Wolverine Wednesday: 10 Things I like to see from Michigan before I buy a condo at the Villages

#10: A Wall of Fame, A Circle of Honor something that honors the great former Michigan football players.  I agree that retiring numbers may not be the right thing to do but there are so many great former Wolverines and there should be some lasting memorial somewhere at the Big House.  Name it the Gerald R. Ford Memorial: Circle of Champions.

#9:  Tom Brady gets close to U of M.   When Tom is ready to hang up his cleats, I would like there to be some type of partnership between Tom and U of M.  Is it a Tom Brady Scholarship? Is he the associate AD?  I don't know but having Tom close to the program has to be a good thing. 

#8: The Michigan Baseball team gets more TV exposure.  I have always thought there would be a nice fan base for the Michigan Baseball team if they got some more exposure.

#7:  Mike Hart on the Michigan coaching staff.  He seems the perfect candidate when Fred Jackson retires. 

#6: The Michigan basketball team makes an un-expected run to the Final 4.

#5: The Fab 5 plays an exhibition game against the current Wolverines for charity.  Maybe to re-open the "new" Crisler Arena?

#4: Michigan Football Dominates Midwest Recruiting. I want Michigan to be able to recruit like Texas does. Bring in all the top players in from Michigan, Ohio and neighboring states. Give the kids offers right there and then and give them 48 hours to accept or decline them. Michigan would have 70% of it's class full in a couple of days.



#3: Keith Jackson to do one more Michigan - Ohio State game in the Big House.

#2: Michigan goes on a new winning streak against MSU and OSU.

#1: Big Shocker Here:  Michigan has an un-defeated National Championship season where they beat OSU twice and USC in the BCS National Championship Game in the Rose Bowl      


Honorable mentions:  A night game at the Big House (next year), A huge music festival at the Big House with all the top bands,  Michigan and Michigan State play one or two games at Ford Field to help the downtown economy,  Zack Novak's number retired, Michigan signs the #1 rated high school prospect in either football or basketball or both!, an August pre-season exhibition football game against an opponent not on the schedule (yes I know this is more of an NCAA rule/issue) and Michigan doesn't need to hire a new football coach for the next 15 years!

Michigan Friday: Big Recruiting Weekend on Deck

State of the Union

Michigan has 11 verbals commitments in the 2011 class.  I expect the Wolverines would want to sign a class of 20 players, which leaves 9 spots to be filled in 12 days.   Michigan lost it's two highest ranked commits in 5 star Dee Hart and silent commit 5 star Kris Frost. 

This Weekend's Visitors

I went into more detail yesterday on this weekends visitors but Michigan with host:

3 verbal commits:  Posada, Hayes, and new commit Carter.

5 prospects:  Raymon Taylor, Frank Clark, Matt Wile, Stefan McClure, and Leilon Willingham.

All visitors are serious about Michigan and the Wolverines have a good chance at getting each one of these guys to sign in 12 days.  Next weekend will be huge as well.

Latest news to share with recruits

• Michigan hires Ray Lewis, Ed Reed, and Terrell Suggs Defensive Coordinator from the Baltimore Ravens, Greg Mattison.   Leilon Willingham is a huge a Ray Lewis fan and changed his weekend trip from Texas AM to Michigan.  

• HD Video Boards:  The Michigan Regents just approved $20 million in HD video boards for the Big House, Crisler, and Yost Arenas.   With these new boards, The Big House, Schembechler Hall, and the Al Glick Field House Michigan might have the best football facilities in the nation.   

2011 QB?

With Tate now officially gone, it's pretty clear Michigan would like to have a QB in this class but makes one in the 2012 class a top priority.  The rumor mill is saying that Michigan is focusing on a 2011 Boston College commit named Christian Suntrup.   Christian is a 6'3, 205 pound pro style QB from St. Louis.  He is rated 3 stars by Rivals.


Who are some new names that Michigan might be looking at?

- DE Max Issaka (6'3", 240 lbs) from New Jersey.
- TE Jamare Mills (6'5", 244 lbs) from Ohio.
- DE Brandon Alexander (6'6", 230 lbs) from Texas.


Update:  I forgot to mention that Hakeem Flowers a WR with a nice offer list will be picking a school on Sunday.  Insiders expect his decision to be Blue.  We will see.

Michigan Friday: Is Dee's Heart with Michigan?

One of the things that Michigan fans were worried about in David Brandon's timetable to make a decision on Rich Rodriguez and the future of this program is it's impact on recruiting to the 2011 class.  When people say "impact" they are really talking about *Dee Hart.   The reason this timetable effects Dee more then any other recruit are a few things

1. Dee plans to enroll early
2. Dee believes he fits the RR spread very well
3. Dee's best friend is going to Alabama
4. Dee has been invited to play in the Army All American game 

If David Brandon plans to make a decision in early January that means Dee would have to make a "leap of faith" and enroll early and hope RR stays.  Or he waits until Summer to enroll at Michigan.  He also has to decide if he wants to play in the Army All American Bowl which is on January 8th. 

The last point is that Dee was interested in the commitment of Michigan RB Justice Hayes.   RR had a conversation with Dee this past weekend that Justice was coming to Michigan as a slot WR or cornerback. 

With all that said, it seems Michigan is losing it's commitment on Dee Hart.  The rumor mill is running wild that Dee is planning on committing to Alabama today.  The Hart family has shut down all communications with all Michigan insiders.  Which is not a good sign. 

Michigan last hope is an in-school visit with Dee today to try to change his mind.  Which seems unlikely at this point.

Here is a quote from an ESPN article after he committed (bold is mine):  There was some speculation that one of the reasons Hart didn't commit to Michigan earlier was due to the tenuous job status of Wolverines coach Rich Rodriguez. But Hart dismissed that line of thinking.



"I liked Michigan either way and if he were to leave it wouldn't affect me because I think I can play in any offensive system," Hart said. "So it really wasn't my concern.


"That being said I wanted to make sure everything came together. He's winning ball games right now and the future looks good, so it's coming together."

David Brandon's timeline on this process seems to come under heavy scrutiny and I agree.  If he keeps RR he has potentially killed the recruitment of some of the "big name" players that the staff has been working on for years.   Which basically effects the future success of the program.   If he makes a change, he gives the new coach little to no time to build his class.   Not sure if I fully understand how this "lame duck" status can benefit either situation. 

What are the coaches telling recruits when they come to Ann Arbor the next two weeks?  If I was a recruit, the only person I would want to talk to is David Brandon.

*There are two other guys that also could be enrolling early on Michigan's list.  Those two guys are Avery Walls and Kris Frost.  Both would have to be enrolled at Michigan before they would play in the All Star games where they plan to annouce. 


Michigan had it's Bust last night (which seems to be the appropriate word).

Some of the second hand information on the night:

• Denard told the seniors that they were going to get a Win in the bowl game and send the seniors out right.

• AD Dave Brandon on bowl destination: "Frank (Beckmann) thinks we might be going west, I think we might be going in a different direction." (BHB:  I hope that direction is up.)

• RR was emotional talking about they were building something special here at Michigan and that he was honored to be Michigan's head coach.

Wolverine Wednesday: Looks at Michigan Prospects in the Top 250

Update:  2011 CB from Florida Dallas Crawford might make his college decision known this Friday which is his 18th birthday.  All signs point to Dallas being a Michigan Wolverine.  For those that don't know, Dallas is a teammate of bigtime WR Sammy Watkins. 


Rivals new top 250 is now out and Michigan has plenty of prospects on the list including verbal commit Brennen Beyer from Plymouth at #194.   Other prospect that are considering Michigan between 100-250 include:

• #222 Austin Traylor
• #210 Darian Cooper
• #196 Chris Bryant
• #188 Mickey Johnson
• #159 Avery Walls
• #156 Blake Countess
• #148 Deion Barnes
• #127 Aundrey Walker

Michigan fans, don't hold your breath on the DeAnthony Arnett announcement tonight.   DeArnthony has been having some fun on Twitter that past couple of days, but expect an announcement for either MSU or Tennessee.   Tennesse looks to be the winner.

Today is the start of the early signing period for basketball.  Michigan is expected to sign 2 players:  Carlton Brundidge, a 6'1 200 pound shooting guard from Southfield, MI.  He is rated the #73 player in the country. 

Also Trey Burke, a 6'1 160 pound point guard from Columbus, OH.  He is a 3 star prospect to Scouts. 
Michigan's class might not be done with one big fish still in the pound with the #36 player in the country Amir Williams, a 4 Star center (6'9 210 lbs.) from Detroit Country Day.  Michigan has been recruiting him for awhile and was in town last Saturday.  He is visiting Ohio State this weekend and will announce his choice next week.  It seems down to Michigan, Purdue, Florida, and OSU.

Michigan has the 5th rated class in the Big Ten right now.

• Sammy Watkins is a new Army All American and will play in the all star game.

• Michigan's Football Facebook page has 300,000 likes. 

• Roy Roundtree was the co-offensive Big Ten Player of the week.  This is big week for Roy, since he was orgnianlly committed to Purdue before changing his mind on signing day. 

• Threet having an up and down year with ASU: Michigan transfer Steven Threet continues to produce mixed results in his first season with Arizona State. He threw three touchdowns for the fourth time, but had multiple interceptions for the fifth time."Just too much up and down," Threet said. "I just need to play more consistent and help the team more."

• Dee Hart and his Dr. Phillips teammates are breaking records down in Florida.  Through nine games, Hart’s stats now read: 1,434 rushing yards to break the school single-season record of 1,351 set by Aaron Layne in 1992. He also now owns the Metro Conference career touchdown mark at 32 and he is closing in on a milestone 6,000 all-purpose yards with 5,999. Hart and his teammates have scored 476 points with only West Orange to go this Friday. Those numbers bring the Class 6A state scoring record, previously held by Miami Northwestern, to Orlando.

Michigan Monday: Early Week Recruiting Blitz

This was an interesting weekend for Wolverines fans.  Michigan sleep walks through a game against an FCS team, Wisconsin beats Steven Threet by a blocked extra point, Iowa goes down 14 points before they get off the plane in Arizona and can't catch up, former Wolverine Ryan Mallet beats Georgia in the last minute, MSU beats ND in overtime on a fake field goal and then their head coach goes down with a heart attack later that night/next morning. 

Instead of pointing out all the problems Michigan has on defense, I thought I would re-cap some of the news regarding Michigan's football recruiting. 

• Just when you thought it was safe to pencil in Dee Hart into Michigan's 2011 class, the electric tailback from Orlando visited Auburn this weekend and got to witness a crazy atmosphere in an OT win over Clemson.  Dee rated the visit a 9 out of 10 and the only way it would have been at 10 is if he committed.  He said he is done with visits and will make a decision soon.   BTW: Dee had a great day on the field this weekend as well:  Hart carried 18 times for 224 yards and scored on runs of 17, 7, and 88. He added a fourth TD on a 33-yard pass from junior quarterback Nick Patti, who threw for four scores."It was a great effort," Hart said. "We had a lot of minor distractions. We came together to win."  So now the big question is, Will Dee's love for Michigan overcome his weekend at Auburn?  A decision could be coming as soon as this week.

• TomVH from Mgoblog updates us two visitors this weekend, Chris Bryant and 2012 prospect Jordan Diamond from Chicago.  Chris:  "That visit was great, I liked everything a lot. I don't think I'm going to wait until signing day now, but I'm not ready yet to make my decision."  Chris would like to visit U of M a couple more times and plans on making a decision before signing day now.  Jordan: The game was cool, it was crazy. My mom and aunt both loved it too. The coaches told me that I will be getting an offer on August 1st, so that was great.  Jordan was told he would be offered my Michigan as soon as official offers go out for 2012 prospect in August of next year.

• Charles Jackson a highly rated CB from from Klein, Texas is considering taking a visit to Michigan.  Charles is 5'11, 180 lbs. and rated 4 stars from Rivals.

• No word yet on how Kris Frost visit to Auburn went.  Don't be surprised if he had a similar reaction to the Dee's. 

• Two Michigan coaches saw Anthony Zettel play this weekend.

Michigan ClearingHouse issue: Another Player Gone

I have never seen a team go 2-0 and get so much hype and positive publicity lose so many players.   Today, Michigan loses another defensive player from the 2010 class: Davion Rogers.  Davion was late getting to camp due to an NCAA Clearinghouse issue and it seems that issue did not go away.

Davion is no longer on the team and not expected to return.  This is the 5th player from the 2010 class that either didn't make it to campus or has quickly exited the program.  That list includes:  Austin White, Demar Dorsey, Conelius Jones, Antonio Kinard, and  now Davion Rogers.

This has to stop and RR and staff have to do a better job of finding suitable recruits that have a better academic standing.   4 out of the 5 above didn't make it to campus due to academic issues.  

To be fair, Conelius and Antonio are trying to enroll in January.