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Monday Recruitin' Swaps Shirts
Ace •

The 2017 recruiting board was updated heading into the weekend. Meanwhile, I'm taking off for vacation tomorrow and will be out until next Wednesday. Naturally, today's send-off roundup is one of the longest of the year.

D-Tackle Out Of Nowhere

There was very good reason nobody saw Aubrey Solomon's commitment coming. Solomon didn't even initially plan on being in Ann Arbor last weekend; he was supposed to be on an unofficial visit to Alabama. He told Sam Webb that once he got to Michigan and found out he had an offer, things moved quickly from there:

“I came into Michigan not knowing that I had an offer,” Solomon said. “Once I found that out it really changed everything.  Then seeing what they could do for me in the future, like 10-20 years after football, I just fell in love with it. It wasn't just football, it was ‘what would I do for the rest of my life after football?’"

Solomon credited Chris Partridge and Jim Harbaugh for convincing him Michigan was the place to be.

The commitment of Solomon's 2018 teammate, Otis Reese, came as far less of a shock; Reese had previously named Michigan as his leader and he has ties to the area—his older brother is a redshirt freshman receiver at Central Michigan. Reese described the scene when he and Solomon committed to Webb:

"(Solomon) was feeling it but he kind of shocked me,” said Reese.  “I didn't know he was going to commit."

"Coach Harbaugh was on the phone with my mom and we were talking about my commitment. Aubrey got on the phone talking to his mom and he said he wanted to commit. It was just like the whole room was lit… full happy emotions. They were jumping around. Actually my receiver coach (who brought them up on the visit) and Coach Harbaugh traded shirts. Coach Harbaugh still has (Lee County) shirt on, and my coach has his on.  It was just a happy moment and it was a blessing."

Michigan nearly added another commitment on the weekend. Three-star CT OT Andrew Stueber impressed the coaches at camp enough to pull in an offer, and in the aftermath Steuber told 247's Steve Wiltfong that Michigan is "the one to beat" in his recruitment. Based on what Sam tweeted over the weekend, it sounds like Steuber will join the class as soon as he can get his mom to campus.

[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the roundup.]

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Monday Recruitin' Is Functional
Ace •

Extremely Good Drew Singleton Update

Last week's roundup covered an apparent split in intel on top-100 NJ OLB Drew Singleton; while insiders at Scout and 247 believe Michigan is out in front by a considerable margin, Rivals said Clemson is a "safe leader."

Over the weekend, Sam Webb published a two-part interview with Singleton's father, and what's on the record looks quite good for Michigan. The first part is free and features Mr. Singleton discussing the recent visits to Ann Arbor and Clemson. Compare what he had to say about Clemson's academics...

(Dabo Sweeney) graduates a lot of his kids. A lot of people may not know his record, he knows how many seniors he has. If I'm not mistaken (out of) 135 seniors, he's graduated 129. That's pretty impressive to me. He's getting kids graduating and not with just any type of degree… (they’re) graduating where they can be a functional adult with a good education and doing something other than football if that's the case. Of course, it's a great football program and he's got a lot of guys playing at the next level or going to the next level. It's awesome. It was just impressive.

...to what he said about Michigan's:

It is what they say it is and more. Once you get there, they just took it to a whole different level academically. I met with (Ross School of Business Director of Outreach Programs) Rhonda Todd.  She handles a lot of things and helps incoming freshmen with how to prepare for and apply to the Ross Business School, which is one of the top business schools in the country. It was awesome. That stuff really stood out for my wife and I. We know football is going to be good. You've got Jim Harbaugh, Don Brown, Tyrone Wheatley… (football) is going to take care of itself. But the other part, the other intangibles, I was just blown away along with my wife. That really stuck with us and we're still talking about it now. Very good.  Extremely good.

That seems good. Very good. Extremely good, even. In part two of the interview, the elder Singleton said that while the tentative plan is to commit to a school on October 25th, "it may not go that far." Even though Singleton plans to take more visits, Michigan looks like they're in great shape.

[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the roundup.]

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