Ari Wasserman suggests Harbaugh is "playing chess" in recruiting & development

I don’t care what he has to say

Hedge if we do. Hedge if we don't.

Call it chess, call it knowing how to evaluate and develop talent that fits your program and your team's identity.

The people who give out recruiting stars don't know much about how to do that. Harbaugh's proved he does on the field. He's rebuilt this program pretty much from the ground up. My hat is off to him.

I just hope we can keep him in A2.

Recruiting is informed speculation. That’s it.

What makes Bama  elite is that they do both which is why they have dominated the sport for 15 years.  

Nah, fuck that guy and can we stop linking his shit?

Fuck him

4 star kids who LOVE football and love Michigan’s family culture > 5 star bag chasers 

My subscription to The Athletic expires tomorrow. I've already cancelled it.

I'm not buying Ari's kind words. Too little, too late. Adios Athletic.

Sherrone Moore would play MFing Stratego

Ari has quite a bit of ground to make up when it comes to positive reporting on Michigan, but this is a start.

Feliz Navidad 

There is a lot to be said about developing a player and finding the right fit. Iowa is a great example of this. Their defense is filled with 3 star recruits, but it's pretty solid year in and year out. If they ever got their shit together on offense they could be dangerous, even without having the Rivals 250 top players.

Ari is a cunt. 

Star system is a good indicator of talent and for the most part the system works. However, there are always exceptions. For example, i would trust a Mark Dantonio eval of a DB recruit over the star system. Used to trust any Wisconsin OL or LB commit.

I think Michigan has earned the benefit of the doubt for just about any recruit on defense, OL and TE. 

Get the national championship this year and put this all to bed. Confirm that Michigan can achieve the ultimate using their current methods and strategies. Go Blue.

We are not the only ones doing it, Washington has had great success with relatively low recruiting classes, it will be interesting to see how they perform next year after their star QB is gone

I heard someone say (it might have been Craig or Seth on the Roundtable—apologies for not recalling) that we’re keeping players who might have otherwise left other schools.  

They’re staying for their degrees and for their development and this is an advantage that places like OSU can’t match.  This is a deliberate strategy that plays to our strengths.  So while OSU might get the higher rated players as freshmen, over the longer run we benefit from the leadership and stability in the locker room that comes from keeping skilled and experienced players who want to be here.  

In the age of NIL, building a team of high upside athletes who are bought into the team and culture is likely going to yield better results than a team of 4 stars who want to immediately play and get the bag. It seems like there’s a been a fundamental attitude change among high rated players these days and it might just be cashing in on their value while the iron is still hot, but that doesn’t lead to a cohesive team. 

The Team Talent Composite that the blurb cites is interesting, but it isn’t nearly sophisticated enough to gauge how much talent a team actually had on the field in 2023.

For instance, Ohio State this season had three 5-star WRs and seven more 4-star WRs. Any credit you give OSU for half of those guys distorts the picture, since half of them weren’t relevant at all this season.

(Duplicated post)

Dude needs to lose weight, jfc

This guy's constantly trying to come up with some kind of rationale for his pro-OSU nonsense.  The Athletic has really taken a slide - I'm surprised someone in charge hasn't done something to rein these clowns (i.e. Feldman, Mandel, Wasserman et al).

Surprised he could write all those words without using the word “grabass”.