Michigan at the Combine and What it means for Recruiting

After the combine dust has settled, I talked to a few people about the state of Michigan football. Obviously, we had the largest contingent of players there and a lot of them put on a really strong performance, including DPJ and Ruiz. I’m happy to answer questions about those guys and where they’re projected to go in the comments, or anything else that people would want answered. But for this post I want to recount what was told to me by a few folks about guys Michigan evaluated and missed on. Their argument was that if Michigan could have landed a few more of these guys (regardless of rankings) that it would have made the difference. I still contend that QB play is the biggest factor, but they mentioned that Michigan needed 1 or 2 more big time guys to make the step up. They specifically mentioned Isiah Simmons as one name.

Michigan’s evals have been on-point. Now the biggest argument that was made is that we need to close some of these battles better, but we have been in on some of the names that have absolutely blown up, most were 3-star guys actually. I don’t remember all the specifics of these recruitments, but Michigan had ID’d and these guys below all had them in their top 3 (and some of them were committed).

Michigan got swooped: Each had their own reasoning.

Isiah Simmons: Michigan was all over him early, due to Jim’s connections in the Kansas area. Clemson came on late and swiped him, and the rest is history. He’s the literal definition of what you want a Viper to be.

Willie Gay: I think this worked out best for Michigan, since he ran into some academic trouble at Miss St. But man, they think he’s going to be a good NFL player as a modern day, 3 down LB.

Meckhi Becton: This has been talked about many times but a dropped ball by Drevno and an opportunistic Louisville. Him at RT would have made our OL.

Isiah Wilson: Also been talked about, but him at LT and Beckton at RT would have allowed Runyan to kick inside.

Michigan got in early, evaluated, but lost a race or were full at the position: All these guys Michigan got in on early and recruited hard, but for some reason weren’t able to land.

Eno Benjamin

Dalton Keene

Khalid Kareem

Darnay Holmes

Jordan Fuller

Committed/Signed, but got away: We all know what happened here, but wanted to list them in their own category.

Brian Cole

AJ Dillon

Devin Asiasi

Jordan Elliott

There were a lot more that I left off the list that I don't know if we had a realistic shot at landing, but these guys are all going to play in the NFL. And aside from Wilson, Elliott, and Holmes they weren’t 5-star guys. What that tells me is that we’re doing a really good job of identifying talent and I think this portends well for the next few years. If Michigan pulls in a Becton and a Simmons that could have very well taken us to the next level.

There were a few guys that Michigan missed out on this year that I think may come back to bite us. Mitchell Melton is going to be a stud for OSU and we’re gonna look back at that one. Xavier Watts is going to be a really good player for ND. Obviously, Theo Johnson for PSU. And the last guy is Noah Nelson for OU. We were in the top 3 for all of them, and besides Theo none of those guys were High 4/5 stars, but these are the players that Michigan is going to have to keep battling and signing in order to take the next step.