Nose tackle trouble

Michigan had its sights set on three NT sorts and hoped to get two; 3.5* TN DT Rutger Reitmaier decided to stick with Oregon, and now 5* GA DT Aubrey Solomon has a defined leader that is not Michigan:

“No doubt about it,” Solomon told BamaOnLine when asked if Alabama was his leader. “They stand by themselves right now. Huge lead.”

Solomon's had a tendency to change his mind during the process, but that does not sound good. It sounds... bad. This also sounds bad:

“I believe it is a huge lead and it is really I will say it is a SEC fight,” Solomon said. “That’s how I feel. It is a big SEC fight.”

Steve Lorenz caught up with him as well and that take sounds much more optimistic; there is an element of Solomon telling people what they want to here in a lot of his quotes. Publicly stating a huge Alabama lead is something that people usually do when they are going to commit to Alabama, unfortunately.

Meanwhile UT DT Jay Tufele is publicly favoring nobody and has scheduled officials to USC, BYU, and Utah in January. He is tough to read because he says everything is awesome.

Michigan: "Michigan is really awesome.  When I took my trip, it's a real college town and I loved everything about it and it was awesome." ...

Ohio State: "Ohio State is a really great program.... Urban Meyer is an awesome coach too.

Lorenz says he's not near a crystal ball but that Utah would be his guess at the moment, albeit with a caveat:

the consensus among us down here is that he is a prospect who definitely hasn't made up his mind at this point.

Losing Tony Tuioti is not helpful, though Tufele dismissed that a non-coach staffer moving would have a big impact on his decision; FWIW, Scout's Bill Greene was not high on OSU's chances about a week ago.

Under Armor takes

The UA game came and went and scouting resulted.

The most impressive Michigan commit in attendance was a close race but FL OL Cesar Ruiz, who drew many mentions as an unmoveable tree trunk person, probably edged it.

Michigan commit Cesar Ruiz has been dominant in 1-on-1 drills at @AllAmericaGame practices. Have yet to see one defender get by him. pic.twitter.com/eby9eLhGlR

— Sean Merriman (@MerrimanTweets) December 30, 2016

4* VA DE Luiji Vilain was amongst the most impressive edge guys at the game.

Luiji Vilain is better than the #10 DE in the nation in my opinion. Michigan's class is very strong.

— SB Nation Recruiting (@SBNRecruiting) January 1, 2017

Scout:

If you want to know who was close to about half a dozen sacks, it would be this guy.  Vilain got around the corner and pressure the quarterback numerous times.  He also flushed the quarterback out of the pocket and set the edge against the run a couple of times too.

Mike Farrell named him the "most pleasant surprise" at the UA game, in typical Farrell fashion:

Now how can a player ranked as a four-star and No. 181 in the country be the biggest surprise? Well, at least to me, I felt Vilain was a bit overrated and I didn’t expect he would hold up physically as he has so far this week. Vilain has been using his length well in one-on-ones and especially team play, and he’s been stronger than expected.

We'll see if that's enough for a move up. Farrell said he's "not a five star talent", but there's a lot of room between that and #181.

Michigan's other commits didn't come in for much evaluation. RI DE Kwity Paye got in through a fan vote and was  tasked with some rushing drills as a DT, which is not his skillset. It doesn't look like his showing will result in a four-star surge for him; he was kind of lost in the wash. Farrell got in a brief mention ("Kwity Paye also had a few key hurries in addition to his tackle for a loss"); 247 doesn't have anything on him except some photos. Ditto FL OL Kai-Leon Herbert and MI S Jaylen Kelly-Powell. (NJ LB Drew Singleton was also named to the game but is still recovering from an ACL tear.)

None of those gentlemen got mentioned as disappointments by Farrell, so they'll probably be static.

Willie Gay says things, a lot of things

Sometimes he says things that make you think he'll be at Michigan.

Peppers is a player that Gay has long said is his favorite college player. The opportunity to replace him exists, and Gay described the possibility as "surreal".

"When I first got the Michigan offer, it was huge for me," he said. "To think I could potentially replace Peppers is amazing to me."

Sometimes he does not.

“Did [LSU] have a linebacker de-commit today?” Gay asked SEC County.

Yep.

“Well tell them Willie Gay is on his way.”

Asked if he was just joking, the 6-foot-2, 215-pound linebacker said, “No. I don’t mind competing but once you see opportunity like that sometimes you’ve just got to jump on it.”

Is he just screwin' around? Kind of feels like he's just screwin' around. But, eh, crootin. This is why the shruggie was invented. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Sometimes he says things that nobody else has ever said before or will say again.

“When I went to Michigan I felt like I was still in Starkville, Miss.,” Gay said. “The only thing different was the weather, and even that wasn't that bad to me. I fell in love with Michigan when I went up there.”

I haven't ever been to Starkville. Maybe it has a botanical garden too?

Gay does have an official scheduled to LSU later this month. He'll probably say various things before he commits that may or may not mean anything. There's a reason that nobody pulled the trigger on a crystal ball even after Gay proclaimed Michigan a strong leader after his trip to Ann Arbor, and this is the reason. Mississippi black hole, man. Gay told Lorenz that his "mind feels like it's changing every day."

The balls roll in for Filiaga; other OL bits

For a brief moment after TX OL Chuck Filiaga announced a top three of OU, Nebraska, and Michigan there was a thought that OU was the pick. That moment seems to have passed after Filiaga arrived at the Army game and started talking to people. Steve Wiltfong, the main guy talking up Oklahoma, put in a crystal ball for Filiaga to Michigan and a bunch of people followed, including Lorenz. Lorenz interviewed Filiaga—likely the impetus for his pick—recently:

"I've had Coach Harbaugh come to my house and come to my school," he said. "He talked to our team before our game against Poteet and talked to all of us and gave us a speech. Coach Drevno came two times. He came once to be the ears for Coach Harbaugh and the second time they both came, so I think I got the OK. He really has made me a priority."

That's quite a contrast from Michigan's approach with Aaron Banks, which was "send Jay Harbaugh a couple times." Filiaga told Lorenz he "has an idea" where he's going; it appears everyone at 247 does as well. Sam Webb also got an interview in which Filiaga said he had an idea of where he was going; he re-iterated that the distance won't be an issue:

“Mom and dad… family really… they don’t mind where I go to college,” said Filiaga.

Brandon Brown is reporting that mom is on board and Michigan should get Filiaga, as well.

Two bits of circumstantial evidence:

• I haven't seen anything from OU or Nebraska writers, and that is almost always a good sign for the team whose reporters are getting interviews.
• When various 247 staff writers with no Michigan/OU/Nebraska track record put in picks they're looking for cheap CB points.

It would appear that the Filiaga commit will be low drama.

Michigan will still pursue OL even if they get Filiaga; giant VA OL Mekhi Becton now seems like Michigan's biggest priority going forward. He gave a pretty generic update to Scout. One thing of note: his only official thus far has been to Michigan. He plans on making some trips in January; those will give an indication of which schools in his top five (M, MSU, Louisville, VT, and UVA) are actual competition and which are just hats on the table.

5* AZ OL Austin Jackson told 247 that it was "kind of likely" he'd make a January official visit to Michigan. That would be his last of the process. Jackson is widely reputed to be a USC lock, get him on campus, puncher's chance, etc.

Meanwhile, 4.5* FL OL Tedarrell Slaton says that he wants to play DT and that Kentucky and Florida are his top two because they're recruiting him at that spot. He'd later name UF his outright leader. Michigan is still drawing mentions, but those feel more perfunctory by the day.

That brief flurry of talk about PA OL CJ Thorpe, a PSU commit, appears to be coming to nothing. At least it yielded this quote from his dad:

“Urban Meyer called my dad, and he told him he should stop recruiting me because it’s not going to happen,” Thorpe said. “After I got my Penn State offer, Urban called my dad and then he fell off the face of the earth. I didn’t know what happened and thought Ohio State was just not offering me, but I talked to my dad a year after the call, and he was like, ‘Yeah, I told him he can’t recruit you.’”

Thorpe's dad was a PSU football player.

Weird guy watch

As mentioned in the previous roundup, Michigan's rapid-fire commit burst leaves them with few players on the board who seem likely to join the class. They're at 26, can take up to 32, and will probably suffer a decommit or two because this is crootin'.

Meanwhile things appear to be trending in the wrong direction for the most familiar names on the board. The DTs were discussed above. Sam relays that optimism on Elijah Hicks has "faded dramatically"; Slaton's barely on the board. So Michigan's going to have some spots to fill.

One is obvious: CT CB Brandon Sebastian, a BC commit, appears to be the next man up as Michigan searches for a fifth DB in the class. His official was pushed back; Marich reports it is back on for the 13th. Sebastian's a teammate of Tarik Black and will have his parents on the visit. That's spatula city, baby, as the weirdly heated BC-Michigan decommit battle of 2016 rages on.

If it looks like Gay is going to end up somewhere else, keep an eye on 4* VA LB Ellis Brooks. Brooks has already been on campus twice and tells Brandon Brown that Michigan is a definite possibility for a January official:

"That last official visit is very potentially for Michigan. I’ve been talking with Coach [Don] Brown seeing how things are going. Coach Brown is my man and Coach [Chris] Partridge is my man. I really like both of those guys a lot. I know they like me as a player and also as a kid. I have a really solid relationship with both of them. It’s cool with them."

Brooks is a high-academic kid who's more of an ILB type, whereas Gay can play the VIPER(!!!) position that Peppers manned this year. The fit is thus maybe not great, but if Jordan Anthony is a potential VIPER(!!!) it could work out.

2018 stuff

Rivals currently has  MI DE Aidan Hutchinson a nondescript three-star but their most recent piece on him projects that he "will absolutely begin to travel up the Rivals rankings and should be a Top 250 if not a Top 100 guy when it's over"; he's a Michigan legacy.

TX TE Mustapha Muhammad doesn't even have a top ten yet, but Michigan will be in it. If he sticks to his desire to play in a pro-style offense he'll be leaving the state. 2018 GA S Myles Sims is another name to watch.