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Coach's Corner: Michigan is Falling Behind in Recruiting and How the University Needs to Change

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  • Coach's Corner: Michigan is Falling Behind in Recruiting and How the University Needs to Change

    Posted at 4:00pm — 11/19/2014

    This is our version why Michigan is falling behind. This isn’t the only reason, but one of many reasons is recruiting. Yes you can say we haven’t developed them, haven’t recruited very well, lost some targets, etc… but to me the biggest issue in recruiting is not allowing the coaches to use every means possible to get recruits, get players on campus. I am not talking about doing anything illegal or anything like that at all, but just do what every other program in the college football is doing set by the NCAA rules.

    With how Michigan football coaches are forced to not do everything that is allowed by the NCAA to make your program better such as bringing in 5th year players, transfers, Juco’s, and also not allowed to get rid of dead weight or guys on the team that are just hanging around to get the free education that was given to them by what they done on the high school football fields.

    We understand the 4-year scholarship and think that is a great thing, but Michigan and other Big Ten schools aren’t getting the advantage or selling this point like they thought to recruits, families, and every high school program coach, superintendent, or high school president. When they did this rule they all thought that would help sway recruits away from programs that only give out 1-year or 2-year scholarships, but it didn’t work because most recruits don’t really look into that part of it. Along with they believe they won’t be one of those players cut after 1 or 2 years so that team can continue to recruit 25 players every single year while other programs might only be able to recruit 15 that year even though during the football season they had the same numbers to recruit. They all believe they will be superstars and make it to the NFL and in most cases these recruits pick a team because they are winning, close to home, or just like the players on the team.

    We understand the reason why Michigan does all this, but you cannot demand perfection or being elite when other programs are allowed to take full advantage of the situation and the rules to make their programs better.

    Even at a place like Alabama where they get 5-stars on top of 5-stars still have to go the route of transfers and Juco’s to fill weak-spots that recruiting didn’t solve or aren’t ready to produce on the field yet.

    Best example of this problem is a couple years ago when Denard Robinson graduated and we had Devin Gardner as the sole quarterback on the team with any real experience along with Shane Morris coming into Michigan (who himself had a couple of years where he was injured or sick and didn’t see a lot of actual playing time besides 7on7 camps) during the summer because his school didn’t allow him to enroll early.

    We had Bellomy who had a couple of injuries along with some personal things that hindered his performance and development Michigan tried to bring in a 5th year quarterback. Talk was and even discussed with Coach Hoke with the media which surprised me that he talked about it at all, but we didn’t hear anything more except after a couple of weeks in the spring he said they wasn’t going that route. Well what happened was the player was interested in Michigan and the opportunity that presented itself at Michigan, but he wasn’t either allowed into certain academic programs or had to choose from something he really wasn’t interested in.

    The problem becomes that a player when being a 5th year can go anywhere he wants and when a school makes it tough for them to get into their program or push them into something else it makes it tough to bring that player in obviously. Also when you try to push him into something else the school that he currently is at just might have that class/field so he cannot attend your school because it has to be something his current school doesn’t offer.

    Another example, ok at Ty Isaac (who is one of the the few transfers we have taken or allowed in) who came from USC which we all know is a pretty darn good academic school, but he had to take summer classes to be able to get into Michigan. He wasn’t even allowed on campus until August so he wasn’t able to workout with the team even if he was cleared to play this season by the NCAA. A lot of transfers won’t do that, but since at the time he was trying to use the medical clearance so he could play right away that only left a handful of schools for him to choose within his 100 mile home and he liked Michigan when he was being recruited and wanted to be here.

    Everybody knows that recruiting isn’t an exact science and even at the NFL level trying to gauge how a player will go from college to the pros isn’t very accurate as well and these NFL teams are spending millions of dollars along with being able to work out these players and still fail, but going from high school to college is a lot riskier as well because you don’t get much hands-on contact with these players or being able to see how they do on the football field besides camps, combines, and highlight tapes that it makes it hard how to judge a player because you don’t know the competition level or being able to gauge how a player will do against the same type of competition or how he will do once he arrives on campus and has the same talent as him surrounding him or even better along with the fact it is most likely his first time away from home, on his own, and having to budget his time, along with going to classes, etc…

    Not trying to make excuses for the reason why this staff wasn’t able to produce more wins this year or even the last couple of years, BUT when your only allowed to set your football program off of recruiting and nothing else that makes it a lot tougher. When a program like Bama (who never gets called out for this by the media) is allowed to get rid of players and every single year they recruit 25 players per class that alone makes your team better. For example last year Bama and Michigan during the football season had the same amount of scholarships available, but Michigan was only allowed to recruit 16 recruits while Bama took 25. Over a course of 5 years that is 45 players new to the roster (half a team of a roster of 85 scholarship players) and that doesn’t even include transfers, 5th year players, or Juco’s. That is a huge advantage that not many media people will talk about or even bring up about Bama or on any recruiting show.

    By comparison if your a program that can only recruit 17 recruits a year because of the numbers (which we all know fluctuates depending on the numbers each year) … that is 85 players over a 5 year period, BUT if your allowed to take 25 recruits each year that is 125 recruits over the same 5 year period. Don’t you think 40 extra recruits over that same 5-year period would make your program a lot better? I do especially when you can get rid of players and ones that you over evaluated or got injured and wasn’t able to get back to what they was, but are still healthy enough to still be on the team.

    Is there other issues besides recruiting? Yes of course and like we discussed before this is one big piece out of many pieces of pie that have failed Michigan. With these type of set backs and limitations I am not sure Michigan will get that huge coaching hire because a coach cannot do his total job or do what is necessary for his program to succeed year in and year out.

    Written by GBMWolverine Message Board Staff — CoachBT, Doc4Blu, and ErocWolverine

    Go Blue — Wear Maize!


    Twitter: @ErocWolverine
    Message Board: GBMW Message Board
    Site: GBMW Front Page
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