Michigan Offers Two '16 WRs
Late Friday afternoon the Michigan coaching staff sent out some feelers on two 2016 receivers. Cameron Chambers and Nate Craig have both reported offers from Michigan.
These offers don't exactly move the needle for me, so to speak. Especially for Craig, who recently told 247's Keith Niebuhr that Auburn is his current leader ($).
Craig also released a top-five as well. Which include:
Auburn (obviously)
Ohio State
Clemson
Tennessee
Florida State
At this point, it's fair to say that Michigan would be a long shot for Craig's signature.
As for Chambers, he is very early in his recruiting stage but also has earned double-digit offers already in this cycle. However, I believe it will be difficult for Michigan to land Chambers. There's not much information about Chambers currently, so this process will evolve over the coming weeks and days and things will start to become more clear soon.
Below is a highlight tape from Chambers.
Rivals' Tim Sullivan breaks down Michigan's recent offers ($) that include Chambers and Craig.
Visitor Notes
As I touched on Friday, Michigan was expecting a busy visitor weekend. Although the group was relatively small, it's all about quality not quantity. The talent that was featured on campus was impressive and it is fair to say that Michigan has a legitimate shot with every one they had on campus.
First, let's start with 2015 4-star TE Chris Clark. Remember when I said this recruitment is going to be a little weird? Yeah, it's fair to say it's getting a bit weird (FREE).
Bill Kurelic of Bucknuts reports that the battle for four-star tight end Chris Clark (Avondale, Conn./Avondale Old Farms) looks to be down to two schools. "It's looking like Michigan and Ohio State," Clark told Kurelic earlier today, adding he may not take a planned visit to Auburn now.
Well then, that's a bit of a swing. From going to being committed to a school in earlier in the week, to narrowing things down radically after one weekend visit? It's getting weird.
You can't discredit Clark's interest in Michigan though, he's been high on the Wolverines since they've offered. It's just going to be a bit of a strange recruitment here on out. Whether Michigan will get his signature when all is said and done remains to be seen.
It appears that Clark also received the royal treatment ($) from the current players, especially from Jake Butt.
Clark especially spent a lot of time with Jake Butt, who talked a little with him about why he chose Michigan and what he likes about the program.
"Michigan is a pretty young team, but they're going to play the guys they think will produce, and that's something I noticed with Jake," he said. "Even being an Ohio guy, Jake said there's something great about Michigan and it's something he realized when he was visiting there as a recruit that it was a special place. That's something that stood out to me."
It also appears that Michigan made some positive progress on 2015 4-star defensive end Clelin Ferrell this weekend as well. It appears that Ferrell would like to come back to Michigan ($) to visit again in the near future.
"I want to come back (to Michigan)," he said. "It will either be sometime this summer or for an official visit. I haven't fully decided where I want to take my official visits yet, but there's a good chance that Michigan will be one of them. I just want to take some more unofficial visits to get a better idea of the types of schools I want to consider and will go from there."
Michigan might not land Ferrell, but with the way Michigan has recruited the private school territory of Virginia as of late, anything is possible.
After his recent offer, Bredeson was back on campus to see more of what Michigan has to offer. According to Bredeson, this visit was focused on more of the academic side of things ($). Michigan offers a program to former athletes called the M-PACT program. It has always been something visitors has talked about and it did not disappoint for Bredeson.
"My mom loved the M-PACT portion of the presentation," he said. "It really impressed her how Michigan has an excellent system set up to help their athletes during and after their time at the school. The fact that they can give you a ton of concrete examples of where former players are and what they're doing just makes it that much better."
The players also seemed to impress Bredeson by acknowledging Mattison in public.
"I was walking with Coach Mattison down the street, and a bunch of the players must have a house nearby because they all started screaming and yelling "Hi!" to Coach," he said. "That's something I thought was pretty cool because on both my visits, I've been able to see that the players and coaches really gel well and that the players feel comfortable being themselves around everyone on the coaching staff. It's definitely something about Michigan that stands out."
General Aside
Many (including myself) expected 2016 OL Thiyo Lukusa to be Michigan's second offensive lineman commitment in the 2016 class back in February. As we all know, that didn't happen. Rivals' Branden Hunter spoke with Lukusa and it appears that he is slowing down his recruitment ($).
Lukusa does mention other schools like Michigan State and Alabama, but I do expect Michigan to land the lineman eventually. He has plenty of time to make a decision.
Be sure to follow Maize n Brew's Joshua Henschke on Twitter, @JoshuaHenschke.
