Michigan Football Recruiting: Nick Patterson's HC Details His Attributes
Michigan added to their 2020 class recently when they picked up a commitment from San Antonio (Texas) Christian tight end Nick Patterson, the younger brother of Michigan QB Shea Patterson. The Wolverines caught up with his head coach this week to get the details on what type of player Patterson will bring to Ann Arbor.
“He’s a big physical pass catcher. He’s a big target, great hands, and then once he catches the ball he’s going to lower his shoulder and run over people,” head coach Brandon Parrott explained.
Patterson plays both sides of the ball for his high school and shows off his positional versatility at a high level.
“With his combination of size and athleticism we use him as a defensive end, as a tight end, a receiver, an H-back and fullback. With my conversation with coach Harbaugh, I know they were really interested in that H-back position and being able to move him around, use him as a blocker and a pass catcher. From our first conversation he made me guarantee that we’d have Nick run blocking, not just split out catching passes all the time, and I assured him we’d do plenty of that.”
As for those who’d call Patterson a tweener and suggest he can’t play the tight end position at a program like Michigan, his coach disagrees.
“I think he’s just big enough to use his size, but his desire to be physical makes him play bigger,” Parrott said. “And then he’s caught a whole lot of balls from a family of quarterbacks, so he’s got good hands and he’s used to catching passes.”
While Patterson may excel in these areas, there’s always room to improve, for any prospect.
“I think just the continued development in understanding disciplined football,” he said. “The continued growth in playing a higher level of football. Coming out of Mississippi and moving here, I don’t know how much of an offseason Nick had really had before. He’s played multiple sports and they just haven’t had the year round commitment to the strength and conditioning and the offseason football work that we do in Texas.
“Really working on stepping counts, running disciplined routes, form technique on his blocking instead of just being bigger than guys and pushing them around, those are all the things that we’re continuing to work with him on,” Parrott continued.
Patterson is new to Texas high school football and made the move last Winter.
“I’ve been involved a lot [in his recruitment to Texas] just like I do for all of our kids. We had a very active spring with about thirty schools coming through here for spring ball. We have two other kids on the roster right now with division one offers, and as schools came in we’re talking to our seniors for this season and bumped into Nick, with the family name. Seeing him in person, they didn’t care about film, they knew this is a kid that looks the part of a division one football player. Everybody’s just been looking to see more and get film on him this year, and so far he’s putting good stuff out there.”
Could the 6-3, 215 pound Michigan commit continue to rack up offers?
“That’s a good question,” Parrott said. “There are a ton of schools that have showed significant interest, but haven’t put an offer in yet. I think they might have missed their shot, because falling in love with Michigan, and without those offers on the table to be considered he’s looking forward to being a part of the Michigan Football program.
“There are big time division one programs that have expressed interest but haven’t offered to this point, and he had the experience in the Big House and that was all he needed to push him over the top and go ahead and commit.”
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