Thursday Recruitin' Something Something Visit Policy Michigan Man
Crap, This Again
Lookin' around...
Just when Michigan had finally received some good recruiting news, 247's Tom Loy dropped a big ol' WELP this morning ($):
I've confirmed with a source in [Michigan commit Shaun] Crawford's camp, who gave the green light to report this information at this time, that Shaun, accompanied by his father, brother and a close friend, will take an unofficial visit to Notre Dame on Sunday. They will arrive early in the morning, stay for most of the day, and then head home Sunday evening.
Crawford has not decommitted from Michigan and he's informed the staff that he will visit South Bend this weekend.
This isn't the first time Crawford's considered a post-commitment visit to South Bend, and this time it's more than just a rumor. He had very serious interest in the Irish early in his recruitment but didn't have an offer from them when he pledged to Michigan; when Notre Dame replaced departed DC Bob Diaco with Brian Vangorder, Crawford picked up that offer.
Notre Dame isn't the only school Crawford is planning to visit, either, as 247's Bob Kurelic confirmed he'll also check out Ohio State on May 31st ($).
Crawford maintains he's committed to Michigan, and it's important to note that he informed the coaches ahead of time about his intentions to take visits—not doing so was a major issue for this staff in the cases of Pharaoh Brown and David Dawson. The infamous "Policy" is going to get a lot of play as Crawford takes these visits, so let's clear up what this really means:
And as we've all reported/wrote a million times: Hoke's "policy" says if you visit elsewhere, they'll start recruiting your spot again
— Nick Baumgardner (@nickbaumgardner) May 15, 2014
There's a huge difference between "recruiting your spot again" and completely breaking off a commitment. Michigan is likely to look around at other cornerbacks, though they could decide not to—it's not a huge position of need in the class and they've also got top-100 corner Garrett Taylor in the fold. If Crawford decides he still wants to be at Michigan after looking around, it's highly unlikely that door is closed; remember how Dawson's recruitment played out, and he was far less up front with the coaches about his visit intentions than Crawford.
This isn't good news, of course. Crawford is a hell of a prospect, and if he goes elsewhere it'll be difficult to replace him with a similar talent. Before hitting the panic button, however, let's see how these visits play out.
[Hit THE JUMP for what's actually an entirely positive recruiting roundup save for what you've already read, including more on Alex Malzone's commitment, three top 2015 prospects showing very serious Michigan interest, and more.]
More Malzone
With that out of the way, how about some good news? Tim Sullivan caught up with Brother Rice head coach Dave Sofran to talk about his quarterback and Michigan's newest commit, Alex Malzone ($):
"A lot of being a good quarterback is I think decision-making, and he's a very good decision-maker," Sofran said. "He's a quick thinker and he makes good decisions. He doesn't force things too much, he kind of lets the game come to him. That's one of the things that I think is unique about him. You do have guys that you see that have a great arm and they try to show off their arm all the time. He's a guy that has some touch on the ball, and if it's not there, he's going to go to his next read and let the game come to him.
Malzone's ability to change up speeds and put the right touch on the ball shows up in his film, and it this point we've got plenty of confirmation from various sources that there's little to worry about in terms of arm strength. For example, when Rivals ranked the top quarterback performances from all of this spring's Rivals-exclusive camps, Malzone came in at #6 in part due to his ability to throw a football pretty dang hard ($):
Malzone walked up to the Detroit RCS and walked away with position MVP honors after a day in which he was pinpoint accurate and also unleashed his cannon arm. He entered the weekend with offers from Pittsburgh, Wake Forest and a host of Mid-American Conference schools. The next morning he threw for a contingent of college coaches that included Michigan, Minnesota and Penn State and reportedly was just as impressive there, it came as little surprise that Michigan offered and Malzone committed just yesterday.
Meanwhile, Malzone picked up offers from Virginia Tech and Cincinnati since his commitment. He's not a flight risk—he's a lifelong fan who waited patiently and worked like crazy to get his Michigan offer—so it's nice to see other programs saw the same potential in Malzone that U-M did.
As for his potential contributions on the recruiting trail, 247's Steve Lorenz posted a forum topic in which Malzone says he "immediately got to" recruiting some of Michigan's top targets after his commitment ($). The 2015 has lacked a Morris/Speight/Ferns-type of commit who'll rally his fellow recruits and push fellow prospects to join up ever since Damien Harris decommited; they've got that now in Malzone.
More 2015 Updates
Michigan made the unordered top ten for four-star NC SDE Darian Roseboro:
Top247 defensive lineman Darian Roseboro of Lincolnton (N.C.) High School announced on his Twitter account Wednesday night that N.C. State, Michigan, Clemson, Tennessee, Ohio State, Florida, LSU, North Carolina, Alabama and Duke currently are his top 10 college choices.
Roseboro made a three-day visit last month that put the Wolverines at or near the top of his recruitment, and Steve Lorenz reports that he'll return for another unofficial visit in July.
In addition, four-star NJ OT Grant Newsome has set a return visit to Ann Arbor for June 7th, two days after he visits Penn State. Those two schools are believed to be the two most likely to land him.
Another four-star visitor will be on campus even sooner, as IN ILB Darrin Kirkland Jr. tweeted yesterday that he'll visit Michigan this weekend. Like the two prospects mentioned above, the Wolverines are in great position with Kirkland.
Etc.
Michigan offered 2016 four-star Cleveland (OH) Benedictine WR Justin Layne this week, per Scout's Bill Greene ($):
"This offer means a lot to me, and I could see myself going there," [Layne] continued. "They are definitely up there as one of my favorites. They have a great atmosphere and their coaches are great, so I'm very interested in Michigan."
Layne mentioned Ohio State and Florida State as two schools likely to join the fray soon—Urban Meyer apparently called shortly after hearing about the U-M offer—and he's already received offers from Miami (YTM), Michigan State, Pitt, and West Virginia. His recruitment will be hotly contested; it's good to see U-M getting in relatively early here.
For a really interesting look into the business side of recruiting, check out this post from 11W's Kyle Rowland, who talked with Ohio State director of player personnel Mark Pantoni and 247's J.C. Shurburtt for the piece. You may be surprised to see which Big Ten school has by far the smallest recruiting budget.
But on the bright side, it's much, much better that he is doing this now rather than later, and he seems much more interested in maintaining his spot with Michigan at this point than either Harris or Campbell did.
Crawford may end up elsewhere, but this timing allows him to look and either confirm his initial feelings for Michigan, or reopen his recruitment. Both of these have upside for Michigan, who will also have time to again look around in fill his spot if they feel required to do so. It's still not optimal compared to him not taking visits, or waiting to commit until he was sure, but being May the year before, I wouldn't be surprised if come mid-June to early-July he's really reaffirmed his pledge to the Wolverines or the Michigan coaches are back in recruiting mode with most of Summer, Fall, and Winter to make a push.
Harris. I'm also hopeful Malzone will help coordinate attempts to keep the verbals here.
I don't see any way that Michigan wouldn't take him back but my assumption is that he will know soon how firm his commitment is. Even if he looks around now I think a better showing on the film may convince him to return.
Crawford's dad says he is talking to Hoke tonight about the visits, but they are just to reassure Crawford of his decision.
— Tom VanHaaren (@TomVH) May 15, 2014You're guaranteed to have greater numbers of decommits.
Maybe Malzone can work on Crawford.
Not a top prospect? He is the #13 QB in the nation. Doesnt get more top than that, does it?
Scout does not rank Pro/Dual QBs separately, he is their #13 ranked QB.
I know the Crawford situation isn't really an Earth-shattering development but it honestly feels as if being a Michigan fan -- especially such a dedicated one -- is like signing up to get kicked in the nuts each day. Now with the advent of online recruiting coverage, it happens throughout the summer too.
I'm not a huge believer in "karma" as much as that statistically most things just balance out over time. There's a, perhaps silly, question I've been asking myself quite a bit over the last year though: are we just due for a decade of dominance once the '12 and '13 classes mature with the Nussmeier and Mattison duo or is our recent success in basketball a limiting factor for football success, as if Michigan is only allowed a finite amount of success to spread across basketball, football, and hockey. Obviously this is a silly thought but I can't help approaching it this way.
Say that a genie or some type of mythical force told me that I would wake up each morning, roll out of bed, and a man would show up at my door to kick me in the nuts. If I allowed him to do so each day between now and January 1st (with the exception of Holidays), Michigan would be 15-0 this season, I would do it in a heartbeat.*
*Pending it's also promised I can still have kids in the future and upon hearing of my dilemma the MGoCommunity gets a kickstarter to send me to The Game, the B1G Championship Game, the semis, and National Championship.
This is as good as a place to say this: "Don't get too caught up in the decision making process of 16-18 year olds."
Interesting. I never thought of Michigan athletic success as a zero-sum game, as if there were only so many slices of karmic cake to go around, and right now basketball is getting the corner piece with all the frosting.
But I don't know that I'd call it a silly thought. When I was a kid I could never understand how the universe could allow a hideous, bloated evil like Woody Hayes to ever succeed. Forty years later and I still don't.
If I may, i'd like to contribute a couple of thoughts on probability vis-a-vis "karma." There are two schools of thought on what a long streak of bad luck means. They are the opposite of each other, and both are fallacies. To use an example, let's talk about flipping a coin four times; suppose we get tails on all of the first three flips. One school of thought says "oh man, we're cursed; we're never going to see heads again, DOOOOMM!!" This is obviously wrong; it's the same 50/50 chance for a heads or tails just as it was for the three prior flips. This is a response of emotion rather than thought.
The other school of thought is slightly more clever, but still wrong. It says, "oh man, three tails in a row. We're due for heads, bank it." This is more clever because the person making that statement is perhaps thinking that if you toss a coin 4 times, you expect to see 4 tails only 1 time out of 16. However, the coin has no memory. It doesn't know it was tails the last three times; you have the same 50/50 chance. Or to put it in probability language, the chance of 4 tails in a row, given the first three flips were tails, is 50%.
What does this mean for the sports we follow? If we have seen one (or more) unlucky seasons, we should expect average luck next season, which would be an improvement if it happens. We may get a lucky season (like Hoke's first), or we may get another unlucky season (one of Lloyd Carr's several losses to OSU), but something in the range of average luck is the most likely outcome. The technical term is regression to the mean. We have had a historically bad run against OSU the last 10 years. Even if they were so superior to us (for whatever reason) that they could expect to win 80% of the games we play (and I don't think even the most rapid Buckeye fans would claim this), we still would have expected to "get lucky" against them more often than one game in ten. This means average luck would be a good thing against OSU. On the flip side, we have owned Notre Dame the last decade. Losing to the Irish next fall is more likely than we have become accustomed to expect.
So, I'd say there is no such thing as karma. You are no more or less likely to win a game because another Michigan team won or lost its last few games. But, there is such a thing as regression to the mean, and it can feel a whole lot like karma in the moment. Knowing all of this stuff, I still cursed 2013 and celebrated 2014 with everyone else. Notions of "karma" are hard to shake from your lizard brain.
to find a replacement for him, just in case! I would not just sit back and wait for a de-commitment late summer or during the fall. If recruits go off and visit other schools they need to realize that they may end up losing their spot.
I'm thinking this is more likely to play out like the David Dawson recruitment rather than Conley one. I have no inside info to support that - just a gut feeling. I also respect the upfront way the Crawford camp has handled this situation. Hopefully when the dust settles, he'll have reconfirmed his Michigan commitment and that will be that.
To get too excited about this situation. The kid is from Ohio and made an early decision in favor of Michigan apparently without looking too hard at other top schools and prior to getting an offer from dreaded OSU. We will prevail if he perceives that UM is the best place for him. If not, then I wish him the best with his future.
I am not really in favor of the Hoke concept of cancellation of an offer if a verbal committment visits other schools after making a verbal to UM. It seems as if it is an unrealistic concept for a coach that went 7 - 5 last year. On the other hand, if it only means that he will then open recruiting for that position, that seems more realistic.
Go Blue!
Hoke doesn't "cancel" his offer, the player is just no longer considered a commit and the staff will actively try to fill that spot, both with that player and with other prospects.
2nd, OSU is likely less the player here than ND. OSU offered him back in December, but it wasn't until ND offered that there started being more smoke to his visits (though he mulled an OSU visit after he got an offer there, it wasn't nearly as signficant). Before he committed to Michigan, it was pretty well known to be between ND and Michigan, with OSU on the outside looking in.
I understand.
I mean, this is a huge decision in their lives and while I am sure it has always been overstressed and overanalyzed, nowadays you have the whole world watching.
Until that letter is faxed they haven't really commited to anything. You should make peace with that concept...
and remember this: if he is going to waver now is much better time than later in the year.
jdon
Michigan should consider him nolonger committed and continue to pursue him and other cornerbacks. The coaches should make sure that Crawford understands that his slot is nolonger being held.
I can understand that a teenager wants to look around and that no player should commit to a program unless they are 100% certain that is where they want to be. The teenager needs to understand that either their word means something or it means nothing. That can be a hard lesson to learn. It was a hard lesson for me to learn, and I suspect a hard lesson for many other people who comment here.
If Mr. Crawford decides that there is no other program for which he wants to play, then I hope his slot is still open. If not then the program is better off finding a player for whom Michigan is their only choice.
While it may be down at the moment, Michigan is a top ten program. Academically Michigan is also a top 15-20 school internationally. Playing football at Michigan while getting a degree requires a very very high degree of commitment. No one is well served if a player decides that Michigan is their safe out or second choice.
Hopefully Mr. Crawford will make the best choice for his future, whether or not he ends up in maize and blue.
I really get the feeling that our recruiting momentum is beginning to dwindle. I feel like we are getting more and more decommittments than recent memory and guys that were supposed UM leans are chosing other options more frequently than I remember. I think if a strong season occurs all this becomes null and void. It doesn't need to be a 10 win season. Even an 8-win season with all close losses and some key wins against rivals would probably be good enough. But I feel like another 7-win type season with lots of close games and talk of struggles and negativity around the QB, o-line, pass rush, and defense giving up big plays with consistency will really put a hault to the recruiting momentum.
Man, it's so important that this team has a good 2014 season. It just feels like UM is getting hammered on the the recruiting trails by opposing coaches and recruiters. And based on the loss of recruiting momentum this program had, I'd say that the negative recruiting banter the recruits are hearing is seeping in.
Crawford is a very important recruit for Michigan, as he was part of that amazing stretch where they received commits from 3 top recruits. But, at the same time, a decommitment would be easily put to ease by the fact that Jabrill Peppers will be manning the defensive backfield from day one that he steps on campus. Don't get me wrong, I definitely think that Crawford is an asset for Michigan, as he is a top ohio/top CB prospect, but it would not be the end of the world. 2014 is a very important year for Michigan football and this will happen more and more if the trend of mediocrity continues.
Perform on the field in 2014 and recruits will take notice again. Michigan has the name, now it needs the performance. Actions speak louder than words, especially in the eyes of high school kids.
I think a new CB offer has went out already.
Too bad we stopped recruiting Fitzpatrick when we got G. Taylor at the CB position and we were done in the defensive backfield. I know we may have never had a shot to compete against the likes of Alabama. Becasue when it comes to recruiting and producing the CB/S postion to get the NFL like they do its not even close even though we have had a Heisman winner at the position however many years ago.
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