Saturday, April 17, 2021

Phillip Paea, Ex-Wolverine

 

Phillip Paea (image via 247 Sports)

Defensive tackle Phillip Paea has entered the transfer portal. Paea played in just a few games from 2017-2020, bouncing back and forth between offensive and defensive line.

Paea was recruited for defensive tackle, even though I said all along I liked him best on offense (LINK). I initially gave him a TTB Rating of 76 thinking the staff might come around, but as it became clear he was headed for defense, I lowered that to 68 (LINK).

It seems to be rather unusual that a player in modern football sticks around for four years without having a role on offense or defense, but that was the case here with Paea. As a grad transfer, he now has two years to play two.

That 2017 class was thought to be a great in-state haul, but Donovan Peoples-Jones and Ambry Thomas only played three years each, never reaching their ceiling. Deron Irving-Bey, Ja'Raymond Hall, Jaylen Kelly-Powell, and Joshua Ross rounded out that in-state class. The only one remaining is Ross, and so far, none has received honors above Third Team All-Big Ten.

3 comments:

  1. There's been too many underacheivers at Michigan.

    Here's to better days.

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    Replies
    1. I agree, but I don't know how much of an underachiever he was. He was a ho-hum recruit.

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    2. There's players I am thinking of that seemed to not pan out as expected. I dont want to list their names though.
      Nick Saban seems to get a lot out of both his players and coaches. I saw a video of him speaking to players and coaches. It wasnt X's and O's. It was a talk about not being mediocre, but going for excellence, and not for him, or for Alabama, but for themselves. I was expecting some awesome instruction on excellent plays. I'm sure he is well able to teach the game, and does. But this talk was about being excellent. It wasn't a pre-game pep talk. It was him in a class room type setting, the players not in pads.
      And I remember a video of Vince Lombardi doing the same thing, talking to players and coaches to become great.
      I guess great coaching is about inspiring people, not just teaching the game.
      It seems some players that have come throughMichigan in the past few years were not going for excellence.

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