jerod smith

Michigan has piled up EDGE commitments in recent weeks, today's Hello representing the fourth such post we've had to do since mid-June. The class filled up in a hurry and Connecticut 4* Jacob Smith is the final piece to that quartet. The twin brother of DT commit Jerod Smith, Jacob took his time and dabbled with other suitors before finally joining Jerod in Michigan's 2024 class. 

GURU RATINGS 

Jacob Smith is a 4* prospect to three of the four outlets. 247 and Rivals are right in line with each other, having Smith just inside the top 250, while ESPN and On3 are on opposite ends. ESPN pegs Smith as a top 100 prospect, while On3 has him in 3* territory. The average is a consensus 4*, the 247 composite being higher than On3's consensus due to how they weight their own rankings. Jacob's rankings are not too different from Jerod's, but ESPN, On3, and Rivals are higher on Jacob, while 247 is higher on Jerod. As for the measurements, Smith is between 6'4 and 6'5 in height and between 225 and 235 according to the various sites.  

[AFTER THE JUMP: Another J. Smith defensive tweener]

Ah, the good ol' days. Remember those days? Don Brown would roam around the Northeast, punking Notre Dame for underrated DE/DT tweeners who play against law firms on the sets of Harry Potter movies, but only after Brian Dohn and wonderful Irish reporters like Tim Prister and Kevin Sinclair left us with our fill of detailed and accurate scouting?

Those days are gone. Behind the colonial architecture and hillocks, the Smith Twins are military kids from Kentucky who've lived in Japan, and "go home" to Carolina where their Marine dad is now stationed. They also just switched from one elite boarding school in Connecticut to another. But the Notre Dame interest was real, and went on a very long time, so we've got plenty of that good Prister and Sinclair scouting. And they both think this twin's an Anchor.

GURU RATINGS

Smith and his (fraternal) twin Jacob were early national recruits who traveled to camps all over the country. When the 2024 class debuted a year ago they were rewarded with top-100 rankings. Jerod was a 90 and #55 overall to 247, his brother #72. Those early ranks are always expected to fall as the class reveals itself, and lo Jerod fell to #143 last July, and to #184 at the end of the summer. Around then Jacob started to slid ever so much over his brother, but 247 gave Jerod a bump back to #145 after the junior tape came in. That's since slipped down to what you see above in the last re-rank. Jacob is nearby at #212.

It was a similar adventure on Rivals. Adam Friedman named DL as the strongest position of the 2024 crop, and named Jerod among eight guys who could be a 5-star when the class shakes out, but he was at #210 when they debuted the class, hung around the 220s, and fell out of the top-250 in March. There's nothing written on either from a scouting perspective yet from On3 or ESPN, whose ranking dates back to an Alabama-Georgia swing last summer.

Michigan didn't offer the twins until early January of this year, by which point they had already taken over 20 visits, including three to Alabama and two to Notre Dame, who was expecting to wrap up those recruitments any day.

[AFTER THE JUMP: Prister and Sinclair go to work]