Question About Lower Rated Recruits and Their Recruitment

Submitted by maizeonblueaction on
I remember this summer when Harbaugh and co. started offering lower rated recruits in camps, and people we had never heard of started filling up the class, and some people got upset, while others said to have patience, trust Harbaugh, etc. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, I'm left with a question: Since it seems like a few of the lower rated guys are being de facto dropped from the class, either bylack of contact or other means, and potentially being replaced by higher rated guys anyway, why did we offer in the first place when we did? I don't mean this to be a judgement on either the players or the coaching regime, I just don't see why this is a "better" strategy for either the school or recruits than what most other places do, which is get as many nationally ranked guys as you can early, then start filling up with lower rated guys as the Plan A guys fall through. It just feels a bit odd giving a guy an offer to Michigan, and then potentially cooling on him and pushing him elsewhere or asking him to greyshirt when he thinks he has a real, commitable offer and this may have prevented him from seriously considering his other options. Also, doesn't this run some kind of risk of undermining future offers, if we get some kind of reputation as renegers because someone better comes along? Sorry for poor formatting. On my phone.
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Mr Miggle

January 10th, 2016 at 9:11 AM ^

Not a single recruiting analyst nor recruit has even hinted that anyone has been blindsided by a request to greyshirt.  It's not right to pose that as part of the question. Sam Webb said that greyshirting was a possibility for one commit on the day he committed. That's almost certainly because it was part of the offer that was given. I ithink it's more fair to assume that anyone in this class who greyshirts was apprised of that possibility when they were offered.

 

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Double-D

January 10th, 2016 at 9:25 AM ^

I do think the benefit of the headlines of landing recruits helped promote the momentum of the camps. I'm sure Harbaugh and the staff found kids that worked their butt off and had upside and kids like that are good for a program.

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Opinion25

January 10th, 2016 at 12:44 PM ^

I think almost all of us would agree that real grade or behavioral problems are legit reasons to revoke an offer.

Personally, I am also fine with clear, but confidential, deals, "Look kid, we like you, but if we have a chance at an elite recruit at your postion, you may need to grey shirt or look elsewhere, tho having a Michigan offer/commit may help your search esewhere."

Personally, I'm not okay with having a different grade standard for lower recruits, blindsiding with greyshirts or giving the cold shoulder after the fact, even if the SEC does it.

I am definately not okay with going back on a mutually agreed upon hard commit.

Right now, I think we lack sufficient data to know what is happening.

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C-Bar

January 10th, 2016 at 4:44 AM ^

just curious but has the 'stop contacting' recruits been confirmed by the staff as its practice or is it at present, one side's experience / perception of what has occurred? curious cuz aren't the staff not allowed to talk about recruits or does that include recruiting practices too? without that confirmation it does seem we nay be passing judgment on assumptions. (but then again if this question has already been resolved then just ignore this post).

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Hail Harbo

January 10th, 2016 at 10:24 AM ^

There is nothing preventing a recruit from claiming an offer was made when no offer has been extended.  I would be naive to think coaches don't talk to each other but that doesn't mean a player wouldn't try to leverage actual offers by claiming offers not extended.

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Maize in Cincy

January 10th, 2016 at 1:35 AM ^

I think it's a combination of Harbaugh underestimating how much top tier talent would be interested so quickly and also him wanting to make a splash with his camps.  If he didn't offer and get some recruits from those trips it wouldn't have been such a national story.

I'm sure they feel bad about having to force out some of those guys but that shouldn't have to happen from here on out.  Hopefully it doesn't happen every year, I agree it doesn't look the greatest but then again you see kids decommitting all the time too.

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Gentleman Squirrels

January 10th, 2016 at 1:59 AM ^

Agreed. I think Harbaugh was expecting another bottom up rebuilding at Michigan like at Stanford where he had to get feisty 3 star recruits. Once he realized that he could compete and win for some blue chip recruits the priorities changed. I hope that we don't take early commitments from lower rated prospects this early too often. There are of course those underrated prospects which is completely understandable




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WolverineMaize93

January 10th, 2016 at 1:39 AM ^

Simple, there are hundreds of underrated recruits out there that get overlooked or don't have the opportunity to showcase their abilities. The satellite camps allowed our coaches to get a first hand look at these kids (which is why the $EC coaches got butt hurt) and they obviously liked what they saw. If you look at these "lower rated" kids, they are much better than their original ranking, but they went overlooked by most websites. Especially in states like Florida, where there are much more school and prospects to look at. Very easy for a kid to get overlooked.

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WolverineMaize93

January 10th, 2016 at 11:40 AM ^

How exactly are we dumping lower rates recruits? Viramontes decommitted because of his Cal offer. That LB that decommitted (I forgot his name) was recruited under Hoke and Harbaugh didn't want him. Who is getting dumped? What Osu and Bama does is different, they cut kids after their sophomore year, we dare the standard of college football.

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C-Bar

January 10th, 2016 at 4:51 AM ^

this may have been answered elsewhere but are the scholarship offers just friendly verbal calls actually given without stipulations or are they more of some sort of tiered written package? in other words are these scholarship offers look like financial aid packages in that they are long legalese documents with lots of moving parts in small print? Not passing judgment or opinion here - really don't know what the 'offer' actually looks like.

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evenyoubrutus

January 10th, 2016 at 7:54 AM ^

That's just it. We don't know what is actually said to the guys when they are offered. If recruits are told that they are wanted but they also want to see them have a good senior year or something, or if it's made clear to them at all that things have the potential to change, then I don't see a problem with it. It's not like there are stories of kids completely trashing Harbaugh because he pulled their offer or something.

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Magnus

January 10th, 2016 at 8:06 AM ^

All offers are "verbal" until August 1 of a player's senior year. So even Rashan Gary could not be "formally" offered until August 1, 2015. However, nothing is final until a player receives written National Letter of Intent paperwork, which then must be faxed to and accepted by the school.

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Princetonwolverine

January 10th, 2016 at 7:36 AM ^

if we honored all offers aren't we at risk of having a class size of 100+? 

One of the things I admired about Hoke was that he wrapped up classes early and both he and the "commits" (not just offerees) honored their word in almost every case. 

I'm not sure it was to our maximum benefit in terms of getting top talent but we ended up with highly ranked classes.

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Magnus

January 10th, 2016 at 8:09 AM ^

What about if the player gets caught being involved in gang activity? What if he gets kicked off of his high school football team for cussing out the coach? What if he quits the team because he's not getting the ball enough? What if he totally bombs in school and has a 1.8 GPA his senior year? Should he still have his offer honored? Because those are stipulations.

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GoBlueNorth

January 10th, 2016 at 10:52 AM ^

My original post in this thread referred to the recruit who is offered, commits (albeit verbally) and does all the right this his senior year. I believe that the letter I posted discussed the maintenance of NCAA and academic requirements. Other letters I found were more specific about conduct/character or stated that part of the reason for the offer was a combination of all of those things which in my opinion would be a good reason to pull the offer.

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