Just Call Him the Closer: A Look Back at the Class of ’08
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29 CommentsWhenever a coaching change occurs in college football, the general expectation is that the proceeding recruiting class won’t be up to snuff. The reason for that belief is pretty simple. Commits look elsewhere because the people that recruited them may no longer be at their school, the new system being implemented may not fit them, and negative recruiting reaches its apex when there are any questions about a new coach. All of those negative factors were working against Rich Rodriguez while he was trying to put together his first recruiting class at Michigan, but he overcame them with flying colors.
It truly is remarkable that Michigan’s 2008 recruiting class turned out to be filled with so many great players. Scout ranks it 8th in the nation, right behind Ohio State. And Rivals has it ranked right behind OSU as well at 10th overall. Looking back on the process of assembling this great recruiting class, there is a group of people that should be recognized for their hard work.
The first person I will give a shout out to is recruiting coordinator Chris Singletary. During the transitional period when the future of the football program was unclear, Singletary worked hard to keep the recruiting class in order. He kept in contact with the recruits and made sure they were kept up to date on the latest happenings in Ann Arbor, and although he doesn’t get a lot of publicity for the job he does, there is no doubt that he was instrumental in limiting the number of decommits.
The second person that should not be forgotten when it comes to this recruiting class is Lloyd Carr (and his assistants as well). Obviously, he was the head coach when the majority of the commits verballed and his recruiting ability was shown off greatly. But a less noticeable thing he did to ensure the recruiting class would be as good as possible was the timing of his retirement. By announcing that he would retire just days after the Ohio State game, Carr gave Bill Martin a chance to get the search for a new head coach started way back in November. That meant that Rich Rodriguez was hired early enough where he could get a staff together to go all out on recruiting in January and the first few days of February. Rodriguez did just that and ended up with a top 10 class as a result.
The final group of people that were responsible for putting together this recruiting class are the new assistants, Fred Jackson, Mike Barwis (recruits on their official visits loved him), and of course, Coach Rod. What excites me so much about the future of Michigan football when it comes to recruiting is the potential this staff has. With only a month to actually recruit, Rodriguez and his staff not only secured almost all of the inherited recruits, but they added many more as well. Coach Rod and his staff were able to identify recruits that will make the transition to a spread offense easier in his first year and really came out of nowhere with some and still locked up many commitments.
All I can say is that if Rich Rodriguez and his staff excel in recruiting this much in only a month, then imagine what they will do with an entire year to work with. On top of that, Rodriguez showed he can finish off the recruitment of players late in the game near signing day. I’ve never seen so many recruits commit in such a short period of time, but just in these last few days Michigan has added 6 new faces to the Class of ’08. With the ability to do that well as signing day nears, I think we need to start calling Rich Rodriguez “The Closer.”
With the general fluff out of the way, here are some notes on recruiting and a few other things worth mentioning:
- Rich Rodriguez said that four players will no longer be on the team at his signing day press conference yesterday (click here to watch the presser). Offensive linemen Alex Mitchell and Jeremy Ciulla both will be graduating and will not use return for their fifth season at Michigan. The loss of those two was expected, but it really shows why so many offensive line commits were needed. The other two leaving the team are doing so due to medical reasons. Tight end Chris McLaurin and wide receiver Antonio Bass will remain on a medical scholarship at the University of Michigan, but neither will play football again due to injuries. McLaurin leaving is unexpected and completely out of the blue, but the news Bass was something no one was hoping to hear.
Out of high school, Antonio Bass was a highly recruited athlete that had loads of potential. As a freshman he was used in the Michigan offense in a variety of ways, and really was the first player to be used in a spread type of formation under Lloyd Carr. Bass’ future looked very promising until a disastrous injury happened during offseason workouts.
He was supposedly doing a conditioning drill and somehow came down on his leg wrong and reportedly tore all his ligaments in that leg. Although a comeback always looked unlikely for Bass, he has worked hard over these last couple of years to rehab enough to get to the point where he could play. That unfortunately won’t happen for sure now that he is off the team because of this injury, but I’m sure Antonio will do great things off the field. I wish him the best of luck and wish he could’ve been on the field in this new offense come this fall.
- Long snapper George Morales still has not signed his letter of intent as of the time of this post. There hasn’t been much talk about why his LOI isn’t in, but one reason may be that he is waiting to see what happens with the rest of the recruiting class. Since Michigan would only have room to sign one more recruit if Morales signed his LOI, I think he may be waiting to see if he will have to grayshirt. A grayshirt is when a recruit pays his own way the first year at a school and gets his athletic scholarship in year #2. That is definitely a possibility with Morales, and really, I can’t think of any other reason why he wouldn’t sign by now.
- MGoBlue has updated their bios page to now include Sam McGuffie.
- Rich Rodriguez was interviewed by the Big Ten Network to talk about Michigan’s recruiting class, and that video can be found here.
- J.T. Floyd committed to Michigan last week, but he still had some fun with his announcement by hiding a Michigan hat under a Tennessee one to surprise the crowd.
- It was previously reported that Florida wide receiver Martavious Odoms had committed to Miami, but that turned out to be incorrect. Odoms hasn’t signed with any school yet and Michigan is still under consideration. I’d be surprised if he ended up a Wolverine simply because of all the receivers and athletes a part of this class already, but anything can happen.
- The Houston Chronicle talks about what happened with Sam McGuffie to cause a huge scare for Michigan fans.
- Finally, what would a recruiting post be without Terrelle Pryor? He announced that he wasn’t announcing at his school yesterday on TV (video can be seen here) and now is ready to delay a decision for an extended period of time. Pryor mentioned wanting to visit Penn State and even Oregon, so this process really could be strung out over the next few weeks depending on when these visits happen. My opinion on this situation is pretty well known already, but I will say that any optimism I had is gone after these latest developments.
Penn State creeping into the picture thanks to Pryor’s dad really seems to be the cause for his delay. My belief is that he was ready to announce he was going to Ohio State yesterday, but out of respect for his dad is giving the Nittany Lions a full look. Whether or not that leads to a commitment to Penn State is left to be seen, but at this point I think he will end up at PSU or OSU. Other than somehow going to Michigan, my hope is that Pryor visits the Nike Palace that is Oregon and likes it so much that he decides to become a Duck. I don’t want to see him lining up against Michigan regularly in the Big Ten, so only possibly playing him in the Rose Bowl would be nice.
(Programming note: I’m taking off for an early weekend as yesterday was so busy. I don’t think I will ever break the record 15 posts I had in one day, but hey, that’s what happens with signing day. I’ll post a full list of Michigan’s commits later today and will update you guys if any news breaks over the weekend. I’ll be back Monday, but until then, thanks for reading and Go Blue!)
This was the place for mich info yesterday – thanks for all your hard work. Awesome job!!
Go Blue!
The link to the mcguffie story must have changed:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/5520717.html
Anyway, odd comment is from his coach saying he must have liked Cal because it’s a good school, as if it’s so much better than Michigan, if at all. If anything, I would think that weather would be a factor.
But, he’s a Wolverine and that’s all that matters. Go Blue!
just call him the ‘sneak in the backdoor & steal away recruits who’ve been verballed to other schools for nearly two years’ guy.
sounds more like it to me anyhow!
If Michigan is out of the picture, then why doesn’t he say it’s down to OSU and Penn State? I know. . . what do you expect?
Tiller is not too happy with RR. See the link:
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080207/SPORTS0201/802070464
If he thinks stealing a recruit is so evil, why did he steal Bushong from MSU in 2003? Kind of seems like a bit of a contradiction to me.
However, I do agree with Tiller that there should be an early signing period, but it will never happen because how will U$C (and the $EC) cheat if the top recruits are already signed? The NCAA’s main purpose is to make sure these programs can do whatever they want with recruiting. Is it true that Perry’s parents are moving to SC? I wonder how they paid for their house?
Lastly, congrats on a great class! With or without pryor, it is excellent. Even though MSU’s class is not ranked that high, I think it is solid. The first step is that are biggest recruiting rivals are not Louisiana Lafayette and Florida Atlantic.
When I read all of the comments of late regarding how there is a lot of pressure now by Pryor’s dad to get him to go to PSU for whatever reason; and when we consider all of the publicity that came out of Pryor’s hometown about how OSU’s alleged contacts were somehow involved with the local businesses of his city; I can’t help but think about the movie that Denzel Washington played in, “He’s Got Game.” Everyone has their hands in someone’s pocket and has something to gain by using their influence.
I am reminded that although college football is fun for many of us, it is still big business.
This poor kid no doubt is being pulled in a million different directions. His decision may not be his own. We can only imagine what is really going on behind the scenes.
He should be really enjoying this time because the next four years should be the best times of his life, but instead he may have to go through this mess.
I hope not but I wouldn’t be suprised if there were an NCAA investigation somewhere down the line.
Anyhow, I wish him PEACE!!!
Pryor has a big ego and deserves any criticism he is getting. Why did he wait till now to suddenly become interested in psu and oregon? He had months to visit there and “honor his dad’s opinions.” If all the other recrits could have made their visits before last Wednesday, well then Pryor was capable of doing that as well. He’s not going to UM and I only care about people that are going to UM!!
big blue…
Of course the kid has an ego,… he’s good. You have an ego about what you’re good at. However, that doesn’t negate the fact that he is still an 18 year old kid… with all of this pressure on him. How mature can one actually be at 18, come on, let’s be real. This kid received about 200 voice mail messages alone from schools, contacts, the media, etc.
Then when you consider that he needed to have his mother’s friend accompany him to a few of these school, that says he understands some of his limitations. As the top player in the nation, he was being recruited heavier than all of the other kids who went on their campus visits.
You maybe right about the bottom line, however, all I’m saying is, give the kid a break. Wherever he goes, we wish him well.
Anon,
I see where you are coming from, but the point I was trying to make was that Pryor is not helping the cause as far as the media frenzy is concerned. Actually, he seems to be fanning the flames with Oregon being in it one day and not the previous day and his tactics to throw off the media (for ex. his clothing attire seems to change schools daily, his buckeye sticker, his press conference that he is delaying his decision). He seems to thrive on being the top story in the media. Call me old fashioned, but this behavior does not positvely reflect Pryor’s character at all. I have no problem with him going elsewhere and will wish him well (except if he goes to osu, just kidding), but he should have been taking his visits last year. He should have taken his visits, collected info on the different schools academic programs, offense system, campus, etc. Then Pryor should have met with friends and family to come to a decision a long time ago.
By remaining uncommitted, he is just fanning the flames with the media. Personally, I think his delayed decision was purely a media stunt pulled by Pryor. (We can agree to disagree on this issue.) Bottom line, I do not feel he handled his recruitment the right way and he brought on most of (but not all) this media frenzy based on his actions. I guess we will all find out what type of person he is in a few years once he starts playing. Personally, I have no clue why he is considering PSU. He does not fit their offense and they are terrible getting qbs to the NFL. His skills fit UM’s and Oregon’s offense the best. I don’t think osu would use his running abilities enough and can pryor pass well enough in their pro style offense?
I bet Bo would have told Pryor to take a hike with his media tactics…Bo definitely would not be kissing Pryor’s rear end like all the coaches are today. I guess it’s the society we live in today. Back in the 70s and 80s, recruits valued the opportunities of playing for UM, OSU, and the other elite schools. Now it seems like the recruits demand to be worshipped. I guess that is what happens when ESPN and other Inernet services pamper these recruits.
big blue…
we do agree after all.
Peace!
I coached Justin Feagin when he was younger and I’m an offensive coordinator at a well known South Florida school. I can assure all of you, he will make you forget about Terrell Pryor quickly. I’ve watched him when our Friday night schedules weren’t conflicting, HE IS INCREDIBLE!! I watched him grow and mature and his competitive nature rivals Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan. The better the competition, the better he plays. I know him very well, and he’s hoping Terrell Pryor does come to the Wolverines just so he can bench him – that’s how much he believes in his ability to succeed. Rest easy Michigan fans, you are in great hands…
Well coach, I know I speak for all Michigan fans when I say I hope you’re right. Like the old saying goes, “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog.” Or Wolverine for that matter.
Thanks for your input anon! Your insight is very much appreciated! I hope you are right! How are his throwing abilities? Thanks in advance!
Coach, I was wondering the same thing…how well does Feagin throw? Also, how good of a leader is he? If he can make some big plays and get the ball to some of the playmakers, i think he will be ok.
Varsity Blue (blog) has just posted that Pryor has eliminated Michigan. If this is true, then we all pray that Justin Feagin is the real deal.
The article he linked to has zero credibility (and as he put it, the writer sounds “dumb”). Some random Wisconsin writer that mentioned zero sources isn’t going to break any story on Terrelle Pryor. Plus, he questions Michigan’s recruiting ethics because we got a few decommits from other Big Ten schools, which is just ridiculous.
so…i found out that pryor eliminated michigan and is down to psu and that nut from columbus
Hey Sean,
It is ironic on how hypocritical some writers are! (Off the top of my head, I can think of 2 instances where Wisconsin stole MSU recruits. One year they stole a guy named Pleasant from MI, who is now their starting safety, I think. Last year, they stole 4 star recruit Landingham or something like that. (He transferred to Miami OH. I think he was not pleased about being moved to RB, in which he tore up his knee shortly afterwards. To think, recruiters were not completely honest with him. lol) I guess it’s ok when Wisconsin steals a recruit. I am not going to completely complain because we got Terry Love to switch from Wisky in 2003, although he never really amounted to much.
I am pretty certain next January RR will try to get Chris Norman (LB from Detroit who committed to MSU recently) to change his mind and Dantonio will try to get Campbell (DT from Detroit) to change his mind. I think there should be an early signing period, but until then, it is just the nature of the business to go after verballed recruits. As long as the two teams recruit cleanly, I have no problem with UM recruitng MSU guys and vice versa. It is interesting that Dantonio and RR will be facing one another again. (At WV, he is 2-0 against Dantonio at Cincinnati.)
I kind of feel sorry for RR’s family getting those death threats. (RR broke down into tears during an interview regarding the topic. I think I saw it on ESPN news.) It would be nice if those people (the people making death threats that is) could be caught and put into prison where they belong.
Personally, I don’t think Pryor will end up at UM, but I think that article is complete garbage and UM is still very much in the race. I think you have a better shot with Pryor than what you had with Perry. (I think he was a USC lock since his visit, in my opinion.)
Congrats on your bball win today! I like Beilein, he seems to do things the right way. Hope your fans have patience until he gets his own players. He did well in the Big East, which is a pretty good conference for bball. (In football, it should be the Big Least!)
I call him the Shredder!! I bet Les Miles would have done better if he was at UM!! Pryor would be a UM lock with Les Miles and he would have recruited the right way!!!
Tim Staudt reported on his morning show today that Pryor eliminated UM and Oregon and will decide between osu and psu. According to Staudt, Pryor contacted the UM coaches to tell them this info.
Take this for what it is worth, but Staudt does have some good connections. To me, until Pryor makes a signature, UM still has a chance, even if it is a small one. Pryor seem to flip flop more than John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and probably Obama. (He hasn’t had enough experience to flip flop yet.)
Hey guys, I have not been available to answer your questions regarding Feagins throwing and leadership abilities until now. Justin has tremendous arm strength. He can throw a ball over 70 yards in the air. He threw for over 1400 yards this year, 21 TD’s, only 3 picks. He can chuck it. He is similar to Michael Vick, but with better accuracy. He worked very hard to develop himself into a proficient passer. When he was younger, he had so much confidence in his ability to run, he would take off. He has learned to trust his pocket and is very efficient out of shotgun. Linebackers have to cover ground quickly if he decides to dart, which makes him extremely dangerous. First level D-linemen are not really of any consequence, he leaves them grabbing air, once he’s into second level, he scores a lot (25 rushing TD’s this year, over 1300 yards on the ground). This will open up his second level passing in the Big 10, the LB’s will be reluctant to drop fully into their respective passing zones. He has a quick release against the blitz and is very accurate on quick slants and outs. His level three passing abilities are better that most people think, he puts a lot of air and distance on the long ball, making throws to great recievers deep will be there for all Michigan fans.
Secondly, you asked about his leadership abilities. He is a leader on and off the field. He stays out of trouble and attends one of the most exclusive private institutions in Florida. He is from a loving, supportive and large family that has instilled tremendous discipline, structure and confidence in his life. He prefers to lead by example, but is not afraid to voice his frustations either. Believe me, I coached him, I certainly knew when he was frustrated and so did everyone else. The players always have responded well to him. He is definetely an Alpha male. He is a good student and ambassador to his family. I have four sons and Justin has always been kind and loving towards them, especially when they were small. He’s a great kid that anyone would be proud to say that he’s their friend. Wolverine fans will be very pleased with him on and off the field.
Coach, thanks for answering my question! Feel free to post here anytime. Based on Feagins’ abilities, it sounds like UM will be fine without Pryor. Thanks again for your input!!
Thanks Coach!
We all know, as great as it is that Justin Feagin is an outstanding QB with positive attributes, we also know that every athelete has areas of weakness that needs to be improved. What are those areas with Feagin?
He has a tendancy to run east to west instead of north to south occasionally. He needs to secure the football better when he runs. He is only 6’1″, 197 pounds, but has a big frame, he’ll get bigger. If he becomes a QB with Michigan, he needs to take some public speaking courses. I don’t think he even realizes how important first impressions are. He has things going on that most young kids have, but he’ll find his way, He always has. Under the right coaching, I know he’ll be a tremendous success. The only thing I worry about is that I do not know what kind of pro potential he has as a spread option QB. The last time I checked, no one in the NFL is running it, and no one ever will. I have always believed in him, but his road after AA will be a hard one if he is your QB. Sometimes I wish he did sign as a DB, RB, WR instead. He will have to learn not to be so trusting, a lot of people will like or dislike him for the wrong reasons. He has a heart of gold and hasn’t been jaded by the world, he sees everything through rose colored glasses. In AA it is very possible to leave the “Big House” with 108,000 people hating you, no matter how bad you want to win…
Thanks for the insight coach! Maybe he could be the next Randle El? (I am referring to how he played QB in college at IU and was drafted to play WR in the NFL.) Let us know if there are any other stud recruits considering UM!! Feel free to post either way, as I find your posts both informative and interesting!!
Big Blue, I have another interesting post for you. I have had to coach against Martavious Odums the last couple years. He is dynamite as well. Feagin recieved the offensive player of the year this year, Martavious recieved that prestigous award last year as a junior. In our second offensive possession this year against Pahokee (Odum’s High School, 14-0 state champs)I told our punter, “whatever you do, do not kick it to Odums – kick it out of bounds”. Wouldn’t you know it? He kicked it right to Odums and he returned it 84 yards for a touchdown. He is lightening fast, unbelievably quick and hard to tackle. Don’t let his small size fool you, he is a tank. He loves contact and is by far the best crackback blocker I have ever seen! Great pick-up for the Wolverines. I don’t know him like I know Feagin, but I’ve coached against him for years, Wolverine fans will love him…
Coach, thanks again for your thoughts and insight!! I am really impressed with how RR is focusing his recruiting efforts on improving team speed.
I really think lack of speed on the outside is what doomed ohio state in the nc game this year. LSU had so much speed and athleticism on defense that their corners could single cover osu’s wide receivers and then send the house. (It does help that LSU had Glen Dorsey on the Dline.)
Thanks again, Coach for your posts. Feel free to post here anytime you want, as your posts are very well thought out and insightful!
Big Blue