Goodbye, Brad Hawkins

 

Brad Hawkins (image via MLive)

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HIGH SCHOOL
Hawkins was originally from Camden (NJ) Camden in the 2016 class, where he was a teammate of eventual Michigan signee Cesar Ruiz. He signed with Michigan in 2016 but had to attend prep school at Suffield (CT) Suffield Academy and reclassify to the 2017 class. In the meantime, he went from being committed as a receiver to then coming in as a safety in 2017. He was ranked as a 3-star, the #66 wide receiver, and #425 overall in that 2017 class.

COLLEGE
Hawkins played in all twelve games as a freshman and then started one game as a sophomore in his home state of New Jersey when the Wolverines played at Rutgers. He then became a full-time starter in 2019 and was named the team's most improved player; Pro Football Focus even jumped in and named him their First Team All-Big Ten player at the Flex position, which is reserved for hybrid players, since Hawkins was largely a safety/linebacker hybrid.

CAREER STATISTICS
178 tackles, 7 tackles for loss, 1 fumble recovery, 2 forced fumbles, 8 pass breakups
6 kickoff returns for 83 yards

AWARDS
Third Team All-Big Ten (2021)

SUMMARY
Hawkins is one of those seemingly rare cases of a Michigan recruit who goes to prep school and actually ends up at Michigan. It seems like most recruits who have academic issues just end up going elsewhere rather than working their way into Michigan. Originally recruited as a wide receiver - who spent his prep year also playing wide receiver - it seemed odd that he came in as a safety immediately. I had issues with Hawkins early on because of some stiffness and a lack of top-end speed, but safety is one of those positions where experience really matters. As the years wore on, he made fewer and fewer mistakes. And whether he was just reacting quicker or whether he actually improved physically, he seemed to play faster and faster, to the point where he was a very solid player his last couple years. While he wasn't flashy as a senior (60 tackles, 3 TFLs, 2 FF, 1 FR, 4 PBU) and never made an interception in his career, he was always in the right spot. He did a good job of filling on the run, made some excellent plays when he was supposed to hold the edge, and had very few bad plays in 2021. He's a great example of why freshman safeties make me nervous and why it's nice having veterans on the back end of the defense.

I WILL REMEMBER HIM FOR . . .
. . . playing at Michigan forever. Okay, technically it was only five years (2017-2021), but since Hawkins was committed in the 2016 class, too, it feels like he's been a staple of Michigan's program. And that makes sense because he played in 56 career games, an all-time high for a Michigan player. (Due to COVID-19, he was able to play six games in 2020 and still return for a fifth year.) That's a record that's going to be very hard to break.

PROJECTION
I was surprised to learn that Hawkins was not even invited to the 2022 NFL Combine. After all, he has to be one of the most experienced safeties in the country, and he played for two high-quality defensive coordinators: Don Brown, who has put oodles of players in the NFL, and Mike Macdonald, who parlayed his year at Michigan into a defensive coordinator job with the Baltimore Ravens. Perhaps teams feel like they have nothing to learn about a guy who has 56 games of tape available, but I have to think the NFL's general concerns mirror mine from earlier in his career, regarding stiffness and overall athleticism. It only takes one team to jump up and draft you, so perhaps he becomes a late round pick. I would have pegged him for a 6th/7th round pick, anyway, but the lack of a Combine invitation makes me think he might just have to go the undrafted route.