Denard Robinson and Adrian Witty Commit to Michigan

Michigan just picked up two more commits from the state of Florida. Actually, both of them are from Deerfield Beach, Florida, as they were teammates in high school and will continue to be teammates in college. Denard Robinson, an athlete that plays quarterback and cornerback, and Adrian Witty, a defensive back, both picked Michigan in a press conference within the last few minutes, bringing the number of recruits in Michigan’s recruiting class up to 21 (I’m not counting DeQuinta Jones as a commit for obvious reasons).

As mentioned, Denard Robinson is an athlete that can play quarterback and cornerback. He is a 4-star on both Rivals and Scout, though he is listed at different positions on both sites. Rivals has him listed as an athlete, which is probably the best description of him now that we know he is going to Michigan. Scout, on the other hand, ranks him as a cornerback. ESPN also ranks him as an athlete, and they actually have him ranked #6 in the country.

Robinson has an impressive offer list that includes schools like Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Kansas State, Miami, Ohio State, and West Virginia. According to the Rivals story about Robinson’s decision, he “chose U-M over Central Florida, Florida and others.” It isn’t known what position each school offered Robinson as, but a big reason why he is coming to Michigan seems to be that he will get a shot at quarterback. Michigan needed at least two QBs in this recruiting class, and they now have accomplished that goal by adding Robinson.

Robinson is around 6 feet tall, 180 lbs, so he does have the size to play quarterback. He definitely has the speed as well, as his 40-yard dash time is a 4.4 on most sites. Does he have the arm? Only someone that has seen an extended highlight video or watched him in person could tell you for sure, but let’s just say it seems like he can throw the ball better than Justin Feagin. With 4.4 speed he is going to be running the ball more than anything anyways, and some have even compared him to Pat White for that reason. That’s not to say that he will have even half the college career that White did, but they are similar in many ways.

Before moving on to Michigan’s other new commit, here is an eight-minute-long video of Denard Robinson highlights:

Adrian Witty, Robinson’s teammate and now a fellow Michigan commit, is only a two-star cornerback/safety on Rivals and Scout. That is mainly because he tore his ACL at the end of the 2007 season and missed the first four weeks of the 2008 season. For that reason alone it is a gamble to take Witty, but when you consider that landing him likely helped the chances of landing Denard Robinson, it was a good move for sure. It’s not like Michigan has an overflow of defensive backs, so taking Witty was a smart move in my mind. If he stays healthy he could turn out to be a decent DB, and at the worst he will provide depth and helped land Robinson.

Here is a highlight video of Witty that includes him playing both offense (wide receiver) and defense: