Former Northwestern offensive guard Josh Priebe entered the transfer portal and committed to Michigan.
Priebe is listed at 6'5" and 310 lbs. He started 28 games at Northwestern, including twelve games in 2023. He was named Third Team All-Big Ten and selected as a captain for the Wildcats, who completed a surprising 8-5 season on December 23 with a 14-7 win over Utah.
Michigan offered Priebe out of Edwardsburg (MI) Edwardsburg back in the class of 2020. Though Michigan made sense in many respects, he was crystal balled to Michigan State for a while before picking Northwestern. He played quite a bit as a true freshman in 2020, which didn't count because of COVID. He then went on to start for the majority of 2021-2023.
I remember Priebe as a mobile offensive lineman who pulled quite a bit in high school and looked pretty good on the hoof. Michigan is losing both offensive guards - Trevor Keegan and Zak Zinter - to the NFL after this season, and Priebe started at left guard for the 'Cats. He could possibly slide into Keegan's spot at left guard for 2024, though there's stiff competition from the likes of Andrew Gentry, Giovanni El-Hadi, and others. A lot can happen between now and next August, but the starting line could look like this:
- LT: Myles Hinton
- LG: Josh Priebe
- C: Drake Nugent
- RG: Giovanni El-Hadi
- RT: Trente Jones
All of those players have starting experience, and each of them would be in at least his fourth year of playing college football.
Priebe was a 3-star, the #20 offensive guard, and #435 overall in the class of 2020. He would be the first player to suite up for the Wolverines from Edwardsburg (MI) Edwardsburg, though there is a player named Frank Loomis who suited up for Michigan way back in 1891. I can't figure out when Edwardsburg High School opened or whether Loomis was just from the town . . . or if he attended some now defunct school in the area. Regardless, it's been a long time since anyone from Edwardsburg has worn the maize and blue winged helmet.
Yet another addition to a deep OL. I do wonder if guys like Anderson & Crippen will hang in there to compete, but this is CFB in the modern era ... now we need a CB2, WR and maybe an OT/QB, depending how the roster shakes out
ReplyDeleteIt all depends on departures but I don't see a single position where PORTAL additions aren't potentially helpful or flat out needed.
DeleteQB - if JJ goes this is a must because I don't think you want to roll with Davis/Orji/Denegal.
RB - nobody has any idea who is coming back but if it's Hall, Cabana, Dunlap and freshman I think you look for a vet in the portal. WR - obviously.
TE - also duh if Barner is gone to the NFL.
OL we are fine but obviously looking around for upgrades.
Edge - already got Stewart though who knows if he sticks around but Harrel sounds gone and McGregor is a maybe.
DT - OK I found a spot where we don't need anyone LOL.
LB - already locked in both starters via Portal so we're good here too.
CB - massive need with Wallace/Sainristil gone. Does anyone really expect to beat OSU, Oregon, Washington, and USC with McBurrows starting in the secondary?
S - depends on Paige/Moore decisions.
I don't think we there is a "good" portal QB available. And not many Daniels types will risk their draft status to come here to throw 20 times a game. They want that "wow" year to increase their market.
DeleteRB, I think we are fine, the MAC guy is available.
WR. We don't use them.
CB- Hill looked like he has a good skill set to play. Hurt and RS. Maybe we get Jackson from the portal, but he needs a lot of work to unf#$% him. Top athletic talent that needs to be rebuilt.
I would come back if I am JJ. He looks like he needs to fill out some more IMO. In the NFL, you get one shot, unless your name is zach wilson. I would not want to screw it up. on the other hand, coming out now means you might go to a good team and get to sit for a couple years vs getting killed. I don't think JJ coming back is going to hurt his NFL career at all or impact his lifetime earnings. Going to the right team, physically ready, nailing it, and getting the second contract for >30M a year, 100M guaranteed in year 4 is the ticket. Gotta play the long game.
NFL scouts are smarter than that. They aren't drafting off volume and understand system/context and efficiency/turnover avoidance.
DeletePatterson and Rudock are counter-examples to your line of thinking Anon. Rudock - who was so mediocre he lost his starting job at Iowa -
and then played pretty mediocre ball for UM, got himself drafted because of perception that Harbaugh ran a NFL-style of offense.
There are many good potential additions who aren't even in the Portal yet - OSU is looking too. But let's be clear that the bar for improvement is very very low. We are talking about competing with an undersized freshman QB who is plummeting in the recruiting rankings. We don't need a guy who is expecting to get drafted immediately to have an improvement relative to Davis/Orji/Denegal.
I'm a fan of Davis but asking him to be the man as a freshman is a lot, especially with our schedule.
I'll also disagree about NFL QBs only getting one shot -- the league is full of retreads. Getting to that second contract is the reason to go early -- the sooner you go, the sooner you get there.
But yes - I would LOVE to see JJ back, as a Michigan fan. He would be probably sacrificing 10s of millions to do that, but money isn't everything.
Anon, we won't be in the hunt for a blue chip QB transfer, but all we need is a veteran to hand the ball off, and make the occasional play (but mostly not scree up)
DeleteWe won't be #1, but that can keep us in the playoff
"NFL scouts are smarter than that. They aren't drafting off volume and understand system/context and efficiency/turnover avoidance."
DeleteNo doubt.
Signed Johnny Manziel.
Here are some QBs who threw for more yards than Manziel in 2013:
DeleteDerek Carr
FRES
Sean Mannion
ORST
Connor Halliday
WSU
Bryce Petty
BAY
David Fales
SJSU
Keith Wenning
BALL
Shane Carden
ECU
None of them were drafted ahead of Manziel. Only 1 of them had a higher YPA, 1 had a higher pass rating, 1 had a higher completion percentage.
The guy who WAS drafted ahead of Manziel threw for 600 fewer yards.
This was 10 years ago! And it was obvious back then that the NFL drafts on potential and not production.
I think we're going to be going toe to toe with OSU for a starter out of the portal by the end of the month. Plan A is get JJ back for sure but if that doesn't work....
DeleteI think you'll see us push for more than a Tuttle/Bowman type to compete with Davis. And even if the push isn't coming from our end -- don't you think there's going to be some high end starters at lower tier conferences who might make some exploratory calls about the vacancy in Ann Arbor? The chance to play for Harbaugh/Campbell/Moore, behind that OL, backed by that defense, with that JJ-levels of NIL money on the table, not to mention the draft potential....it's going to be pretty tempting to some pretty good players.
Moreover we've seen the benefits that QBs in their 5th and 6th years can realize (look at Penix now vs 3 years ago, look at Burrow in year 5 vs year 3, and on a lower scale - look at Milton in year 6, Rudock in year 5, DJ Uligaleilei now vs as a underclassmen). There's a massive advantage in having an experienced signal caller. We saw that at Michigan in 2021 when Mediocre McNamara holding off JJ. This is still going to be reality in 2024.
I do not think Jadyn Davis will be Michigan's starter in 2024. Michigan will be in a very bad way if that happens. That's not an insult at Davis, either. He's a capable talent. But to be successful as a true freshman at Michigan, you need to either have great arm talent or be a great athlete, and Davis is neither.
DeleteI agree Thunder. Which means it's JJ or portal right? I don't think Dengal or Orji have done enough to convince you they are the answer either.
DeleteHuge recruiting get. When you get a guy from high school you cross your fingers and hope he'll develop into an all-conference caliber starter. Priebe is already there!
ReplyDeleteThe next month is going to be very interesting to see which of the 2023 roster returns and which moves on to NFL or other schools. Welcome to college football free agency.
Curious Thunder if you have thought about a point where "enough is enough" with the portal. Is there a % of starters coming from portal (as opposed to high school) where you think there would be a point of diminishing returns for culture and development?
ReplyDeleteJust looking at other pro sports - I see the benefits of continuity but only up to a point. Pro sports teams are regularly turning over half their rosters in one offseason. Though both are important, talent seems to trump chemistry.
I'm curious why you think talent trumps chemistry. What CFP team - or other highly ranked team - is made up of talented players culled from various programs? All the successful teams in the CFP or close to it (Ohio State, Florida State, etc.) have mostly homegrown teams with a few players here and there from the portal.
DeleteI think culture is more important in college, because they're not mercenaries. You have 125 players with maybe 10 who are transfers, but like 90% of that team - the walk-ons who make up the scout team, the special teams guys, etc. - play for their school and bust their tails when they come off the bench.
NFL teams are made up of 53-man rosters. Some of those guys don't even buy in when they're given $2 million or $4 million to run routes or rush the passer, but the GM or the owner or the cap hit prevents them from being cut.
Yes, there are important players on CFP-level teams (Keon Coleman, Jared Verse at FSU; La'Darius Henderson, Drake Nugent, Josaiah Stewart, Josh Wallace, etc. at Michigan; etc.), but those are targeted acquisitions at positions of need. So far I haven't seen portal-heavy teams reach the upper echelon in college football. So until that happens, I think continuity and culture trump talent to an extent. (Obviously, that doesn't mean Air Force - which gets very few transfers - is going to beat Georgia, which has a ton of talent.)
Well I'm citing the example of pro sports. If continuity* was the most important thing you'd see teams leaning into it, building primarily through draft/minor leagues, and holding onto their own at every opportunity. Players would see that and react accordingly - sticking with their franchises when they want to win championships later in their career. Rarely does that happen though.
DeleteThere's some of that for sure but, even with salary caps and rewarding failure via drafts, it's the movement of veteran players (via free agency or trades) that are a much bigger factor in winning than the development of "homegrown" talent.
There's just a ton of team roster turnover across all the sports. From year to year you are seeing the rosters shuffle around. And then even if you're successful in developing your own talent as the Royals or lesser soccer teams in Europe or whatever, the Yankees and Dodgers and Lakers and Barcelona are just going to sign away your best guys the minute they can sign them for big money and endorsement deals in bigger markets.
The Brand matters and so does the fanbase. As Michigan football we benefit from this. We're already stealing from the Royals (i.e., the lesser big ten programs) with Hausman, Barner, Barham, etc. And there's really no reason not to do more of it via Virginia, Coastal Carolina, Stanford, MAC schools, etc.
Roster turnover, every year is like what -- 30 - 50% in pro sports? This is fully by choice! Now, TBF, there tends to be a lot more movement on the backend and deep bench than the frontline starters. Obviously you don't just want to maximize turnover every year - only teams that are in trouble go that route because there are costs to turnover, but in the search of improving talent you do choose to do it. Once you get both talent and fit that's precious and you want to hold onto it.
*Turnover doesn't cost you chemistry inherently and I think there's a false equivalency implied there. The question is where the costs of turnover become too high to offset the benefits of improving talent. At what point too much is too much is up for dispute.
As for college football now - it's pretty well established that only teams with top 10, 20 whatever the number is talent are the ones that win national championships. Talent wins in CFB and has for a long time.
Delete"You have 125 players with maybe 10 who are transfers,"
I'm not suggesting walk-ons are going to change in any way. So let's drop that number by 40 or so. You have 85 scholarships still (technically), but more importantly, you only have 40-50 that play meaningful snaps. So let's drop the part that matters down another 40 players because the roster could be 300 guys or 3000 guys and you still only have about 40-50 who are good enough to playing meaningful downs.
And 10-15 of those are transfers. Right now, already. You have about 25 who are starters and 5-10 of those are transfers. So you're already talking 20-35% range of the most important guys.
Michigan and Washington are both heavily relying on transfer players in their starting groups and using veteran experience to offset the talent advantages that places like Ohio State, Alabama, Clemson, LSU, USC, and Oregon have when it comes to high school recruits.
So let's be clear, we are ALREADY heavily reliant on transfers. That's a fact. But it's a fact of now that glosses over that the portal is new and trending only in one direction. You didn't have guys like Stewart, Hausmann, Barner, Barham a few years ago. A few years ago it was one year/grad transfers making up most of the movement. Now everyone sees the examples out there - players can go at anytime, to any school, whatever the market calls for. And NIL and portal movement is still in it's infancy!
Wouldn't you agree we'll have more next year than this year? Have we ever had guys like Domani Jackson and Dante Moore dipping after one year with this kind of volume?
DeleteI think the writing is on the wall...
I guess I would turn it around. My question is why Michigan would NOT do more of this. Is Barner hurting chemistry? Is Hausmann? Is Stewart? is Hinton? is Goode? I don't think they are. Do you have any reason to think it is?
Double the 9 portal guys we got and are we suddenly going to lose chemistry? Where is the evidence for assuming this?
If anything - wouldn't it help?
DeleteThere's a tremendous advantage to bringing in guys who have been around college football and know what they are doing relative to the kids coming out of high school. Kids who know about balancing school and practice and S&C. Kids, sorry young men, who know not to be an idiot on social media (take notes Semaj!). This contributes to culture as much as anything else.
" targeted acquisitions at positions of need"
LB was NOT a position of need for us -- we got Hausmann anyway
OL was NOT a position of need for us -- we got all these guys anyway
DT is NOT a position of need for us -- Goode is still out there contributing all season long in 2022 and 2023.
I think we really have took look past situation like Rudock in 2015 filling a big roster hole at a position of need. The reality of today is already different -- Crippen and Rolder and Persi are probably excellent college football players. But Nuget and Hausmann and Hinton are luxury upgrades that the Portal offers up. So you take it. And the portal offers it up with MORE reliability than high school recruiting ever will be able to because these guys are SURE things, proven commodities, who you can slide in with a lot less worry or risk that they're going to like commit a crime or flunk out.
You can try to win championships through the draft and your minor league teams but for most championship pro teams it's about getting talent through free agency (i.e., talent) more than anything else. I don't know why it would be different for the top tier blue blood college football programs.
I think there are going to be many dozens of Hausmann's and Stewarts and Turners and Barners every single year and any team NOT taking advantage (ahem, Clemson) is going to be severely disadvantaged. Moreover, any teams that choose to focus on high school over proven players under the argument of chemistry (ahem, Texas A&M, Miami) are also going to find that strategy to be ineffective boom/bust.
The Washington Michigan path is already paying dividends and I frankly think other teams like OSU and Alabama just haven't figured out yet that Drake Nugent and Olu Oluwatimi are more valuable than 90% of high school recruits and make it 99% if you get him for 2 seasons because then even the success stories (instant contributors) like Dallas Turner and Caleb Downs and Blake Corum and David Ojabo are now getting their career production levels threatened.
@ Lank 2:48 p.m.
DeleteBarner = captain
Hausmann = supposedly a great dude
Hinton = veteran starter
Goode = veteran starter
Stewart = veteran starter
Henderson = captain
No, they're not upsetting chemistry because they're borderline pros at the point they're transferring into Michigan. And some of them are great dudes, captain material, etc. If you're culling everyone else's captains, you're probably not going to have chemistry issues. But if you start taking disgruntled freshmen...that could cause issues.
I don't disagree I just don't see any difference in approach in regard to high school kids vs portal kids. If you recruit a selfish jerk he might be a selfish jerk -- that's true regardless. The culture risk is lower with portal kids. They are knowns and therefore less likely to be chemistry risks.
DeleteI've heard it argued elsewhere that you can't scale this up but I don't see why not. If you are worried about say Dante Moore's character - recruiting him as a sophomore is probably safer than recruiting him as a freshman. He's now more developed, more experienced, and almost certainly more mature than he was a year ago. Even a guy like Oyabe who created issues at multiple stops reached a maturity level to where he can play for Michigan and Charlotte without any known issues.
As portal becomes more and more conventional and the supply of transfers increases every year, there's no reason Michigan scale up while maintaining it's approach of focusing on higher character players.
You know who needs a QB from the portal? ohio ... oof, like bad man
ReplyDeleteYeah, that was pretty ugly.
Delete