Michigan Football Recruiting Tidbits: In response to some of our comments regarding Coach Tressel and Ohio State

Posted at 8:00am -- 12/6/2009

Michigan Football Recruiting Tidbits: In response to some of our comments regarding Coach Tressel and Ohio State

GBMW seemed to have gotten under some of our visitors’ skin with our comments about Coach Tressel and the possibility of him showing pity on Michigan.

We posted a follow up that changed the wording slightly and stated Ohio State/Coach Tressel was toying (versus showing mercy) with Michigan.

What concerns GBMW very much is that with Coach Tressel being 8-1 against Michigan, the rivalry is starting to become an after thought. Many Ohio State fans, at the beginning of the year, and also during the season, kept on talking about USC as being the big game this year, and rightfully so. But the thing that somewhat bothers GBMW is three of us (CoachBt, Doc4blu, and ErocWolverine) live in Ohio and we did not get the usually banter coming from Ohio State this year. It was almost disappointing and kind of ticked us off, because we never want Ohio State fans to feel sorry for Michigan, or even think that this is not a rivalry game anymore.

Especially with Ohio State beating our butts so bad the last three years. Yes, we were upset by how Michigan did under Coach Carr the last five years, but in every one of those games, except 2007, Michigan had a legitimate shot at winning. Bringing up the 2007 game, Coach Tressel did the same thing he did this year. He knew with Henne's dead arm and Hart being clearly hurt, that Michigan would struggle to move the ball on his defense. In the beginning of the second half, when Wells made that long run for a touchdown, Coach Tressel knew he had the game in hand and shut everything down. In fact, some people believe he shut it down earlier than that. But when the long run happened, Tressel only threw the ball twice in the second half.

The closeness of the rivalry has changed the last three years and if Michigan does not start to show up “The Game” will lose much of its glamour, especially nationally. "The Game" is always announced way ahead of time as a nationally televised game and usually has a noon start, especially in Ann Arbor. But it took up to the ten-day limit for the television executives to commit to the game. Sooner or later, if this trend continues, the Michigan Ohio State game will be split up nationally or even become a routine regional game.

What we are hearing, from people whose opinions we highly respect, is for Michigan to turn this downslide around the program must start seriously competing with Ohio State for the same top talent. Michigan will never seriously challenge Ohio State/Coach Tressel taking the athletes Ohio State is not interested in. This is what bothered us about Coach Carr later on as well, but he basically gave up Ohio completely, unless a kid first showed aggressive interest in Michigan. Only then would Michigan recruit such players. Michigan has to start signing the top/elite level players in Ohio, to not only help themselves, but to also hurt Ohio State.

Many fans do not understand that when you take a player away from a rival, this counts as two victories: one for your team and minus one for the rival. We do not care when a player from Ohio or a surrounding area picks a program like Florida, USC, Texas, etc. Because in the big scheme of things it will not hurt UM’s program as much as losing a heated recruiting battle to Ohio State, Notre Dame or Michigan State. This leaves the unpleasant reality of having to play that recruit for four years and also providing a rival program with recruiting ammo down the road.

Michigan was at its best under Coach Bo, Coach Mo, and Coach Carr when UM was getting great players like Rob Lytle (Fremont), Rickie Power (Akron), John Kolesar (Westlake), Dennis Franklin (Massillon), Chuck Heater (Tiffin), and Charles Woodson (Fremont) from Ohio.

If you look at the 2011 recruiting class in Ohio, and this class is considered by the experts to be loaded, Ohio State already has two top defensive end prospects committed and leads big for a top quarterback.

With Ohio having such a wealth of talent, it is imperative that Michigan becomes competitive regarding the recruiting of top-level players. Michigan must challenge Ohio State and start to gain commitments from some of the top players. Regarding this needed turnaround sooner is better than later. We know several recruits that either have offers or are looking at getting an offer from both Michigan and Ohio State. Some of those recruits have personally informed us that they have offers from Michigan, but they have rarely talked to the coaches. Frankly, the Ohio players (highly regarded) are quite puzzled.

When your team is 2-6 and 1-7 in the Big Ten the last two years, coaches better get a jump-start on recruiting elite talent, especially in a state like Ohio where Ohio State dominates. It is a simple formula, get on these recruits early, call them, write them, and visit them as often as allowed by the NCAA rule book. Just offering them on Sept. 1st is not good enough, especially if offers pour in from other big name schools. To land such players the effort must be consistent and intense throughout the year, to increase their interest in the Michigan program and also to show that Michigan is willing to seriously battle Ohio State for highly rated homegrown talent.

We have talked to numerous Ohio high school coaches at various places and all of them are saying the same thing. Michigan needs to compete not only on the field, but also off the field to demonstrate to recruits that UM is a serious program.

Nothing would create or spark the interest of Coach Tressel more than if he and his coaching staff start losing recruits to Michigan that were thought to be in the bag. A few better players from Ohio heading North and the interest in the rivalry just might reach a flash point and rekindle.

Written by GBMW Staff

Go Blue -- Wear Maize!