Overland Park (KS) Blue Valley Northwest offensive tackle Andrew Babalola committed to Michigan on October 21. He picked the Wolverines over Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Missouri, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Stanford, among others.
Babalola is listed at 6'6" and 280 pounds.
RANKINGS
ESPN: 4-star, 87 grade, #8 OT, #27 overall
On3: 5-star, 98 grade, #3 OT, #11 overall
Rivals: 4-star, 5.9 grade, #9 OT, #63 overall
247 Sports: 5-star, 98 grade, #2 OT, #11 overall
Hit the jump for more.
Michigan offered Babalola over a year ago, in September of 2023. The Wolverines were basically his first big-time offer up to that point, at least of traditional powers; Washington was the biggest offer prior to that. Over this past summer he took several official visits, including one to Michigan in June. Even though Oklahoma has the best recent history of his finalists outside of Michigan, it consistently came down to Michigan and Stanford as the most frequently mentioned landing spots. His interest in academics is obvious with those two finalists, but equally obvious is the fact that Michigan is the superior football program. While announcement dates got pushed back a couple times, there was some cautious optimism among insiders that Babalola would pick Michigan when the final decision came down.
Babalola is a big body with a really nice baseline set of skills. The first thing that sticks out is his stance, where he shows some nice flexibility with a good knee and ankle bend. He looks very natural in his stance and then shows quick, agile feet getting out of his stance. When it comes to offensive linemen, I like to take a look at how quickly they can get their second step down, and he takes very quick, choppy steps while also doing a good job of keeping his all of his cleats in the ground when he engages. He maintains that knee bend with a wide base, and he does a nice job of walling off defenders and then finishing blocks.
While some recruiting sites list him at 280 pounds, Hudl has him at 290. One of the things that might prevent him from playing or being effective as a freshman could be his weight, so he will have to put on some bulk. There will also be an adjustment in competition level, because Blue Valley Northwest in Kansas is not playing great competition. Furthermore, I don't see a lot of straight dropback passing in his film, so the movements constituting a consistent kick slide and consistent hand placement in pass protection may slow him down a bit.
Overall, Babalola has the tools to be a very good college offensive tackle. He would be able to play either tackle spot, and he should be able to play early. There might be some growing pains, but Michigan will have at least one tackle spot open in 2025 after Myles Hinton moves on, so there's a chance Babalola could step straight into a starting spot as a true freshman.
Michigan now has 17 commitments in the class of 2025; three of them are offensive linemen (Babalola, Avery Gach, Kaden Strayhorn), but Babalola is the only guy who looks like a surefire tackle. Michigan will likely try to find at least one more tackle in the recruiting class, but they could also look to the transfer portal for some immediate help as they will lose at least Hinton and left guard Josh Priebe after this year, not to mention key backup Jeff Persi.
TTB Rating: 91
Wow ... 91. You're normally a bit cautious with your ratings, so this is a good indicator of what this young man brings to the table. You mentioned adding weight, which is pretty much a given for most players as they move up to this level of football. Then you said, "so the movements constituting a consistent kick slide and consistent hand placement in pass protection may slow him down a bit."
ReplyDeleteThe question I would have to that is this: is there any indicators you can spot in players that would suggest he will pick that up easily, or he'll struggle with it? He has the other flex and footwork moves down well, according to your write-up. Would you assume he'll adopt the other tools easily?
(This gets to the general topic of natural talents vs. talents adopted through coaching, and signs to indicate whether a given recruit can or will take those coaching things on. Talent scouts no doubt have an eye for all sorts of subtle things, and I've long been curious about where the line blurs between easily coachable things, and things that simply have to "be there naturally" or they won't be there at all.)
Competition level is a concern. Going from 190lb Kansas HS DL to this new B1G is quite the jump, so I'd expect some waiting
ReplyDeleteGreat get though
I hope folks are patient. Our track record with expectations for 5-stars is way out of line with the results, and that's not a Michigan-specific thing for the recruits we've gotten. It's just a misalignment with typical outcomes for 5-stars.
ReplyDeleteFor OL especially it can take time. In my opinion one of the biggest factors in the success of 2021-2023 was that there was a total absence of freshman OL on the depth chart. It will be a red flag to me if we are back to doing that.