Bottom 7 Players in the 2018 Recruiting Class

Could be wrong, but I believe German Green recovered the "simultaneous possession" muffed punt against Nebraska, which was pretty key to that victory given how close the game was.

So if you wanna nitpick, that makes it 7/7.

Kuddos to the development by the coaching staff. I feel like this has been lacking in the program for awhile now. Plus the coaching staff being able to evaluate talent better than some of these recruiting sites has me most excited for this class here.  Some of these lower rated kids weren't evaluated due to Covid. I trust our coaches. Bell and Haskins say hi. 

Excellent point. Also to give German Green the credit he's due: He's a consistent contributor on our top-ranked special teams unit

Pretty cool post.  I feel that we have had a pretty good recruiting team here for the past several years, and star ratings aside, I'm hopeful that we will take off from our success this year and continue to beat OSU on the field, even though I suspect we will lag behind them on the star ratings for a while.

schoonmaker has been fun to watch, especially with All being hurt, but 160 yards receiving isnt on par. If he's a contributer, cool, but i wouldnt equate that to guys like Bell, Haskins, Moody, and to a lesser degree Barrett and Gray.

All is a fantastic blocker - is Schooooooooooooon?

I think its cool we find diamonds in the rough - but I'd be curious to see across all teams, maybe in the B10, who does the most with what they have. Maybe Iowa? Wisky? Us? Not Franklin and not OSU, that much I know!

Bell was an interesting one because he was assumed to play hoops when Mich offered. Had his focus always been football, maybe he's a 4*. Either way great find.

Seems like our recruiters have isolated the intangibles necessary for taking a flier on someone. Hopefully the success of these bottom feeders becomes a trend. 

Not done with their legacies yet, but the whole Class of 2018, when they've been healthy (2020 a lot of them were not), has flat out dynamite! Even if the few 5th year seniors just merely finish next year with 10 wins and maybe get revenge against Sparty, but accomplish little else, The Wolverine Magazine has to give at least an A- to that recruiting class when it's all said and done

It is all about "gambling" with stars.  The higher rated guys are lower risk and more likely to succeed....but you're also hoping they're good early and stick around long enough to make an impact.  The lower ranked guys take longer to develop and are less likely to do so across the board.  But it does illustrate that in a complex game like football where you need at least 25 starters working together that finding people who do their role well is nearly as important as finding stars who can do everyone's role.  Finding good depth throughout the roster, putting everyone in a position to play to their strengths, and developing players over time - that is important regardless of ranking.

For example...while I do think I understand what Don Brown was trying to do and still think he's a good coach - compare the differences.  He was asking Hutchinson to do a lot of things all at once while MacDonald mostly told him "eat QBs".  Brown asked our DTs to be nimble guys who never came off the field and could handle multiple gaps....MM is fine with space eaters in the middle and lots of rotation based on the situation.  Brown wanted Dax to be a do-everything Viper that had to play some LB, some S, some CB while MM mostly said "line up and take their slot receiver".  Some of that is development, some is playing to their strengths.  Takes a mix of both.

At times I find myself comparing this team to 1997.  We were coming off four straight 4-loss seasons (what we used to define as "bad") with two straight bowl losses by Carr and questioning the direction of the program.  

We turned the QB position over to a former walk-on that didn't have a strong arm and wasn't very athletic (Greise) instead of continuing the long line of big-armed future NFL guys (Grbac, Collins, Dreisbach) or hot young recruits (Brady).  Our running game was our rock but didn't rely on a single star - it spread things around among multiple guys with varying backgrounds/skills. The QB didn't light the world on fire, but he avoiding big mistakes and spread the ball around to a solid collection of WR/TE that tended to use its TEs as much as its WRs.  

On defense we were coming off mediocre years after thinking we were going to be good.  We brought back a bunch of guys that fit their roles well but generally relied on one great DL (Steele) and one great DB (Woodson) while surrounding them with solid players everywhere.  They kept us in games while our running game and solid kicker (Feeley) was often the difference.  

There were years with more talent and more NFL prospects or flashy offensive players....but there was never a year where we were so consistently good.

Never overlook nor count out the underdog(s).

This proves that there are exceptions to every rule.

Hail to the Victors!

Nice post.

In your face, five-star crowd!

Development and character with ability and teamwork>>>>>stars.

Agree and love all of these guys. But Michigan still hasn't had an Offensive skill player drafted in Round 1, since Braylon. This is why. What could we have done with the #2 or #3 class?

Bottom 8

Welschof is a "hit" as well.

GoBlue Depth!

Great post! Ever since the 2018 class, this coaching staff has done a stellar job unearthing underrated sleepers and then developing those players.

They may not have had all the starz, but they are football players! 

HH at #975 jumps off the page.  Holy smokes!