Recruiting

If you ever wonder what sets college sports apart from all other sport, it's recruiting season. The NFL and other pro sports have offseasons, but player acquistions come in mainly two tiers; drafts and free agency. This is different from recruiting, the only method to acquire players in college (the amount of transfers is negligible). Also, college recruiting is defined by having much less limitation on the amount of talent one team can gather. Take for example the Fab Five, who made Michigan basketball wildly popular (and successful) in the early 90s. No pro sports team (except perhaps the Yankees), can compile such an assemblage of talent in one year. And obviously the great talent a team recruits is crucial to how it performs during the actual season. As one can see, without Fab Five level talent, or even the Jamal Crawfords and Tractor Traylors of the world, Michigan basketball has been relatively mediocre in recent times (yes NIT championships are mediocre). To get a glimpse of the basketball team's lagging performance relative to the late 80s and early 90s, check out Neal Patel's blog site.

UM doesn't acknowledge us anymore even though we did 10 times more for the school than Mary Sue Coleman ever will.

Thankfully the football team has not fallen on hard times (knock on wood) during my time at UM, and I again need to emphasize their success is very much due to recruiting. When you have guys like Herrmann and Gittleson submarining various aspects of the football season, yet are still able to win a conference title, that says quite a bit about the talent the team has. Having a top 5 recruiting class last year paid nearly instand dividends; Henne and Hart are the most memorable freshmen duo nationally since Webber and Rose (and yes I consider them a duo because they were the two superstars of the Fab Five, Webber being the incredible talent and Rose being the clutch performer), and Michigan won the Big Ten with very much help from them.
So what's cooking now in Michigan recruiting? UM has already committed superstars Mario Manningham, a gamebreaking wide receiver, and Kevin Grady, who is foregoing his second semester of 12th grade to join the Michigan football team. Grady, while young, is already a legend, having averaged around 2000 yards and 35 touchdowns a season throughout high school. Read that again. Those are career stats in one season! Whispers are developing that Grady will push Hart for playing time, much the same way that many suggested Henne would make a push for time this year. I am simply looking for the best backfield this school has had since Wheatley and Biakabutuka.
As far as what's left on the recruiting agenda, UM lost out on Justin King, the top cornerback in the nation, who went to Penn State. They offset this lost (only somewhat), by signing Brandon Harris, who you can read about on Ajai's blog. But the key remains Victor "Macho" Harris, one of the elite cornerbacks in high school, from Virginia. Michigan is in stiff competition with UVA and Virginia Tech for his commitment, but I can honestly say he is the type of player on and off the field that a Michigan fan like myself would love to have. Harris risked his life to save his family from a kitchen fire, and that demonstrates great character and unselfishness, as he could have easily lost his athletic future that includes millions of dollars. Luckily, Harris will be able to play again with no effect, although he will need some cosmetic surgery. One can only hope that if he risked letting a fire waste his talent, he'll risk letting Jim Herrmann do the same. Just kidding; the great players even Herrmann can't mess up.

Jim Herrmann is already wondering how he can ruin Victor Harris into being the next Markus "I suck so bad that getting shot in my back made me a better cornerback" Curry