4* NJ CB Jaeden Gould crystal ball flips to PSU
Sam Webb, Steve Lorenz, and Brian Dohn all flipped their crystal balls from Michigan to Penn State yesterday. Gould is a 2022 CB out of New Jersey's Bergen Catholic and an assumed signee in this class for some time now. #16 CB in the country to 247, #17 composite.
Not great, Bob.
Seems like Michigan cooled on him. Whenever Will Johnson mentions a DB, it's everyone but Gould. They have some pretty good DB's in their sights. It's been said he's coming off a knee injury. Not worried.
There will be blowback because so much seems to be negative, but this is spot on. Gould would be committed if he was a priority and the communication about other recruits spells it out pretty clearly.
I'll be honest, i viewed this as negative. I perceived it as Gould not liking the new coaching moves at face value. Very well could be the other way around though i guess.
Reading between the lines in a lot of the recruiting recaps going back months, even before the shakeup of the D staff, it has seemed that Gould has wanted to jump on a chance to join the class more so than the staff has wanted to let him.
The initial kneejerk reaction whenever a kid flips crystal balls is that we did something wrong and he is looking at better options.....no one ever considers maybe the staff just doesn't want him as much as someone else. Admittedly I do it myself......perhaps when we start winning and playing to realistic expectations then this narrative can evolve in people's mindsets as well.
This actually makes sense in the current scenario, without pulling the "we passed on him" cop out. Don Brown's staff was probably high on him. Perhaps McDonald and Clink had other guys higher on the board.
If Michigan cools on a player, you can bet they will be awesome for someone else. If Michigan wins a tough recruiting battle for a top 50 player, you can assume that player will not deliver on the hype. I hate that negative, BPONE thinking but I swear it’s a pattern these days.
It appears he just wasn't a "goulden" in the eyes of the staff as many thought.
Is this a "Trust the Coaches" moment?
This sounds like it was "Gould" for both parties that they go their separate ways.
Wow, heard this damn phrase for the last 6 years. Not sure I'm still as trusting as I once was.
You are also at the point where you would find a reason to complain if Harbaugh tied his shoes with a double knot instead of a single knot.
Well Jmer, Coach needs to get shorter shoe strings in that case. That is just wasted effort. I've done the math (trust me). It takes, on average, 2.37 additional seconds to double knot a single shoe. Coach is wasting NEARLY 5 SECONDS a day on this frivolous activity. That is 5 extra seconds he could be recruiting or game planning.
So, in summation, the reason we went 2-4 last season can be linked directly to Coach's predilection towards double knots. Thank you for your time.
Did anyone else just try to double knot their shoes to see if the 2.37 seconds was accurate? No? Just me?
Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I was able to shave my time down to a very respectable 2.26 seconds. Coach needs to step his game up.
Is the time ripe for Velcro™-strap shoes to make a comeback?
I do believe they make cleats with Velcro, so Coach should really get in on that
I would normally agree that double knots are a crazy persons game. Although, I think double knots when wearing cleats is preferred. I’ll give him a pass on this one.
Actually, that would be one of the few things he does correctly as I am a double-knotter from way back, assuming we exclude the boat shoes as very hard to do that with the leather laces.
From what I remember, Gould was considered a safety-corner tweener and more of Don Brown type corner. Add in the knee injury and it makes sense why we may have cooled on him
Well, he's a top 150 guy. Not like some flyer that only works in some quirky Brown configuration. Not the end of the world, but I'm sure everyone here would have been happy to have had him.
I doubt he stays in the 150 range. Word is PSU wants him to camp before they consider him a real take.
Michigan isn't even listed as warm for him, I read Notre Dame dropped him off their board entirely, and someone else said that his offer with PSU is dependent on a camp visit. That sounds like a guy who is about to take a massive ratings drop.
Not to knock the kid but he also started his time on the 247 ranking as the #23 player in the country, then fell to 96th, now #145. So it's been a bit of a fall for him. I don't know how much of that is due to just jostling of recruit rankings as the year progressed but a 100+ spot drop (and a down-grading by score as well) likely means there might be something beyond coaching incompetence by UM here.
Seems like it's more of Michigan not being as interested in him as Penn State is and Michigan recruiting other targets more.
They still have Will Johnson and he's still trying hard to get Domani in the fold. Don't know if that happens, but Michigan will be fine. Trust Clink
I wish news like this made me feel any sort of emotion anymore. Now I just shrug at the status quo.
Is this your standard response now? We heard you say the same thing the other day.
"I have nothing to say" he says
Yeah, I C/P'd for a joke. I guess it's too accurate to be funny.
Or maybe, just maybe, it isn't funny.
Hate hearing our fans say we cooled on a guy just to lessen the sting. Screw that. A talented kid that had a great relationship with us is now suddenly headed somewhere else. That sucks donkey dick
How do you know that this feels like sucking donkey dick?
Literally LOL’d. Some spittle got on my phone!
He spends a lot of time in Tijuana
It does seem that the relationship was mainly with some of the previous staff. Sam and 24/7 have definitely been mentioning him less in general, and that usually does mean the staff has cooled - either because they like someone else more or because they think their chances have significantly dropped.
From all of the talk about him, it sounds like they like Myles Pollard more. Clinkscale was his first offer, and the kid was interested in Michigan prior to his hire. From the things I've read, it sounds like Will Johnson talks to him frequently and they have a pretty good bond forming.
I know you just want to bitch about stuff, so you wont give this another thought, but, if you have read between the lines in most of the recruiting reports on this very site, its been pretty strongly hinted at that Gould has wanted to be part of the class but UM hasnt wanted him to join just yet. And also that the staff, even before the shakeup with Clink, has rated some other targets higher.
Gould seems to be a solid player, so maybe this will suck donkey dick in the end, but also maybe you dont have to get all cheezed off about it yet or flip out on people being reasonable about what happened.
Don't want to brighten your BPONE but he did not seem to be a top priority of the new staff. Maybe "cooled" is less accurate than "found others that have jumped up the board" and "new staff more willing to fight through difficult recruitments"..
I am sure he will be a quality player in college and would prefer him to choose a non-B1G location if he doesn't come to M but.....
--Sam Webb was noting that the staff thought he "also had potential at nickel or safety" as far back as mid-2020 which leads me to believe he wasn't near the top of the list as a true corner. Maybe Gould wants assurances of a corner spot they are not yet willing to promise.
-- Gould appears to be an "early bloomer" who is also at a high-profile school which suggests that his ranking has probably already reached its Acme--only magnified imo in a year where a large chunk of kids will be under scouted and not ranked accurately due to Covid. -- I may be showing my scars here but I clearly remember landing "potential 5-stars" Marvin Robinson and Ricardo Miller early in the 2010 cycle that seem to have similar profiles to Gould as recruits. They both ended up (still over-ranked) in the 250 range at the end of that cycle
-- The new staff sees other corners that they clearly favor i.e. Pollard from TN (and the D. Jackson lingering hope) and also has several top prospects for safety including Tatum and Mangham that would have added benefit of building up in-state recruiting / hurting MSU.
TLDR -- Old staff preferred "easy" recruitments which pushed him high on the early lists, he is very likely overranked at this stage (though still a very good prospect), staff has found others they like better and always thought of him a more of a tweener than a true outside corner.
I had forgotten all about Marvin Robinson - was he ‘prison abs’ or am I mixing him up with someone else
I don't remember the "prison abs" part but I think he was definitely one of the early "OMG shirtless" recruits in my tenure.
"Marvin Robinson's almost disturbingly chiseled abs"
https://mgoblog.com/content/2010-recruiting-marvin-robinson
Prison ab's was the safety out of Cass Tech. I can't remember his name.
Thomas Gordon
That’s him - solid recall there
Good call - it was Thomas Gordon (had to look it up).
I believe Josh Furman was Prison Abs.
https://www.maizenbrew.com/2011/5/3/2150917/remember-me-josh-furman
Super fast, great abs, but didn't quite turn out to be the beast we hoped for.
Obviously you want as many lottery tickets as possible, but if UM is in on other guys I can see some jostling with recruits. I do trust that the staff now knows what they're looking for.
Just further affirmation that the BPONE is deepest in the secondary.
Never forget
?♂️ Whatever. We should all be used to this by now.
Hopefully UM can land some of the other highly rated CBs they have on their radar.