cameron mcgrone

[Bryan Fuller]

Previously: Podcast 10.0A. Podcast 10.0B. Podcast 10.0C. The Story. Quarterback. Running Back. Wide Receiver. Tight End And Friends. Offensive Tackle. Interior Offensive Line. Defensive Tackle. Defensive End.

Michigan returns two All Big Ten performers who were true sophomores a year ago and has a third guy who they're so hyped about that they're inventing a position for him, more or less. Weakside linebacker? Eh... it'll be fine.

VIPER: I HEAR THE VOICES IN MY HEAD THEY TELL ME TO TACKLE PEOPLE IN THE BACKFIELD ESPECIALLY IF THEY'RE GOPHEEEEEEEERS

Rating: 5.

HOPE YOU DIDN'T NEED THAT STERNUM [Bryan Fuller]

Look, man: it's a credibility issue. Recent events related to folks named McDoom and Norfleet may have dented the air of impregnable correctness and certainty this site lives up to on a daily, nay, hourly basis. So this is not a tooting of one's own horn. It is merely... a reminder of the trust you willingly and thankfully put into this site:

Yeah, Jabrill Peppers is gone. I'm not sweating it. I'm wearing a KHALEKE HUDSON [recruiting profile] fez, waving a Khaleke Hudson flag, and writing a PhD dissertation about Khaleke Hudson's senior highlight reel. Anyone who's read this site for a hot second knows its staff comprises the biggest Hudson fan group outside of his immediate family, and if he takes off like Michigan hopes he will they're going to have to really up their game at Christmas.

You probably shouldn't listen to us when the topic is an offensive skill player who should have gone to Oregon. But.. eh? Eh? Eh? Pretty good right?

Hudson stepped into Peppers's shoes with barely a hiccup. He was a lethal blitzer, sure tackler,—just three misses on the season—punishing hitter, and ... uh... largely untested cover guy. While his headline numbers were propped up by a desperate/dumb gameplan from Minnesota that led to an all-time program single-game TFL record, his play over the course of the season was as elite as the shiny TFL and sack numbers imply.

He missed zero tackles in run D, making 45. His pressure rate of nearly 30% is top ten nationally amongst returning back seven players. His 21 run stops leads returning Big Ten safeties. And he graded out better than Peppers, per PFF. This site had a difficult time deciding whether Hudson or Devin Bush was dreamier for much of the year.

Don't let the Minnesota game cloud your memory. Hudson wasn't just a free runner. He was capable of jetting past blockers who couldn't match his get-off...

#7 OLB to top of line

...and able to redirect inside OL worried about said get-off:

#7 OLB to top of line

And anyone who remembers Brandon Harrison can appreciate Hudson's ability to close under control when he is in fact given a free run:

And tackling? This guy's got more tackles than Michigan's entire roster /weeps in corner

[After THE JUMP: my bad on the tackles joke you guys]

Previously: Last year's profiles. S Sammy Faustin, S German Green, CB Gemon Green, CB Vincent Gray, CB Myles "Spider" Sims.

On the national and regional level—ie, the rankings level—24/7 is often the only site paying close attention these days, and every time they attended to Cam McGrone they liked him a little better. He started off as a fairly well-regarded gent but one just outside the top 250. Then he was 131st, 44th, 31st, and finally 24th. Along the way he became a five-star and the nation's top outside linebacker.

It's possible that other folks would have come to the same conclusion if they'd been paying similar attention. ESPN again has just an underclass evaluation, and while Rivals did offer a bump after McGrone was excellent during Army game practices that 43-slot jump barely got him inside the top 200, and Rivals straight up admitted that they hadn't really been paying attention to one of the top prospects in the Midwest:

“It had been some time since we got a really good evaluation update on McGrone, but the Army Bowl gave us a full week to see his development and his development has been strong. The future Michigan Wolverine is a fast and athletic linebacker who is very comfortable playing in space.” - Helmholdt

One wonders what happens to prospects who don't get picked for the Army game.

The pattern of McGrone's recruitment—a more or less rapid rise—is important in the context of his high school career. McGrone tore his ACL at the tail end of his junior year and spent a portion of camp season still in recovery mode. Once back to full strength and a little more filled out, McGrone took off. You know, took off-ish. That is in part because his recovery was absurdly fast. By the Opening he was more than holding his own against a selection of the country's top athletes:

…showed zero signs that he is around seven months removed from an ACL injury. The four-star is extremely quick and would add speed to the Notre Dame linebacker core if he selects the Irish. He is also a fluid athlete and covers a lot of ground in the middle of the field.

And he got back to business quickly enough that went Brandon Brown flagged down a coach who had experienced McGrone in person it warranted italics:

“I thought he improved a lot as a senior. He was just so explosive and incredibly fast for his size. I was so impressed with him — he’s just an all-around great linebacker, and will be a great fit at Michigan.”

When asked what the four-star linebacker’s biggest attribute is on the field, Frauhiger didn’t hesitate.

“His explosiveness,” he said. “At one point during our game, our guard took the wrong step and McGrone proceeded to break our quarterback in half — he’s probably still sore from that hit five months later. It should be on a highlight reel of ‘what not to do.’”

The late takes are even more likely to be the real ones in this case. And as you can probably extrapolate from Frauhiger's broken quarterback, McGrone is the very model of a modern Don Brown backer.

[After THE JUMP: oh look another jetpack squirrel.]

Very different types of 3-stars [Eric Upchurch, 2013]

This is take two (take one got deleted) of Part II of my attempt to put the recruiting rankings of this year’s commits in context within the ~500 previous Michigan commits we have Part I: The Offense lives here.

Since the last one I’ve been dealing with a health thing. In fact I’m writing this from the hospital, where they’ve had me holed up since last Friday. Between tests, consultations, vitals, and literally almost 100 needle pokes into my vascular system, I’ve had time to complete a substantial update to my roster database, which now goes all the way back to Gary Moeller’s first year, plus some long overdue tweaks to how I value position and regional rankings.*

I’ve also been playing around with interactive charts on Tableau:

Click to get to the chart since I can’t figure out how to get embedding to work yet. I’m new at these so bear with me as I learn.

* [Methodology for stat nerds: I averaged the 247 composites of each rank for each position, then plotted it on a graph and used the logarithmic formula]

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STRONGSIDE DEFENSIVE END

Young Wormley was 70 percent potential, 30 percent hair [Upchurch/Bryan Fuller]

After Michigan loaded up with linemen last year and secured two one of the top DEs for 2019, they could afford to get picky in 2018. They still got one potentially immediate contributor and two excellent choices for sleepers of the class. Aiden Hutchinson got a late ratings bump from the sites which pushed him up from a near-perfect Ryan Van Bergen comp to “not just a four star” range.

The only relatively recent guy Michigan captured in this range was Craig Roh, but if Rivals hadn’t been so contrarian with Wormley I think that would be your closest comp. 247 was the highest on Wormley and came out about the same on Hutchinson’s kid. He’s supposed to be coming in to play defense but if you want to project him at guard, well, here’s the closest comp:

We have to scroll down to the mid 3-stars for Taylor Upshaw and Julius Welschof:

Note that’s not “generic three star” like Greg Brooks/Rondell Biggs, but neither is it “just missed a fourth star” like Carlo Kemp and Jibreel Black. As I said, I love the potential with both of these guys. Upshaw is the son of an NFL player who didn’t start playing football until recently. Welschof is a German athletic freak and mogul skiier who gathered a lot of interest from the big-time schools he camped at. The recruiters were always playing catch-up there too. Rivals didn’t take to Welschof—otherwise the sites placed them in the same range as some other position-switchers or needs-to-gain-weight types with high ceilings to unwrap in a few years.

Defensive end is a position where the talent apparent in high school translates more directly to an NFL career:

(and that’s totally the reason I showed this)

Fortunately for our hopes here the only guy from the three-star bin considered an athlete on the level of Upshaw and Welschof was Shelton Johnson, and his career crumbled for off-field reasons.

[After THE JUMP: used to be better before I had to rewrite all of it]

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