Rival Views: Which team is hottest on the recruiting trail?
It may be the dead period but that hasn’t stopped prospects from around the country from making commitment announcements, with several major programs adding new talent to their list over the past few weeks. With the verbals coming fast and furious it’s a little hard for fans to keep track, but that’s what we here at Rivals.com are for.
In this edition of Rival Views, National Recruiting Director Mike Farrell and Southeast Recruiting Analyst Woody Wommack debate which school is the hottest on the trail of late and take a look at if they can sustain their momentum in the weeks leading up to the start of the 2018 season.
FARRELL'S VIEW: MICHIGAN
I could go with many schools here like Ohio State, Oklahoma, Texas A&M and others but Michigan is on a pretty good roll right now. Since mid-June, they have added a ton of commitments, including three in the 2020 class, led by defensive tackle Denver Warren.
But it’s the work in the 2019 class that has been catching my eye. Yes, there are a lot of three-star kids in there, but that doesn’t mean they are bad players at all. In fact, people are way too caught up on four- and five-stars and the mid- to high-level three star gets deemed a disappointment. Commitments like Erick All, George Johnson III, DJ Turner II, Eric Gray and others are not only very good players but they are also from very important recruiting territories for the Wolverines and Jim Harbaugh.
Add in four-stars Mazi Smith and Zach Charbonnet and you have a really strong group of recent commitments. Since the middle of June, if you include the 2020 commitments, Michigan has landed 12 different commitments and that makes them a hot team on the trail.
WOMMACK'S VIEW: TEXAS A&M
I could have gone a number of different ways with this pick and almost took Oklahoma after the Sooners added Rivals100 defensive back Woodi Washington on Friday, but with the way Jimbo Fisher and company have been rolling since the start of June, it made it pretty easy to take the Aggies.
The run of success started on June 2, when a pair of 2020 prospects, Smart Chibuzo and Akinola Ogunbiyi both announced their decisions and were joined on the same day by five-star offensive lineman Kenyon Green. The commitment of the hulking Green will go down as one of the most important in the class and kicked start a flood of new additions for A&M.
Since that day in early June, eight more 2019 prospects have committed to the Aggies, including a pair of four-star defensive backs Bobby Wolfe and Erick Young earlier this week. During his time in Tallahassee, Fisher showed that he can be a very good recruiter and despite not being in Texas for a number of years, he and his staff have really hit the ground running.
With 21 commitments, it’s tough to say if they can keep it up, especially with spots becoming more valuable and five-plus months to go until the first signing period, but if they finish the summer ranked in the Top Five in the Rivals team recruiting rankings, it will be considered quite the accomplishment.
