An appeal to reason

I didn't notice any panic on this board [normal caveats apply]

Ya, who is being unreasonable?

Reason will prevail!

How about we pay attention to the people turning all chicken little so we know who is rational and who is not. Pin it. Anyone doubting Harbaugh is extremely misinformed and should do some light reading on his accomplisments to ease the tightness in their log extraction point. 

I think most everyone is on board with this being a solid class considering the size and lack of time the coaching staff had to secure it.

Thought harbaugh did better than hoke for 2011 which will only bode well for the future.

Harbaugh was hired late in the game , you had to realize he had an uphill battle.  The coaching staff took a while to take shape too.  By that point I would assume that over 95% if not more of the players out there have made up their minds about what school they are attending.

 

 

This board has a habit of overreacting to reactions (real or imaginary). 

 

We had hoped that Harbaugh's name alone would be enough to pick up any recruit of their choosing. But as I stated in another post, we saw that relationships win in recruiting most of the time. We hoped that a guy like Iman Marshall would end up in the class. He even stated that Harbaugh's reputation was enough to get him to listen to what Michigan had to offer. But in the end, it was too little, too late. Harbaugh will kill it in 2016.

Let's move on. We just got a QB grad transfer today. Things are still happening. 

we cleared that up.

I don't know a single Michigan fan that doesn't think this was a really solid effort. Frankly, the MSU and few OSU fans I know think so, too.

I've seen many MSU/OSU trolls on the internet saying otherwise, but man, that's just the internet.

Harbaugh had 3 weeks, flipped kids from Iowa, Texas, UConn, Nebraska, and Northwestern, and beat FSU head-to-head for a Florida kid. He got last-second visits from a host of big time kids (Marshall, Smith) or kids already committed to other programs (Lockett, etc.), and tried to microwave 2 years of relationship-building in 3 weeks.

 

Honestly? We're lucky this was a small class and I can't wait to see how next year goes: on the field and in recruiting.

I didn't sense the panic you're referring to but admittedly was not on here that much.  It was always going to be a small class and the big names were always a longshot to flip.  JH and crew did well.

Great Rise Against album.

This post had the opposite of the intended effect.  I wasn't worrying or being unreasonable.  I simply thought we had a smaller class that was devoid of elite talent, completely reasonable for a transition year class.  Yeah, it was a bummer to miss on a few elite guys in reach, but overall things look fine.  What the class lacked in size and starz it made up for with high character kids (e.g., Higdon) and addressing the biggest roster needs (e.g., QB, DE, OL).

Then I read this list of pathetic excuses and I thought -- Man, if Michigan fans are bending over backwards to defend this recruiting class there must be something wrong with it.

Michigan has the 49th rated class on rivals. But just going by average rating without regard to total number of recruits, Michigan is 21st. sure, 21st isn't anything to crow about, but given the timing, I don't think anyone should be complaining. Nobody's actually complaining, right?

Next step: Win some football games. It's all schrodinger's cat until then...

 

Go Blue

Another classic straw man post in which the OP creates a fictionalized world lacking in reason, and then offers himself as the keyholder to a reasonable new world. Its really posts like this that are lacking in reason, and OPs like this that need to find reason elsewhere in their lives. 

I am neither happy nor unhappy. Recruits are just lumps of potential to me. They may or may not become players at some unascertained point in the future. I like that we have the full allotment of players, and I like that the players in this class have all decided that they want to play for Harbaugh (the guys he inherited didn't get to make that decision). But I just cannot get excited about high school football players. I used to be a really good one. Turns out I was one of the worst collegiate players to have ever pulled on the winged helmet. Recruiting is such a crapshoot that I just cant get worked up about it. I know, stars matter. But my hypothesis is that stars are given to HS kids based primarily on NFL-like measurements: size, fit to a prototype, 40-time. So of course kids with those measurements are more likely to make it in the NFL. But stars dont really measure the quality of play of the high school kid, and dont really predict the quality of their play in college or the NFL.

Harbaugh and staff will crush the 2016 class, don't worry.

Hoke showed he couldn't do anything with two great classes.  I think we are going to be pretty good moving forward.

I did not see much panic about the class other than some trolling from outsiders.  The biggest cost of any coaching change is recruiting.  I think all of us are happy to pay this cost in return for Harbaugh.

Overall I think we paid a fairly low cost as a result of the small class size and Harbuagh doing a good job of filling the small class with a mix of 3 and 4 star recruits. (Basically the transition cost us Mike Weber & Chris Clark)  

The recruiting process with most top players last beyond one year.  As a result we are still behind on 2016 relative to other programs with stable coaching staffs. So in some ways we are not yet done paying for the coaching change though the staff’s performance with this class gives me hope that the transition cost will remain low in 2016.

Overall I view this recruiting class as limiting the damage of a coaching change and by that measure we did a great job.

THANK YOU.

No idea why people are negging this, but this is an excellent refutation of the "the sky is falling" type posts we've been seeing here since yesterday (see, e.g., the post wondering how on earth we can hope to compete with UCLA). 

You have to realistically look at it as trading a small, possibly very good recruiting class for Jim Harbaugh & what he brings on many levels. I thought that we'd be lucky get to 14 kids after Harbaugh came on due to time & of we did the new kids would be absolute sleepers. I had no illusion even before he was hired that we'd return Clark, Weber, etc. No big names. Sleeper kids so you had to ask yourself if you'd trade a recruiting class, one ranked between 50-75ish, for Jim & company. I was willing to make that trade and still am. It just so happened that the class wasn't that bad! In under a month the new staff pulled in some legit kids I never saw coming. I don't think anyone is thinking this year's class will be the norm, either. Harbaugh getting kids to visit in Spring, Summer & Fall should be magic. Much better than 24 days with a full staff for 18 of them....in January.....after a UM season I consider the worst in my lifetime all things accounted. I'm FAR more concerned about osu not even hiding the fact that they now are an SEC North team in all but title.

You worry about the class when you lack a great coach. Now that we have a great coach, I can't wait to see what he does with all the current recruits and the current players who were at one time sought-after recruits. While we might not set the college football world on fire next year, I think we see a huge improvement across the board. Not worried at all.