Hello Dylan Crawford!

I’m glad that Evans said no to OSU and we got Crawford. I would suggest, however, that missing on Evans and Crawford would have been a modest disappointment, but that we really desperately need to get at least 3-4 of our remaining blue chip defensive targets. (Aside: Nauta committing would NOT be a small thing, because he’s a beastly 5-star and TE is a real need in an otherwise great offensive pipeline).

Note: all ratings given are from 247, using the composite for recent years.

Point #1: Our 2016 recruits are great . . . . on the offensive side of the ball. The 2016 recruiting class’s average rating (currently 89.2) is mainly due to a great offensive recruiting class (7 very strong 4-stars that have a rating of 0.90+). In contrast, only 1 def recruit meets that standard, although I like the 3 def players in the very solid 0.89 composite range (Johnson, Kemp & Bush). The avg rating for our 14 off. recruits is 0.91+ (as good as OSU and Alabama), but our avg for our 10 def recruits is 0.87 (not terrible, but far below OSU and a little below MSU).

Point #2: Our defensive recruiting classes the past 2 years have not been good overall. The 0.87 avg for the 2016 def recruiting class would normally not be cause for alarm, but it becomes so when put in context. We have been riding a wave of very good defensives resulting in large part from Hoke’s 2012 and 2013 classes, which had 9 and 8  4-star .90+ def recruits, respectively. Most of these players will be gone after next season. So what have the last two classes included. Yes, Peppers is amazing (and I hope he stays beyond next year and doesn’t leave with the rest of his fellow 2016 def starters), but there were only 2 other 0.90+ players in his 2014 group that are still on the team. The 2015 recruiting class only had 1 .90+ defensive recruit. I’m not saying that this is not good enough to be okay on defense, but I’m saying that this spells trouble for competing against very good offensives.

Point #3: Star ratings are not deterministic, but they are highly predictive. More 3-stars become all conference than 4-stars, but that is because there are so many more 3-star than 4-star recruits. Analyses have consistently found that star ratings, on average, matter a lot. Yes, there will always be exceptions to the rule, but teams that recruit higher rated players consistently do much better than those that don’t (http://mgoblog.com/category/post-type/recruiting-legit-yo is just one of many examples). The linked 2012 article by the Mathelete was the first remember seeing that demonstrated that star ratings are much more important for defensive success than offensive success (http://mgoblog.com/diaries/what%E2%80%99s-5-star-really-worth-predicting-future-team-success-recruiting-rankings), but I’ve seen a couple of confirmatory analyses since. It makes great sense to me. Look how JH schemed his way to an improved offense this year, same as he did at Stanford. On defense, there is often no substitute to size, frame and speed. For the record, MSU has been an exception to this rule for a sustained period. Their defenses have sometimes been elite and have almost always been at least very good under Dontonio. I believe that JH may similarly be an outlier on the offensive side, given what he did at Stanford with mainly 3-star recruits, but he did not demonstrate that aptitude on the defensive side at Stanford. I have hopes, tho, that Brown’s rep for developing first class defenses with second class talent proves true at the next level, tho.

After writing this, it occurs to me that the final message is a bit of a downer. If we miss on Gary, Long, Hill, and Onuzurike, you were probably going to be highly disappointed already. Now I come along and say that being disappointed is not enough, and that you should be suicidal. So just to reiterate, by important, I mean important for being competitive with OSU, and am not suggesting that anyone run around like chicken little if we come up a little short in the home-stretch. I have little doubt that elite offenses are in our future.

Crawford's not only a great athlete but he has the type of toughness that Harbaugh loves.  He will be a great fit for the program and an impact player down the road.

I would say behind Rashan Gary he is the next player I'd really like to see commit.  David Long is a big time athlete and would do great things in our secondary.  We need an impact recruit in the defensive secondary.