TRANSFERS
Jaishawn Barham - LB - Maryland: Barham is a 6'4", 233 lb. prospect who spent the past two seasons with the Terrapins. In the class of 2022, he was a 4-star, the #10 linebacker, and #119 overall. For the 2023 season, he made 37 tackles, 3 sacks, and 1 interception; that 1 interception came in the red zone against Michigan in the second to last week of the regular season. He could be a potential replacement for the graduating Michael Barrett, and perhaps junior Junior Colson could enter the NFL draft, too. Michigan offered him out of high school when he was coming from Baltimore (MD) St. Frances, which is the school that produced Blake Corum, Derrick Moore, Eyabi Okie, and others.
Joey Slackman - DT - Penn: Originally from Commack (NY) Commack, Slackman is a 6'4", 300 lb. grad transfer from Penn. He made 49 tackles and 4.5 sacks in 2023. The 2024 season would be his sixth year.
Upton Stout - S - Western Kentucky: Stout visited last weekend. He's a 5'9", 185 lb. player who made 29 tackles, 1.5 tackles for loss, 1 interception, and 8 pass breakups this past year. Originally from Houston (TX) North Shore, he started off at North Texas before transferring to WKU. Stout made 4 interceptions during his first year at WKU in 2022. Stout will be a redshirt junior in 2024 and could step in at nickel for Mike Sainristil.
2024
Jo'Ziah Edmond - CB - Nappanee (IN) Northwood: Edmond is committed to Michigan (LINK). He's a 4-star, the #23 cornerback, and #335 overall. This is his official visit.
Lugard Edokpayi - DE - District Heights (MD) Bishop McNamara: Edokpayi is a 6'6", 230 lb. prospect with offers from Florida State, Maryland, Michigan, Rutgers, Tennessee, and Texas A&M, among others. He's a 4-star, the #22 edge, and #268 overall. This is his official visit, a midweek stay from December 12-14.
Zach Ludwig - LB - South Park (PA) South Park: Ludwig is committed to Michigan. This is his official visit.
Jaden Smith - LB - Charlotte (NC) West Charlotte: Smith is committed to Michigan (LINK). This is his official visit.
All those portal transfers are exciting options. I feel pretty solid if Hausman and Rolder both decide to return but we've seen the benefit to having 3 LBs you can rotate.
ReplyDeleteGetting starting-caliber DB talent - at any position - seems like it should be a priority for Michigan. Stout would be a massive get. We don't know till we know but Will Johnson seems like the only lock to return right now. Hopefully the NIL funds that got Corum, Zinter, Keegan, Johnson, and Wilson back last year are targeting Paige and Moore this year.
Slackman can have a Mike Danna type of senior year - probably a back up but NFL scouts won't care about that kind of thing. As long as he performs at the better level of competition. With Goode and (probably) Jenkins out the door there is room in the rotation.
How would you say Michigan ranks in terms of most effectively managing the transfer portal for best effect? Are they in the top quarter of schools at this? Or lower? It seems they've done pretty well, but I don't know if everyone is doing about the same, or if Michigan is outshining the average.
ReplyDeleteI would give Michigan a B+ regarding its use of the transfer portal. The truth is they haven't really needed elite players the past few years, because they already had lots of them. Yes, they did land Rimington winner Olu Oluwatimi and Rimington finalist Drake Nugent, but they haven't landed the cream-of-the-crop transfers, probably due to NIL. I think before I give an A or A+, Michigan would need to start landing the true stars of the portal.
DeleteOluwatimi, Nugent, Hausmann, etc. have all been solid players that not many people really know about except the real diehards. So I'm talking about the star running backs, star quarterbacks, monster defensive tackles, etc.
The really tricky part is finding the elite guys who haven't been ruined by NIL and who don't have that "me first" mentality. So perhaps that makes some star players off limits for Michigan, because the culture demands buy-in that some kids aren't willing to give.
I wonder if guys like Dante Moore are the elite NIL guys they have a shot at. Players who realize taking the biggest payday in college may not be the best path to the bigger NFL contract. So now are looking more at development and a better shot at the league.
DeleteMichigan is getting getting value and finding fit. Guys like Olu, Barner, Nugent, Henderson may not get much media attention but they are producing results.
DeleteFWIW though - Hausuman was the #4 recruit in the entire portal according to 247, higher than any star QB, RB, or WR. Perhaps in the next year or two he will produce above some of the lower ranked portal recruits like Keon Coleman...but not yet.
IMO Michigan is using the Portal at an elite level. But there's also a lot of room for improvement, because everyone is still figuring out the Wild West of recruiting in 2023.
ReplyDeleteI said this in the offseason but the recruiting class ranking (#20 composite) was a joke. It was dramatically underrating the impact of our 9 incoming transfers and dramatically overrating the impact of the 25 high school kids. Colorado (72 incoming players LOL) was ranked at 21. Clemson (1 transfer) was ranked 16. LOL. Clemson would be in the playoff if they got the 9 guys we got from the portal.
Of our 9 transfers 8 of them are impact players and it's lucky that the one guy who didn't make an impact happens to be our backup QB. It's 6 starters (5 with all conference honors), 2 guys who rotate in regularly (Stewart and Hausmann) and our backup QB. If we get that level of production after 4 years from a 20-person recruiting class we call it a win. This comes at ~20% the cost in terms of scholarships used on portal vs high school.
All of CFB is underusing the Portal IMO. We are at the tip of the iceburg for freshman being recruited away from other lesser programs. There are going to be hundreds of Earnest Hausmann's in the future, at every level, IMO. Hausmann of course is a freshman year and jumped from Nebraska to Michigan -- I think that sort of thing will be normal including guys jumping from D3 to the MAC, MAC to power conferences, and power teams to blue bloods. Not to mention the Dante Moore's of the world - impressive freshman who are cashing in and moving on.
Depending on how good our NIL collectives are able to get our 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th year guys to return, I could easily see Michigan going up from 9 to 15 in the Portal class this year. Eventually (with more Hausmann's) I think you'll see incoming transfers equal to or in excess of incoming high school kids.
The new reality is that everyone is a free agent every year. Some kids are just going to move around and play at 4 different schools in their college "careers".
A kid like Eyabi Okie, who has been at 5 different schools, will go from a crazy outlier to unremarkable. Guys who simply go to 1 school for 4 or 5 years and then graduate will be a minority, IMO. Two will be a baseline expectation with the lower level conferences being minor leagues for the power conference teams.