The Fort's own Jim_S joins senior editor John Borton on the podcast, talking about the present season and Michigan recruiting.
The discussion centers around the recruiting that led up to the present "bubble" year, what has transpired thus far, and what will happen down the road with the talent Michigan is grooming and recruiting.
Here's the podcast…
Here are some podcast highlights, including Jim_S on…
• The backdrop to 2017: [Brady Hoke's] first full class was last year's fifth-year class, that had Chris Wormley, all of these offensive linemen. Many of the starters last year were fifth-year kids, out of a national top-five or six class.
"He followed that up with a second full cycle, which was another very highly rated class. What's interesting is, with that first class, he redshirted a lot of those kids. A lot of those kids were linemen, and we started Wormley, [Ryan] Glasgow, [Matt] Godin, who were all fifth-year kids in the defensive line.
"Then we had a lot of fourth-year kids who did not redshirt, who were starters last year. There were kids like Taco Charlton, Jake Butt, Jourdan Lewis, the two safeties in Delano Hill and Dymonte Thomas. You had an interesting situation, because you had tons of fifth-year kids who had redshirted, and a ton of talented fourth-year players, and they were all exhausting their eligibility simultaneously.
"In Jim Harbaugh's first two years at Michigan, he was relatively successful in coaching up Brady Hoke's two core recruiting classes. Of course, there were disappointments last year, with that tough finish."
• What that left this year: "I have never seen that, in my 50-some years of following the program. I have never seen Michigan having just five returning starters in one season. Not only the historically monumental losses, but in terms of replenishing the starters, you didn't really have a large fifth-year class, because a lot of those fourth-year players graduated.
"Then you had Brady Hoke's two smallest classes, this year's fourth-year players and this year's third-year players. Now, the elite fourth-year player, Jabrill Peppers, left early, and we only signed about 14 or 15 kids in each class. They were not very highly rated classes.
"There has been some attrition in this classes…
"A combination of the poor season, the coaching change and limited scholarships basically left us with two consecutive classes where we just did not have numbers. Unfortunately, those are this year's true juniors and true seniors."
• On the immediate future: "We have to start to have an eye toward next year. We're certainly out of the national playoff discussion for this year. We're the longest of long shots to win a Big Ten title. We're not mathematically eliminated yet, but it's pretty unlikely.
"We still have a shot at going 10-2. That's very unlikely. There's a decent chance we could go 9-3, and more likely 8-4. I certainly don't want to go 7-5 or worse. We've got to play to win.
"We've already got a lot of young kids out there, so it's not like we're going to be pulling all the seniors and putting in a lot of young players, with massive changes. What I think we're going to see is, hopefully, [redshirt freshman quarterback] Brandon Peters seeing some time. I don't think he'll be starting, but they'll get him some substantial game reps against the likes of Rutgers.
"He's literally one play away from being the starting quarterback. The last thing I want is for him to be handed the reins when he's only had one series of mop-up time this year."
• The effect of 2017 on recruiting: "People ask, what impact is [the Michigan State loss] going to have on recruiting? One isolated loss isn't going to have a significant impact on long-term recruiting. Now, if you have a few more losses, that sort of trend can have a negative impact.
"At the end of the day, players want to play for winning programs. That's why, for the past few years, Alabama and Ohio State have been 1-2, or 2-1, in recruiting rankings, with Clemson jumping up there as well, and Florida State.
"Michigan has made a little bit of a push the last couple of years, but let's not fool ourselves. One of the reasons we've been ranked so high by some services is because of signing 27, 28 kids. Numbers do make a big difference, in terms of why we were ranked so highly.
"If you take those top 15 or 16, they're not quite as elite as what Ohio State or Alabama have signed. This year we're only going to sign 15 or 16. But we're still recruiting at a level where we can compete with these guys."
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