and Lucky Jackson before he left.

Northwestern slot receivers. We had a Dileo, but the Wildcats have survived on Dilea for most of this century. Despite appearances, Riley Lees, Flynn Nagel, Bennett Skowronek, Austin Carr, Cameron Dickerson, Christian Jones, Jeremy Ebert and Andrew Brewer are not the alumni board of a particularly arrogant fraternity. They are a line of annoyingly crafty, annoyingly open slant and z-route merchants for various iterations of Clayton Thorson to throw to when Northwestern's constantly undersized guards are overwhelmed. Carr and Ebert were boss; the rest are dudes you might be able to scrounge up from your walk-on program. And probably should.

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Tight End: Iowa

Something's missing. [Barron]

Duh. One of the surest things after Wisconsin linemen in this world are Iowa tight ends. Even after a mass exodus of them they came up with freshman Sam LaPorta last year. That follows frickin T.J. Hockenson, Noah Fant, George Kittle, Henry Krieger-Coble, Jake Duzey, CJ Fiedorowicz, Allen Reisner, Tony Moeaki…see any blue chips in there?

And it's not like they're creating a certain kind. Fant and Hock are 80% receivers while Kittle is known for being a sixth offensive lineman in addition to a complete receiving target. And they were all on the same roster together. Sick.

2nd Team: Freaks from the East

Cape Cod curls like this, and then Plymouth comes up like this—we call it Cranberry—and then Boston is here where my elbow bends and . [Fuller]

There's one every year. In 2018 Wisconsin found a guy named Cam Large in Massachusetts. Duke seems to take a Massachusetts QB and make him a TE every year.  It started in 2010 when FSU recruited Will Tye out of Connecticut. People first started taking notice when everybody got a commitment from Chris Clark. Michigan's Sean McKeon and PSU's Danny Dalton were #2 and #1 in Massachusetts in 2016 but Dalton didn't crack the top-500 and McKeon was barely in the top-900. Luke Schoonmaker barely missed a fan-vote invite to the All-American bowl, assuring the Connecticutman would barely crest the top-800 in 2018. Also Northwestern SDE extraordinaire Joe Gaziano was a TE recruit out of Massachusetts, and Miami (YTM) got a 6'6" guy named Andrew Tallman out of Boston. If you want to count New Yorker Rob Gronkowski I'm for it.  The recruiting sites have finally caught on. "Baby Gronk" Pat Freiermuth broke the 4-star seal in 2018, and Michigan commit Louis Hansen is just outside the composite top-250 and Rivals has him in their 150.

HONORABLE MENTION

Stanford during the height of Harbaugh was full of them, and many escaped downfield and to the NFL. That has continued under Shaw. The list since Harbaugh: Coby Fleener, Levine Toilolo, Zach Ertz, Austin Hooper, Dalton Schultz, Kaden Smith, and most recently 2020 draftee Colby Parkinson. They are all Coby Fleener, the composite #914 player who came in 6'6"/215, is now 6'6"/260 and trying to hang on in the NFL, and is recognized by every coach because the zany TE sets Harbaugh used to play with were all the rage in the 2010s.

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Greg Frey Tackles

Direct from central casting [Eric Upchurch]

With apologies to the Wisconsin Hoss Factory, "Frey-type" has passed beyond the Michigan lexicon because so many other schools have now experienced it. Rich Rodriguez plucked him from 11 years at USF, which became known for light stretch zone offensive lines that pre-spread teams didn't know how to handle. A WVU he built Ryan Stancheck and Greg Isdaner.

We learned about it when he brought it two light, former-TE, super-athletic tackles for Rich Rod named Taylor Lewan and Michael Schofield, who turned out to be the best two Michigan tackles since Jake Long and best tandem since Williams and Backus. Patrick Omameh can go on that list too if you want an interior version of the archetype, and future Oregon star Jake Fisher was in the class until Rodriguez was fired. In Frey's second, even shorter stay in Ann Arbor he brought in Jaylen Mayfield and Ryan Hayes, who are slated to bookend the team this year, with Mayfield already getting first round hype after his freshman outing.

During his Michigan interregnum the The King developed former TEs into All-Americans Dan Feeney and Jason Spriggs at Indiana. It's too early to tell but it's a good bet FSU will have one or two really good ones they're currently hanging meat on from 2018. Also you don't have to actually have Greg Frey to feel his effects. After seeing Long and Schofield, MSU specifically began targeting athletic TE types, snagging future 1st rounder Jack Conklin because Frey had interest when he left, and then putting out a spectacularly bad and injury prone generation of too-light dudes because they didn't have Frey to identify which are capable of growing. Inadvertently ruining Michigan State puts him over the top.

2nd Team: Biglargehuge Wisconsin Blocks of Cheese

The secret wasn't beer or cheese, but beercheese. [Barron]

We'll do their guards soon but the beef factory can just as easily kick the taller ones outside. Since 1997 Wisconsin hasn't gone four years without putting a tackle in the draft. The list, with 247 composite national rank where available: Jerry Wunsch, Aaron Gibson, Mark Tauscher, Chris McIntosh, Ben Johnson, Joe Thomas(88th), Gabe Carimi (316th), Ricky Wagner (NR), Rob Havenstein (649th), Tyler Marz (2,080) and Ryan Ramczyk (NR), with Cole Van Lanen (137th) the next in line and a few blue chips apparently ready to keep the streak alive. The thing you'll note, with the exceptions of all-everything Thomas and D-III transfer Ramczyk, is that those guys are all guard-like tackles.

One of the reasons they're not first team is they're hitting this target with a scattergun. Their 2007 and 2008 classes had 14 recruits alone.

HONORABLE MENTION:

Florida State gets to claim transfer Ryan Roberts (2614th) from Pinckney, MI, because he grad transferred there after blowing up at NIU. But Rick Leonard (347th), Derrick Kelly (576th), Roderick Johnson (123rd), Bobby Hart (162nd), and Cam Erving (851st) were all home-grown at Greg Frey's alma mater.

And Iowa's been Diet Wisconsin as long as Kirk Ferentz has been around. Recent examples include Bryan Baluga (64th), Andrew Donnal (259th), Matt Nelson (583rd), Riley Reiff (579th), and Tristan Wirfs (331st), and Alaric "I'm obligated to remind you Drevno didn't send him a LOI after Michigan flipped him on Signing Day" Jackson (631st).

Wisconsin Guards

The Wisconsin Badgers on the cover of Sports Illustrated?

Big if true...

It’s true. It’s big (literally). #OnWisconsin pic.twitter.com/y5ed24IOUx

— Wisconsin Football (@BadgerFootball) August 7, 2018

It's Wisconsin, next.

HONORABLE MENTION:

Notre Dame.

C—

Wait wait: B-E-A-U space B-E-N-Z-S-C-H-A-W-E-L.

…

Okay we can move on.

Harvard Linemen to Play Center

Not kidding! Between Nick Easton (not ranked), Anthony Fabiano (1950), Adam Redmond (not ranked), and Cole Toner (not ranked), the Crimson have as many centers in the NFL right now as Michigan, and unlike us they didn't have to move two tackles (Mason Cole and Erik Magnuson) and a guard (Graham Glasgow) over to claim it. And they're going to have a 5th soon, as all-Ivy League swingman Liam Shanahan, who transferred to LSU this offseason and was expected to win the middle job.

Harvard is also, by the way , the leading producer of pro fullbacks these days, and an outsized supplier of long-snappers.

In case you haven't caught on by now, center in football is an extremely cerebral position. You think of the guys to star there for Michigan—Cesar Ruiz, David Molk, Graham Glasgow, David Brandt—these were exceptionally intelligent people who also could play offensive line.

2nd Team: Iowa Centers

The most Ferentz of positions. Played by Brian Ferentz, who now coaches it. Current occupant Tyler Linderbaum could be a 1st rounder, says Pro Football Network. Sean Welsh was a constant 2nd Team All-Big Ten type. Austin Blythe was always good. James Daniels was probably the best of them, and the smartest.

HONORABLE MENTION

Clemson. While they're one of those teams that puts their chips in for the blue ones, Clemson's secret is they know how to find and develop some positions that schools like Alabama and Georgia are still trying to paper over with more bag. We mentioned that center was one of those positions when they were the other school with Michigan going after middling 3-star Zach Carpenter like he was one of those blue chips. Justin Falcinelli (535th on the composite), their most recent center, is a two-time academic All-American who wasn't drafted because of an ill-timed injury. Jay Guillermo (476th) was a similar story. Ryan Norton (664th) held it down for 3 years before him, and so on and so forth. These guys don't get drafted but they're all smart, quick-thinking, pretty agile, and can hold up on the first level every time; as college centers they're primo.

SCREW THOSE GUYS MENTION

Offensive line is hard to predict, and center harder, but Ohio State has had nothing but blue chips (Josh Myers, Billy Price, Michael "Not That" Jordan) for so long it's easy to forget they had Pat Elflein and Jacoby Boren before that. Also I only recently learned the Borens are Jewish, which is something I'm still processing.