Steve Wiltfong criticizes Michigan FB recruiting
From Allen Trieu's podcast Notorious B1G also transcribed on the 247 board.
“They haven’t filled (Patridge's) role, and we’ll see who they fill it with because Michigan is one of those schools where assistant coach recruiters are incredibly important because they don’t recruit in the same traditional way that almost every other program that we cover does,” Wiltfong said. “There’s not recruiting meetings. There’s just a lot on the assistant coaches’ plates to go out in their territories or in their position rooms and find guys they think are good enough to help Michigan win championships.
“Chris Partridge was a guy that wasn’t afraid to go into SEC country with his winged helmet logo on his golf shirt and go toe-to-toe for big-time guys and try to get them to come to Michigan. He had some big wins. He also had some close losses. I mean, Willie Gay was a guy who had Michigan in his top two. Otis Reese is a guy who had Michigan in his top two. He really got after it and worked.”
In general, Wiltfong didn’t feel like the Wolverines were recruiting at a championship level with Partridge. He felt Ohio State and Penn State made it more of a priority, so losing Partridge could only widen that gap.
“I just don’t think, collectively, this staff is recruiting at a level to win a national championship across the board,” Wiltfong said. “It’s a blow losing a guy in Partridge, who I feel like is one of your best recruiters when the emphasis on recruiting at Michigan isn’t the same as it is at Ohio State and Penn State right now. We’re starting to see it on the field.”
January 8th, 2020 at 6:43 PM ^
who cares what that bag oif wind thinks or says?
January 8th, 2020 at 6:53 PM ^
Totally, why listen to the national 247 recruiting director when you can listen to someone named "Maize4Life" tell that its really because of online classes and bagman, as if college football programs haven't been cheating for decades and that's the only reason UM is losing because it can't possibly be be because of anything we are doing wrong. And before you respond to that, Allen Trieu chimed in on that thread and confirmed everything Wiltfong said is true.
Like they don't even have recruiting meetings are you fucking kidding me Jim Harbaugh? No wonder Ohio State keeps bending you over and tapping that ass.
I mean is anyone really surprised by this? OSU wins because they win on signing day. They have 9 top 100 recruits this year, we have 1. Hoke was signing top 5 classes but it's just too much to ask Harbaugh to do apparently.
Sean Magee is a problem who needs replaced. Zordich is lazy and doesn't hardly recruit. Same goes for McDaniels. Harbaugh is disorganized and has no idea how to properly run a recruiting department. That's how you get shit like Trevor Lawrence being offered twice, Solomon getting thank you letters to events he never attended, and kids losing contact with UM every time a coach leaves.
Great, we are recruiting evenly with PSU, a program that went through "that thing" and who Lloyd Carr didn't lose to for almost 15 years. Yippeee! Now how about our chief rival? Oh they just picked up another top 100 commit tonight and they have the #1 class in 2021. And all people want to do is make excuses for our $7 million dollar coach.
UM is 2-17 against OSU since 2000. When will this fan base demand more and stop making excuses for this coaching staff? Or is this going to be like the basketball program where people said it was impossible to recruit McDonalds AA and then Juwan showed up and made them look stupid.
January 8th, 2020 at 7:06 PM ^
You're not wrong but you'll be downvoted anyway. The Michigan I remember was both an academic and football powerhouse. And our basketball team proves that we can compete even with self-imposed restrictions. It's amazing that we recruited the #1 recruit in the country over a team that's been in the title game like 5 years straight, yet it's too much to ask of the program to recruit a top 5 class every year? Did our recruitment chops die off a few years ago? We compiled a treasure trove of WR talent years ago, but now we should be lucky to be top ten?
The only thing holding back this program from the elite level is ourselves. Penn State (as many posters love to point out) recruits slightly worse than us. Then why are they competing with Ohio so much better? We lose by 29, they lose by 11. Lose by 23 last year, they lose by 1. Lose by 11 the year before, they lose a heart breaker by 1. Lose in 2OT when we should have comfortably been up by 1 or 2 scores with a good QB and an offense not set in the stone age, Penn State WON with a team that we literally blasted off the field. Why can Frames Janklin recover from a blowout to beat the best team in the conference, but we can't?
January 8th, 2020 at 7:11 PM ^
UM has never recruited at the level you demand. It has never performed consistently well vs top tier opponents.
The problem is you people have this fantasy of Michigan that will never be. You just don’t understand the culture of the university at all.
Michigan isn’t changing.
January 8th, 2020 at 7:16 PM ^
Actually this diary proves that in the 90's and early 2000's Michigan was recruiting better than OSU. Good try Sal.
https://mgoblog.com/diaries/can-michigan-recruit-ohio-state%27s-level-without-urban-meyer-picture
January 8th, 2020 at 7:20 PM ^
Maybe it's time we stopped talking about what happened 25 years ago and focus on what we can do now?
Jim Harbaugh did not succeed Lloyd Carr, he succeeded Brady Hoke. He inherited a 5-7 Michigan team. That same year, OSU won the national championship. That's the situation the current staff found itself in. Lloyd did not have to rebuild like that.
January 8th, 2020 at 7:25 PM ^
And look what Nick Saban inherited at Alabama, Bob Stoops at Oklahoma, Urban Meyer at Florida, Jim Tressel at OSU and on down the line. If Brady Hoke can recruit top 5-6 classes at Michigan with multiple 5 stars and top 100 players then why can't Harbaugh? Wiltfong is answering why and no one wants to hear. How about instead of denying its a problem we recognize it is and demand better. This fan base is such a huge part of the problem always bitching about cheating and this and that and never want to admit the problem is Michigan. Fucking sucks.
January 8th, 2020 at 7:46 PM ^
I think the answer is pretty clear 5 years in. Jim Harbaugh isn’t as good as those guys you just named. We were sold on Harbaugh being elite. Unfortunately he just isn’t. He’s good. The AD won’t care unless fans stop buying tickets. If every year keeps ending in the same fashion as the last two something tells me it will start happening sooner than later.
January 9th, 2020 at 9:43 AM ^
I agree with this (Harbaugh good not great) except no one was "sold" on Harbaugh being elite. I've heard Valenti make that argument, which tells you how bad an argument it is. No one promoted or sold Harbaugh to the fans as elite: literally every single football person of substance in America, and all the fans here, believed he was elite and as good as Meyer (or very close). It turns out he's not, he's just a good coach, which isn't good enough.
January 8th, 2020 at 9:51 PM ^
I love hearing the problem is with the fan base. So please tell us oh great one, what can the fan base do to fix the problem? Demand better? I’m sure that’ll go far. Stop going to games or buying merch? Then we’re not good fans for not supporting our team. So what can we do? Harbaugh isn’t calling me for advise and damn sure isn’t calling you.
January 8th, 2020 at 10:06 PM ^
You must have missed how Dave Brandon got fired.
January 8th, 2020 at 10:17 PM ^
Dave Brandon got fired for hiring terrible coaches who couldn’t get bowl eligible which doesn’t fill seats. Those teams were winning 3 and 5 games in a season. As long as Harbaugh wins 9-10 games every year the seats will remain full.
January 9th, 2020 at 7:23 AM ^
Amen. Trying to compare Brandon/Hoke/RR to Harbaugh is laughable.
But yes. We have success now. We should burn it all down on yet another attempt at a lightnin boy coach who will magically fix everything and have us be consistent national title contenders like we never were because some fans are butt hurt and have no sense of perspective.
It’s a bill of Goods.
January 9th, 2020 at 11:29 AM ^
If you guys could drop off some warm delicious pies things would get so much better on the trail.
January 9th, 2020 at 12:04 AM ^
Hoke's average recruiting ranking is 10.0. Harbaugh's is 10.75.
I.e., about the same.
Well said... UM recruited very well under Hoke, and the roster was in good shape when Harbaugh took over (despite the 5-7 record). Face it, despite the same academic standards/entrance requirements, Harbaugh hasn’t recruited at the same level as Hoke. Add to that Ohio has developed their brand, and have taken recruiting through the roof in the Big 10...they sell developing kids for the league, plus life after football as parallel tracks. Michigan’s brand— “Academics”... Michigan hasn’t been a perennial football school since the last century—today’s recruits weren’t even born when we were last relevant... It adds up to butt kickings every year. And thing aren’t getting better. The gap continues to expand under Harbaugh. He is the definition of “insanity”.
January 8th, 2020 at 7:32 PM ^
JH did more with Hoke recruits.
January 9th, 2020 at 7:17 PM ^
Certainly way more than Hoke did with Hoke recruits.
January 8th, 2020 at 10:38 PM ^
Why do people act like Harbaugh is the first coach ever hired at a blue blood program that had to rebuild?
January 9th, 2020 at 8:01 AM ^
Jesus fucking Christ. Stop talking about Hoke. Harbaugh has been here 5 years and his staff is still getting massively out worked.
January 9th, 2020 at 8:47 AM ^
Why are you bringing reality into this thread. So you're saying 5 years - with all of his own recruits - should be enough time for JC Harbaugh ? How dare you !!! I know what will work, Let's give the savior a raise and extend his contract.
January 8th, 2020 at 7:20 PM ^
Which is about where UM is recruiting now. The question is not what OSU is doing, but what UM is doing. Michigan is fine with how the program is operating.
OSU recruits at a higher level now then it did then. That isn’t surprising.
January 9th, 2020 at 6:46 AM ^
The National director with recruiting is voicing his opinion on how things can get better! So if we implement these things then we possibly could recruit at the OSU level. However, there are too many “OSU is just better and will stay that way” thinkers on this board. You can’t expect greatness if you never strive for it! Better recruiters with a “second place is not good enough” attitude may produce better results.
January 9th, 2020 at 8:08 AM ^
I’m fine with getting better and improving.
Harbaugh does that. More so than Hoke, RR, and arguably Carr at the end. He’s changed schemes. He’s changed assistants. He’s always on the lookout for coaching talent. I’m reading overtime right now and it’s amazing the things he does. Can he do more? Sure.
what I’m against is burning it down in the shallow hope a new guy can come in and just “fix” things. Been there, done that, suffered through a near decade of pain where we were MAC school level and regularly getting rogered by MSU.
Harbaugh had to rebuild, and that isn’t unusual. But not all rebuilding jobs are the same. He’s doing it with constraints that hinder instant success. He’s had to rebuild a complete culture. He’s dealing with the loss of Ohio as a recruiting grounds and the diminution of Michigan. And he has done a good job. Period.
Are we where we want to be? Not yet. But his current success and willingness to tweak things argue that he is the safest route to go to get there, rather than firing him and *hoping* we can both get an Uber coach, and that said Uber coach can be successful here.
The “he hasn’t done it burn it all down and get a coach who can beat OSU” argument is based on hope and magical thinking. Hope we can get a guy who is that good and magical thinking that the new guy will just do better. The new coach is a talisman if success.
Sometimes they throw in a false narrative of our history. “We won all the time back in the day!!” It just isn’t true when you consider how recruiting and rules have changed and you see how back in the day a 9 win season (like we often had, despite being allowed far more recruits and arguably having more talent in the state of Michigan) would get us a share of the B1G title and a trip to a major bowl (which we often lost). But that was a successful season.
Nowadays the same (or better) record gets you nothing because the bowls don’t really matter and you can’t share B1G titles anymore.
So yes. He had a rebuilding job. And it was a big one given where we were, what our chief rival was doing while we were imploding with our last lightning boy coach, and the changes in college football. It’s still ongoing. We have a solid base now and a coach who is willing to change to get there.
Burn it down now and the chances are more like we go 3-9 again rather than 11-1; because the environment and challenges won’t change, but we will have a new, unproven guy and another torn up infrastructure.
January 8th, 2020 at 7:42 PM ^
At a time when the services didn’t know what they were doing, and the bust rate was crazy high...
January 8th, 2020 at 7:48 PM ^
Maizen.
January 8th, 2020 at 7:24 PM ^
I do not know why you are always just happy and content being slightly above average and that everything that JH does is the top most we should expect. Michigan football did not start only 5 or 8 years ago, we were a lot better than we are now and GUESS WHAT, those other schools were cheating and had bagmen even back then and we still either beat them and/or out-recruited them.
January 8th, 2020 at 8:53 PM ^
You don't have to be jumping for joy about finishing in the 9-4/10-3 neighborhood but it's probably helpful to be realistic - Michigan has historically finished around that level most of the time. Take a look at our yearly records since 1978, when scholarships were reduced to 95 per team, or 1992 (85 per team).
If you start "demanding" that we make the playoffs regularly, you're probably going to be miserable. Michigan football is pretty good most of the time but not great. It is what it is.
And as the two previous coaching staffs demonstrated, you can also do much worse than this.
January 8th, 2020 at 9:41 PM ^
If just okay is good enough, why do you suppose Michigan is overpaying for it by so much?
January 8th, 2020 at 7:25 PM ^
The problem with that assessment is that from 1969 until 2000, Michigan regularly beat Ohio State and won B1G championships. And during the 90's (which was probably the best decade overall for Michigan football), the program's accomplishments are as impressive as any program in the country.
January 8th, 2020 at 8:46 PM ^
Michigan in the 1990s:
1990 - 9-3
1991 - 10-2
1992 - 9-0-3
1993 - 8-4
1994 - 8-4
1995 - 9-4
1996 - 8-4
1997 - 12-0
1998 - 10-3
1999 - 10-2
Outside of the magical season in '97, we were more good than we were great. To say we were as good as anyone is a stretch. FSU finished in the top 5 every year that decade and Nebraska won multiple national titles.
January 8th, 2020 at 9:34 PM ^
In the 1990's Michigan won a national championship, 5 Big Ten championships, beat Ohio State 7 times, and produced 2 Heisman Trophy winners.
If that's merely good then you must think what is going on now is downright terrible.
January 9th, 2020 at 9:31 AM ^
I was there from '91-96 and in town till '00. The rules were different, allowing B1G co-champs (2 of the five); the B1G was weaker overall, And OSU was good but not at the level they are now; having been able to completely roll after our *last* attempt at bringing in a lightnin' boy coach and taking advantage of our implosion under RR (MODERN OFFENSE! NOT BORING CARR!) and Brandon/Hoke (MICHIGAN MAN! MANBALL!).
Oh, and they took over a mature, non dysfunctional program. When I was there we had ONE double digit win season. ONE. I'm fully convinced that fans nowadays transported to back then would be screaming for Moeller's and Carr's head.
January 9th, 2020 at 8:14 AM ^
Many of which were shared. Which can’t happen now. And OSU really made hay the last time we burned it all down for RR and we are *still* trying to fix that.
another failure could kill Michigan football.
January 8th, 2020 at 9:29 PM ^
Sal, you moron and complete "Harbaugh Apologist". Go look at the freaking teams Carr had his last 4 years. That was close to Bamma level talent. Just loaded and unbelievably full of NFL quality players.
It was Carr's, and apparently your's too, stubborn "Old Michigan" way of thinking that pissed away crazy good talent. His unwillingness to change and stubbornness cost us at least one more shot at another NC. Then, add in his and others actions to torpedo the RR transition and you can begin to see the root behind Michigan's problems.
The problem with "Michigan" is it doesn't think it has a problem. It thinks things are fine. The people in power don't have the guts to make changes and try and become elite...or when they do...the very people in power work to destroy those hired to bring about change.
January 8th, 2020 at 9:37 PM ^
The problem with "Michigan" is it doesn't think it has a problem. It thinks things are fine.
Preach brother preach.
January 8th, 2020 at 10:42 PM ^
Actually, it's not that Carr was unwilling to change; he was just unable. Michigan experimented with spread punts waaaaay back in 2003 when they were still pretty novel; it was a complete disaster. They moved to zone blocking mid-decade, and the result was this:
The problem wasn't that Carr wasn't willing to try new stuff; it's that his staff was incapable of executing that new stuff. They knew how to do certain things well, and they coached the team to do those things well. But there were limits and when they tried to step into new ideas, they struggled.
We will probably never really know how much of this was due to Carr's limitations and how much of this might have been due to Michigan's notoriously stingy attitude toward paying assistants at the time. I'm not saying that if he had more money Carr might have gone out and hired a hot, radical-minded OC, but he certainly could've done better than Stan Parrish and Terry Malone.
I think you and I basically agree that Michigan didn't use its talent well. While I relish my singular opportunity to attend the Rose Bowl on 1/1/07, I remain stung by the fact that Michigan brought talent to that game that was every big the equal of USC's, and got worked because USC had great coaching and Michigan did not.
January 8th, 2020 at 11:15 PM ^
Regarding the talent under Carr, a big part of the advantage we had back in that time frame was that the NCAA would actually enforce the rules.
Alabama spent many of the years in the 90s and 00s on probation and with scholarship reductions. and this was common within the SEC. Now that those same tactics are implicitly approved by the NCAA looking the other way, those same schools are capturing better recruits.
here is an AP article from 2009 capturing Alabama's run-ins with the NCAA between 1993 and 2009
https://www.ledger-enquirer.com/sports/college/sec/university-of-alabama/article29055703.html
January 9th, 2020 at 8:29 AM ^
So many people (many of whom were not watching football prior to the mid 2000s) forget this.
January 8th, 2020 at 10:08 PM ^
Only a person who prioritizes football over everything would want to change the school’s culture to make it a football factory. It’s basically impossible to be both a football factory and an elite university without sacrificing standards. Alabama, LSU, OSU, OU and the like are mediocre schools whose national reputations hinge largely on their football programs. It’s not worth it for Michigan to do that. They handle this is a well as possible given the dynamics, and most Michigan alums wouldn’t trade one for the other.
January 8th, 2020 at 10:41 PM ^
I don’t believe this. UNC and Duke are basketball factories and UNC is one of the top public universities in the country on par with Michigan and Duke is Duke. I don’t think UNC’s academic reputation took a hit because of the fake class situation a few years back. It’s bad publicity — and I’m not advocating for that — but let’s not pretend like research dollars (which is what rankings are based on) depend on whether the quarterback takes online classes. The reality is that what you call mediocre schools were always mediocre schools. Football didn’t make them mediocre just like football. There isn’t any causal connection and correlation is weak probably.
January 9th, 2020 at 6:08 PM ^
Disagree about the public perception - I have a colleague that is a UNC alum and she felt that the UNC standards/perceptions had been tainted by the scandal.
January 9th, 2020 at 10:15 AM ^
Did you read Wilfong’s comments? It’s harder to be an elite football program without bending and breaking rules, but maybe the current staff should consider doing some really basic things they apparently aren’t doing. Things like, having an organized and focused recruiting approach. My son coaches at a D2 power and they have regular recruiting meetings. How the hell does Jim not have meetings? It’s a joke.
You can’t bitch about bagmen and online classes if you aren’t doing everything else humanly possible and still failing. Michigan is not doing everything else. That is now clear.
As an aside, if you think most of Michigan’s football players are prioritizing school you are mistaken. That doesn’t mean they don’t go to class, but they do have “do not take” lists to avoid professors that are unwilling to bend a bit for athletes. Many (most?) are not majoring in difficult academic areas. All of this is fine to me, by the way. Just stop acting like Michigan is full of Ivy League athletes.
January 9th, 2020 at 2:00 PM ^
In Overtime Bacon says it's the opposite. He doesn't bend (He's failed two starters), and he's never had pressure to bend, and doesn't know any faculty who do bend, or were asked to do so.
January 8th, 2020 at 10:21 PM ^
You're a straight up loser Salvatore. Michigan, in fact, did recruit at that level in 1998, and signed the #1 class in the nation. They produced top five/ten classes regularly in the 2000s. What they did after arriving to campus was the issue then, and it's still an issue now.
YOU, and many others on here, want to spin/ignore things so that you have a cop out any time Michigan loses a game or loses a recruiting battle.
As others have said, how did Marques Slocum, Mario Manningham get in to the school then?
How is Juwan Howard going for the highest ranked recruits, but Harbaugh isn't capable due to "academic standards".
January 8th, 2020 at 10:50 PM ^
And Harbaugh consistently produced top 10 classes as well.
January 8th, 2020 at 11:04 PM ^
His classes are inflated due to taking so many commits.
28, 30, 20, 26
January 9th, 2020 at 10:45 AM ^
I remember playmakers and big wins in the 90s and 2000s. We sucked it up on the west coast and out of conference and against ND, sometimes, but we had dominant nfl-caliber wrs, rbs, qbs, and defensive players for the times. Our 5 stars aren’t turning into players like A-Train, Chris Perry, Tom Brady, Braylon Edwards, or Ty Law like they used to. We dominated everyone in the conference. We sure as hell didn’t lose to PSU or Wisconsin every other year. We beat great OSU teams and finished in the top 5 or 10 in the country. We even won an NC. We are underachieving relative to the history I remember. We could be a better program, we have been a better program, but we aren’t right now. Harbaugh just doesn’t appear to be an elite coach in scheme, recruiting, or development. It just feels half-assed and disorganized sometimes.
Then again, maybe he’s on to something, but it’s going to take 10-20 years for the program to develop into his grand vision for Michigan football. I think he’ll coach here for at least 10 years, so let’s hope things get better. I think we could be very good over the next few years!
January 8th, 2020 at 7:17 PM ^
It's amazing that we recruited the #1 recruit in the country over a team that's been in the title game like 5 years straight, yet it's too much to ask of the program to recruit a top 5 class every year?
Do you not see the logical fallacy here? We don't exactly land the #1 recruit every year.
January 9th, 2020 at 11:39 AM ^
I don't think there's a logical fallacy to his point. The point is, M can and needs to win recruiting battles against elite schools. What he's asking for is more consistency in getting into and winning recruiting battles for top 100 recruits like this.