Terrelle Pryor on Michigan Visit: "It’s Cool"

By Sean · Monday, January 21, 2008 · 2:35 AM |  Share | 1 Comment 

The city of Ann Arbor had never before seen so much hype surround a recruit simply because he was making a visit to Michigan before Terrelle Pryor came to town on Saturday. Pryor, the #1 high school football player in the nation according to some recruiting services, arrived in Ann Arbor Saturday morning and took in day 1 of his official visit before checking out the Michigan/Iowa basketball game. Pryor rolled into Crisler Arena after the fans waited for his arrival with great anticipation.

Once he found his seats by the tunnel, Pryor was greeted with some chants from the crowd. He ended up sitting next to his cousin, wide receiver Toney Clemons, and Michigan commit Mike Martin. In front of them was Rich Rodriguez, who had his wife sitting next to him on one side and Charlie Batch on the other. For those of you who don’t know, Pryor asked Batch to come along with him on his visits. Batch knows the Pryor family and is accompanying the nation’s top recruit on his visits to give any advice on making a decision and to help him with the process. Since Batch went to Eastern Michigan and played for the Lions, he is definitely familiar with the area, so hopefully he had only good things to say to Pryor.

As far as Pryor’s thoughts on how the visit went, he texted the Associated Press saying that, “It’s cool.” Other than that, I have nothing else to go on, but will say that the general consensus is that everything went well. It seems like he had a good time at the basketball game, despite what some people may try to tell you. I mention that because some people have pointed out to me that he “looked bored” at the game. Although many fans looked that way because it is Michigan basketball, Pryor just seems like a laid back guy, so I wouldn’t go as far as saying that he was bored.

After getting a chance to visit Ann Arbor and get an up close look at the new Michigan football program, where does Pryor stand in his recruitment? That’s the million dollar question, and unfortunately, I really don’t have any idea how this will turn out. There’s no doubt that Michigan is playing catch up to Ohio State considering Pryor just started considering U-M again a month ago, but the one thing I have learned about recruiting is that anything can happen. Just look at Ronald Johnson last year. He was a “lock” to Michigan at one point and was rumored to have been a silent commit as well. All of that meant nothing as RoJo is now playing football for USC, so being a “lock” for a certain school really doesn’t mean that much.

When a decision is made, I am pretty certain it will be between Michigan and Ohio State, and really can’t even guess which side of the rivalry he will decide to play on. Although Pryor still wants to take two more official visits, likely to Oregon and LSU, I don’t think they are serious contenders. Even so, I already said that anything can happen, and heading into the Nike palace that is Oregon really takes that phrase to a new level. At the same time, Les Miles can be a pretty convincing person, and just winning a national title never hurts either.

Personally, I still think Pryor will be a Buckeye when signing day comes, but quite a bit can happen in these next couple of weeks. I definitely think Michigan has a chance, but my optimism isn’t too high. Again, we will find out on February 6th what his decision is, but one thing that is certain is that these next few weeks will be a roller coaster ride for everyone.

(Photo from the Detroit Free Press; view full gallery here)