Michigan football's recruiting Signing Day was uneventful, but in a good way. Everyone expected to sign, signed, giving U-M a borderline top 10 recruiting class in the early going.

Recruiting coordinator Matt Dudek said he couldn’t have been more pleased with the way the day went before talking about some of U-M’s signees.

“It was an uneventful day … and I say uneventful as no surprises,” Dudek said. “The guys we’ve had committed for a really long time signed. There were no guys talking about flipping or considering flipping. That’s two years in a row. It’s a sign of us doing our due diligence recruiting the right guys, recruiting them the right way, so it was a quote-unquote uneventful day, but we couldn’t be more excited for the guys coming in.”

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The class was defense-heavy, but the staff didn’t necessarily plan in that way.

“I think it’s the way certain things play out the way they play out,” Dudek said. “You never turn away a great player, so you have target numbers. We always have target numbers of where we want to be at certain positions, but we’re also not going to say, ‘that’s a great player, but we’ve already met our max at that spot, so we’re not going to take him.’

“That’s where I think you’ll see the defensive side. We’ve certainly got to replace some guys that are leaving, some holes left on that defense, but you’ll see on the back end, safeties and corners, defensive backs, a lot of guys that grow into linebackers. We added a lot of linebackers in this class, a pass rusher in Jaylen Harrell because we’re losing Josh Uche, so it’s one of those deals where it ended up that way. You can’t say we sat down and said we’ll get 14 of 22 or whatever on the defensive side of the ball.”

Two different players, Eamonn Dennis and R.J. Moten, could play either way, Dudek continued.

"First to get that category of an athlete, you have to have approval from offensive and defense,” he said. “We are very transparent … we will always tell a kid, ‘we are recruiting you at this position.’ You’ll never see us bring in a kid and say, ‘you’re going to be a D-lineman,’ then one day into camp say, ‘you’re an offensive lineman.’ It’s not how we operate. It’s one of those deals that those athletes approved on both sides of the ball … Eamonn Dennis and R.J. Moten we’re talking about.

“Then it’s where do they want to be recruited at? Eamonn was leaning a little more to offense, RJ leaning a little more to defense, but neither of them cared. Again, it goes to the quality of the guy. ‘Coach, I want to be a Wolverine. You tell me where to go to be the best player, to be the best player for Michigan’ — that’s what I want. You hear that, you perk up in your seat.

“RJ Moten is one of the best baseball players in the country right now, too. He could probably play baseball. We’re not advocating for that. We want him for football.”

Though stars don’t matter to them, Dudek insisted, he was happy to see offensive lineman Jeff Persi bumped up from a three-star.

“He was bumped to a four star later … he’s a top five offensive tackle in the country, I’ll say it right now,” Dudek said. “Four years from now, feel free to blow me up on twitter … you do so anyway. I don’t care. I’m telling you, Persi is a top five offensive tackle in the country and when he gets here and develops under Ed Warinner and Ben Herbert, I cannot wait to see that guy play.

“A lot of guys we are super excited about — I’m super excited about all these guys — but Jeff Persi when he committed to us this summer, I’m like, ‘okay, this is the guy.’ He’s all the way in California, but we’ve got to hold on to this guy for dear life. We’ve got to make sure we’re communicating with him, doing everything right, because you don’t want to lose him to the West Coast. You get away from Michigan and kind of forget a little bit.

“There’s nobody more solid than him and his family. His dad is an awesome dude. I love talking to him … I call them old Jeff and young Jeff. Just really good people.”

Not surprisingly, Michigan’s two highest rated recruits — Blake Corum and A.J. Henning — are both in Dudek’s “elite” category.

“Blake is an elite running back. We’ve seen it in him playing this season, saw it by the other guys trying to get him to flip and recruiting him throughout,” he said. “I can’t say enough about him because he was so locked in to us. Again, a credit to Blake. His phone didn’t stop ringing. Every single week we’ve seen him do everything right.

"AJ Henning is one of the most dynamic football players in the country. He will be one of the most dynamic football players that Michigan and people in the Big House have seen. He has been electric all season. He can run … move. Talk about Josh Gattis and speed in space … AJ fits that mold. The bubbles we throw, the under routes, all those things, that’s what AJ does. He is elite.”

Finally, he put Hawaiian Roman Wilson right up there with him, as well.

“Would we love a 6-4 guy who can run a 4.3? Yes. There’s not even one that exists right now,” Dudek said. “So he’s a 6-0 guy who runs a 10.3 100. That’s really, really fast. Maybe we “sacrifice” an inch to gain a lot of speed in that guy. He can run, play. That inch doesn’t mean a difference. He can do everything. He’s so athletic.

“Roman, he can run. He will run past guys and has the wide receiver trace you’re looking for.”

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