How much football talent is there in Michigan?
As a lot of you have, I've been keeping an eye on Michigan's in-state recruiting. I know the board and Twitter were kind of blowing up last week when Kalen King (offered), Kobe King (offered), and Jaylen Reed (not offered) all committed to Penn State, and there's concern about Donovan Edwards, Rocco Spindler, Damon Payne, Garrett Dellinger, etc.
That caused me to knock the dust off of an old post that was in "drafts" and revive it. There's a new post coming every day to explore a different position group, but the basic question is this:
If we assume Michigan landed EVERY top-25 in-state recruit over the past five years, would the Wolverines be able to compete at an acceptable level (11+ wins, beating Ohio State semi-regularly, contending for the playoffs)?
I haven't seen anyone suggest that Michigan needs to sign players who are only from the State of Michigan, but my hypothesis is/has been that Michigan does not produce enough talent to support Michigan, MSU, MAC schools, and an incursion from other programs, so concentrating too heavily on local talent is an exercise in futility.
So far I looked at the QB position (LINK) and RB position (LINK) from 2015-2019. Feel free to read or, you know, just share your own comments in the thread without visiting TTB. That works, too.
Not much
April 14th, 2020 at 11:31 AM ^
This year there is pretty good talent in MI. The reality is there isn't enough to do what UNC is doing in NC. Honestly it's pretty impressive but it's easier when you have 18 4/5* players in your state.
Some.
April 14th, 2020 at 10:10 AM ^
Not to be an asshole but this is a waste of time because the answer is obviously no. Michigan's problem isn't depth, Ohio doesn't produce enough depth either, its how rarely Michigan high school football produces truly top end talent. States like Maryland have produced more top 10 guys over the last decade.
April 14th, 2020 at 10:24 AM ^
One man's trash is another man's treasure, ak47.
April 14th, 2020 at 10:37 AM ^
The state of Ohio recently hasn't produced crap for talent. OSU succeeds by getting very high talent from Florida, Texas, GA, etc. Cooper proved that you can't succeed by only getting in-state talent. UM fans need to quit worrying about how much in-state talent we get. Focus on getting the best players from any place.
April 14th, 2020 at 10:59 AM ^
I agree re: getting the best players nationally.
Ohio has 4 top 100 players this year and the #3 player in the country. They had the #9 player in 2020 and the #12 player in 2019.
Getting/having just 1 or 2 in-state 5* players a year is huge.
April 14th, 2020 at 12:25 PM ^
1. If Ohio HS has had “crap talent” then that is all the more supportive of not losing one’s shit when Michigan HS has far less superior talent almost every year.
2. Ohio is about to have the #1 draft pick in Joe Burrow. Denzel Ward was a #4 pick a few years ago. When was the last time the state of Michigan had a HS player be drafted in the top 10? 2016 with MSU’s Jack Conklin.
Including Ward, at least 7 Ohio HS players have been drafted in the first round alone between 2016-2019. This includes our own Taco Charlton. Burrow this year will make at least 8.
Again, this supports the fact that top end talent in Michigan is not likely to be elite.
3. A majority of the first rounders coming from Michigan colleges or ND (our other local competition outside of OSU) over those years (2016-2019) played HS ball in the very states/regions that Harbaugh has recruited hardest:
- Chicago/Illinois
- New Jersey
- Pennsylvania
- Maryland
4. Sean Clifford is from Ohio, and he’s leading Penn State. Does that hurt OSU? No, because they recruited Haskins, Burrow, and Fields over that same time—all better than a very good Clifford.
5. KJ Hamler was “poached” from the state, but he’s about the only one from a Michigan HS over the past few years I’d honestly regret not having. Mike Weber is a close second, but he had his best game of his career against us. His switch was in a transition year in which OSU had Zeke and we’ve had no viable super star offensive player since...omg, Perry? Manningham? Sorry, Denard, but his speed only worked against ND and Mediocre U—he was never a first round talent. Yet, as for this post Being about “in state recruits”—the state has not had elite, college-game-changing HSers since Charles Rogers.
Locking up the state of Michigan doesn’t improve UM’s chances of NC contention—locking up the guys who are elite helps.
6. UM still pulls in many of the best Michigan players, just as they did in the days of Lamar and Graham. DPJ, Onwenu, Ambry, Lewis, Ross and Ross.
They simply need to get Edwards because he is an elite recruit in state. They get him and Rocco, and that is enough to have “won” the in-state battles for the year. Getting others would be a sign of recruiting prowess progress, but it is not necessary for them to get an elite class or help future years. Losing out on Edwards, if it happens, would suck from an optics, but depends on who they get to replace him in the class.
Again, optics would be bad, but know one knows if he will be the next Kelvin Grady or the next Ty Wheatley. If he plays up to rating, of course it will suck if he does it at GA. Yet, for the last few years—our instate losses have not translated to losing out on stars. He may be an anomaly.
7. UM needs to continue to get more of the top end talent in IL, PA, DC/MD, NJ, Ohio. And they need to get more GA top guys rather than Smart’s leftovers. Same with AL—we need to win a few more Nico battles. They need to pull 2-3 higher ranked guys from each of TX, CA and NV/UT/WA region.
And yes, I’m waiting for student papers to grade, so I have the time to write this. But I’ve been a fan and an amateur recruiting analyst since Harbaugh was a Bear. Our team’s talent has fallen off the less successful we have been in pulling the 4s and 5s from those big states.
I’m interested to review the depth across positions through this time period. It might be interesting to see what the state of Ohio looked like over the same time frame.
April 14th, 2020 at 10:16 AM ^
There's plenty, but clearly not enough to field a whole team. However, there's no doubt that Michigan would be more physically talented if they were to land every top 247 player in the state of Michigan.
That's not really possible though.
April 14th, 2020 at 11:00 AM ^
I'm not going to put the effort in to proving this theory but I imagine you would not have a very even balance of positions in this theoretical recruiting strategy.
Having the top 25 players with no QB doesn't work. National is the only way to recruit if you want to compete at a high level.
April 14th, 2020 at 11:41 AM ^
Going after just the top 25 in state based on rankings wouldn’t work, but you could certainly could have a very balanced roster if you got every top 250 kid in-state. We don’t produce a whole lot. This is considered a banner year and we have 8 kids in the top 250 on the composite. We had 6 last year, and 6 the year before. Getting all of them and filling holes regionally and nationally would work. The “top 25” in state would feature quite a few guys who aren’t P5 caliber even if it did somehow work our position-wise.
Michigan’s current strategy of going after the top guys in state (we get ~50%+ of the top 250 guys) and then picking and choosing from the low 4*-high 3* guys while we recruit nationally filling the holes works quite well as far as maintaining our current success. Obviously if we want to reach that next level of success, it means being able to go get a couple top kids out of Georgia, Florida, Texas and California on top of getting ~50% of the top guys in Michigan and the Midwest.
April 14th, 2020 at 12:08 PM ^
In my opinion, with the way football is going today, it's not very fruitful to go after quarterbacks where there's not a big 7-on-7 presence and/or spring football. If you go down south, they're doing 7-on-7 all the time and they have spring football practices, some of which are padded and some of which are not.
Quarterback is such a key position and you can get productive reps in the off-season (unlike OL/DL). If it were me, I would almost exclusively be targeting quarterbacks in FL, GA, TX, CA, etc. There might be some very talented guys in Illinois (J.J. McCarthy) or elsewhere in the midwest/northeast, but the elite quarterbacks in the NFL all come from down south or out west. Drew Brees (TX), Matt Stafford (TX), Deshaun Watson (GA), Tom Brady (CA), Lamar Jackson (FL), etc. Off the top of my head, the only top guys I can think of who aren't from the south/southwest/west coast are Matt Ryan and Carson Wentz.
April 14th, 2020 at 10:22 AM ^
I've always thought this was a huge headwind for M vs. OSU. This year is certainly an outlier but the depth and talent compared to Ohio doesn't feel close. There are a lot more HS football players in Ohio than in Michigan. Not to mention that Michigan has to fend off Sparty at times while OSU has no in state competition. I realize both programs skew much more national now in how they recruit, but if Michigan could get the top five Ohio kids each year as opposed to the top five Michigan kids, I feel like they'd perform better.
April 14th, 2020 at 10:31 AM ^
Right. I think that's where some people's perceptions get skewed with the M/MSU vs. OSU/Cincinnati thing. Michigan fans/alums want Michigan to recruit the state better, but if Michigan has to split in-state allegiances with MSU and then defend itself from invaders, there's just no way. We can look at Kalen King, Kobe King, and Jaylen Reed and get really angry, but when we look back in five years, odds are probably that 1 will be decent, 1 will not play much, and 1 will switch positions/transfer/quit.
(In this specific instance, I would be surprised if Kalen/Kobe split up, so they'll either transfer together, stay together, etc., and maybe the fact that they're all friends will keep them together for 4-5 years.)
April 14th, 2020 at 10:57 AM ^
The idea that MSU is a problem is mostly horse shit. They get like one guy Michigan truly wants every 3 years. ND and OSU get more top end guys out of Michigan than MSU does. OSU isn't impressive because they don't have to worry about Cincinnati, its because schools like Michigan, ND, and Bama rarely if ever come in and get the top guy from Ohio.
April 14th, 2020 at 11:24 AM ^
I think it's a little deeper than that. If you grow up in a family that loves MSU and hates Michigan, going to Notre Dame or Ohio State might be a more palatable option than picking U of M.
I've never met or heard of someone who likes Cincinnati and hates OSU. I'm sure that person exists, but I'm also sure it's in a smaller number than what you see in Michigan between UM/MSU.
P.S. Imagine no MSU existed, and "the place to be" in Michigan was the University of Michigan. There would be no "Michigan State legacies" who weren't an option at all. There would be no allegiances to any other P5 university, only MAC programs. There are people like Cody White, Malik McDowell, the Bullough brothers, Kenny Willekes, Tyriq Thompson, Antjuan Simmons, who would find their way to Michigan's campus in some way, shape, or form (scholarship, grayshirt, walk-on, etc.).
April 14th, 2020 at 11:52 AM ^
The last in-state class for MSU recruiting was been really bad in-state, but before that they were getting 1 or 2 guys Michigan really wanted among top in-state players pretty much every year.
April 14th, 2020 at 10:35 AM ^
It's funny because if you look back at history, people would say, at the time, this player or that player was a stud or an all B1G caliber player. The same for this year. We don't have any idea how these players will turn out. Statistically only 4 - 6 will be very good, and history says 1 or 2 will be players you don't expect. I guarantee All of Spindler, Edward's, Benny, Payne, Dellinger, King, El-Hadid, and Reed will not be starters. It's just the way it works out, no matter where they go.
April 14th, 2020 at 11:53 AM ^
Yep. That's why, in a discussion on Twitter, I posted a picture of the top prospects in the state for 2017. Michigan landed the top 6. That group included Donovan Peoples-Jones, Ambry Thomas, Josh Ross, Jaylen Kelly-Powell, Corey Malone-Hatcher, and Deron Irving-Bey. Half of those guys contributed nothing significant, and two never played a down. DPJ underachieved, Thomas didn't really do anything until year 3, and Ross was pretty good in 2018 but got injured in 2019.
So out of 24 potential seasons of productivity (6 players x 4 years of eligibility each), Michigan might get 7 productive seasons (2 for DPJ, perhaps 2 for Thomas, perhaps 3 from Ross) out of those guys. That's probably not specific to in-state recruits, but it just shows that even when you get the top half-dozen guys in the state, the return on investment is still very limited.
April 14th, 2020 at 10:23 AM ^
Teirs:
1) TX, CA, FL,
2) GA, OH, LA, AL,
3) TN, AR, PA, VA, NC, OK, etc, etc, MI in this group (top half) with IL, NJ? Could certainly stratify this group a ton
4) NY, WA, AZ, MN, IN, IA
5) VT, AK, ME, MT, RI etc
April 14th, 2020 at 11:23 AM ^
GA should be in the top group. Crazy talent per capita and overall.
MD/DC and NJ generally have some 5* type talent.
April 14th, 2020 at 11:53 AM ^
WA is the west coast NJ. No depth whatsoever but they inexplicably churn out a disproportionate number of 5 stars.
A WA 5 star comes in three shapes:
1) Some overcoached prep phenom QB (usually with last name Tuiasosopo or Huard)
2) 350lb Polynesian DT with long hair
3) Sasquatch white kid 6'8" OT
I digress.
April 14th, 2020 at 10:24 AM ^
Michigan certainly does not produce enough talent to support one D1 school hoping to be elite. Neither does Ohio, and I'd say there are only about 5 states that could make that claim.
I think the perceived recruiting laziness of the staff in taking lower ranked guys from New England early on is where the griping comes from. Taking these guys and letting comparable or better ranked (I know ratings aren't 100% perfect) in-state guys go to PSU, OSU, and Wisconsin and have success is doubly sucky.
April 14th, 2020 at 10:40 AM ^
"Taking these guys and letting comparable or better ranked (I know ratings aren't 100% perfect) in-state guys go to PSU, OSU, and Wisconsin and have success is doubly sucky."
This is where things get really murky, IMO, so it's tough to look at specific cases instead of generalities. A 3-star LB from metro Detroit just might not fit as well at Michigan, culturally, as a 3-star LB from Massachusetts. Maybe it's the coaches or the academics or whatever, but Michigan is getting more out of Kwity Paye (RI) than Deron Irving-Bey (MI). There's no way for us to know ahead of time, because we're not examining their transcripts, talking to their high school coaches, sitting in their living rooms, etc. But this is where the "trust the coaches" thing is extremely relevant.
April 14th, 2020 at 11:21 AM ^
Agree on that Magnus. If we can't see the coaches Big Board, assuming they even have one, it is impossible to know who the top priorities are.
I still do not understand why the staff accepts some of these early commitments, though, when it seems like there has to be players with more upside on their list.
Appreciate your posts and TTB.
April 14th, 2020 at 12:00 PM ^
The biggest “trust the coaches” aspect for me definitely comes into play when we’re looking at them taking lower ranked guys from the northeast. We’ve done very well in the area (and nationally for that matter) so far in turning under the radar guys into very good players with NFL upside.
Pretty much every “hello” post features an disclaimer that the scouts either haven’t evaluated or haven’t fully evaluated. I guess I’ll trust the coaches who HAVE evaluated
April 14th, 2020 at 12:01 PM ^
The Massachusettes example brings up an interesting point and led me to this conclusion: UM's culture doesn't always match the culture of the top in-state talent.
Our culture meshes better with east coast and a certain type of wholesome midwest kid.
Ohio State's culture better aligns with the culture of the talent that surrounds them.
April 14th, 2020 at 10:25 AM ^
No, this is why recruiting in NJ, and to a lesser extent states like CT/MA, has become critical. They have to add the top talent from those states and others to compete with OSU. I've felt that was the case for a long time.
April 14th, 2020 at 10:26 AM ^
It isn't that we should focus on instate but the recruiting concern is how late we get in on many of the big time in state recruits and even regional recruits. The recruits listed this year or a few last year and years before.
Michigan could easily land 5-9 in state kids per year up to 12 in banner years and be just fine esp when you consider who is going elsewhere that we are missing. The biggest issue I have is there is no way they should not have been on big timers like Payne or Rogers last year, the couple oline the year before that.
There were plenty of reasons to not be in on a guy like Rogers. Reportedly there was lot of red flags from him, hence the fact that we weren’t the only school to back off of on his recruitment.
As for Payne, he’s been a lost cause for a long time. Its well known that he wants to leave the state, whether it be OSU or the SEC. As much as YOU like Michigan, you have to realize that not all of these kids (or their inner circle for that matter) feel the same way. Some kids want to leave home for college. It happens. It doesn’t matter what Michigan does, Payne wasnt/isn’t interested. There’s no point in wasting the time and resources to change his mind. There are kids like that all the time. It happens. Move on.
“There’s no way Michigan shouldn’t have been in on these guys,” is easy for you to say from your couch. A lot of things go on during a recruitment. A lot of things change. A lot goes into it from an evaluation, academics, fit, and culture standpoint. None of which you know about because all you know is where a recruiting site ranks a kid. Let the coaches do their job.
April 14th, 2020 at 10:38 AM ^
There's definitely some there, particularly at places like Cass Tech that churn out top-250 guys on a regular basis. But is there enough to field a team that can compete on an annual basis? Much less beat OSU? No, there isn't. I doubt there's even enough guys in Ohio for OSU to field half of the kind of team they expect to have now.
I definitely understand the idea of wanting your best instate players to stay home and play locally, but if you want a team with the talent level and depth to go toe-to-toe with OSU's depth chart, you'd best also be looking in Florida, Georgia, Texas, California, Maryland, NJ and PA. Because that is where OSU is going, and they are absolutely cleaning up on the recruiting trail. They don't recruit Ohio the same way Tressel used to, mostly because they don't have to now that Meyer opened them up to the rest of the country.
I personally don't really give a shit where the players come from. Harbaugh could field his team from kids solely from Mongolia, Tanzania and Turkmenistan for all I care. Just find kids who can beat OSU.
April 14th, 2020 at 10:50 AM ^
I disagree that this is a waste of time. I really appreciate you writing this Magnus. Gives a realistic expectation of what is coming out of the state and adds a little kudos to JH for recognizing that fact and going elsewhere.
Not asking for this from you Magnus(unless you want to) but I'd be VERY curious to see this and compare with some other midwest states.
April 14th, 2020 at 10:56 AM ^
I did some quick research, between '15-'20 Ohio averaged 13 players with 4* or better in 247 composite. Michigan averaged 8 players. Ok, that is sort of significant, but when you look at how many each school gets maybe not so much.
Between the 2 states, OSU got on average 5.7 four * or better players and UM got 3.9 players. If you tell me that 1.8 four * players per year out of a ~25 player class makes a huge difference you are nuts.
Talent that makes a difference is found all around the country. I'm ok taking late reaches in Michigan, but we need to get more high end talent from around the country.
April 14th, 2020 at 10:59 AM ^
The answer is obviously 42. That's how much talent there is in Michigan.
April 14th, 2020 at 11:03 AM ^
I don't care about Michigan too much. It's obviously not enough to field a quality P5 program on its own. I'm much more concerned about how it feels we are locked out of Ohio right now. Feels like Michigan football goes with how well we recruit the midwest and esp Ohio. You can only recruit Georgia and Florida so well as a 9 win program
April 14th, 2020 at 11:07 AM ^
Here's what a certain kind of MGoBlogger knows:
Back in 2009 DickRod focused his efforts on out-of-state players. All that got Michigan was a bunch of bums like Denard and Taylor Lewan. He also pissed off all the high school football coaches in Michigan. All of them. As a result Dantonio LOCKED DOWN THE STATE. A trove of 4-star and 5-star Michiganders went to MSU and only then did they start kicking Michigan's ass. Hoke reversed the flow in 2012 and then we started kicking MSU's ass. Simple. It was all DickRod's fault.
April 14th, 2020 at 11:12 AM ^
Thanks for working on this Magnus. It’s interesting to look back after the fact at this stuff as I really tend only to think about rankings in a future-looking way when considering issues like fencing the state. Ultimately I think we will find that for any stretch of years it’s be hard to build a killer team from this states talent.
the top players from around the country are going to OSU and Bama. Their overall team talent rankings just dwarf Michigan. They have also been running systems that out their players in a position to succeed and developing their talent to at least get out of them what they were projected to be.
then the cycle feeds into itself.
michigan may not be that far away with their current coaching staff, systems and talent but as it stands that gap is enough to seem insurmountable without a couple things magically falling into place
April 14th, 2020 at 11:16 AM ^
Less talent than Ohio, Pennsylvania, or California. More than Wyoming.
April 14th, 2020 at 11:30 AM ^
This is good stuff Magnus. Your work is appreciated. I'm anxious to see if the talent is spread out across the state or more limited to certain areas. Do elite players matchup against other elite players often to better prepare them for what they will encounter at the collegiate level, or do they dominate lesser competition? These discussions can go in many different directions. From the quality of youth programs, to the caliber of high school coaching. Is participation drastically dropping off in recent years. I'm a NE Ohio native, so I don't get a chance to follow much high school ball in MI.
April 14th, 2020 at 11:44 AM ^
The talent is very much concentrated in and around Detroit. There are some players from southwestern and western Michigan, along with the Traverse City area, but the vast majority of these players are coming from Detroit and the surrounding counties. From a land area perspective, it's pretty astounding that the State of Michigan gets pretty much zilch from the Upper Peninsula or really anywhere in the upper half of the Lower Peninsula except for Traverse City. There are virtually zero prospects from Manistee, Alpena, Cheboygan, Mackinac City, Petoskey, Munising, Marquette, Escanaba, etc.
Geographically, about 25% of the state produces probably 95% of the top prospects.
Yes, I realize this is largely because of population and population density, but out of the states that produce decent talent - so not WY, ID, RI, MT, ND, SD, etc. - I don't know that any or many others have such wide swaths of unproductive real estate when it comes to producing athletic talent.
Do you know Carlos?