Mailbag question: Big House Barbecue

Posted at 8:00am -- 5/25/2010

Mailbag question: Big House Barbecue

Was this a success or a failure?

It does seem that a lot of kids that promised or we were told were coming/invited didn't end up showing.

Was the quality of kids attending this year okay or a disappointment, with all the kids that turned down the invitation to come to the barbecue?

To me, I feel a little disappointed with the amount of quality players that came to this event.

George H.

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Thanks for the question.

First thing, any time Michigan/Coach Rod and staff can get players and their families on campus it is not just a good thing, but a great thing in our opinion.

When the visitors are players the staff has offered and have expressed an interest in Michigan that only makes it better.

One rule we try to follow at GBMW is to never get caught up in the early hype from the recruiting services.

They are trying to "hype" a dead period that also is a dead period on their web sites. So, the playbook is to first push all kinds of names, and usually big time elite name players. The suspense builds the closer the event draws near, and then the plethora of names thins out to a handful. Some players simply cannot make the event. You always see the sites pushing the elite level or highly ranked kids right now and hardly see anything about any "super sleeper" kids at this point in time. Of course as signing day closes in the “super sleeper” strategy kicks in.

Too many kids have other commitments that make it difficult to attend this type of event. There are summer sports, many Michigan recruits compete in baseball track, and prepping for final exams that should and sometimes must take precedent over attending recruiting events that the family and recruit have to pay to attend by travel and staying at a motel if they are not from the area.

Compared with the early BBQ lists, we can 100% understand why some Michigan fans might be disappointed, but when you consider most of the true supers, or elite players, do not commit until much later in the progress, we don't get overly concerned. This all goes back to people's expectations and also the "sales job" of recruiting sites, who, as said, are trying to keep business going during dead periods of the calendar year.

You will probably see the same thing in the next couple of weeks about whether or not many of the elite level talent will attend Michigan camps, and then one by one you will see names disappear from the official visit list.

Once the game day visits and official visits start to roll around, that is when we will get concerned if Michigan is not getting visits from the top level talent.

Written by GBMW Staff

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