Tomorrow a bunch of high school kids will put their names on some pieces of paper, fax them to various colleges across the land, and there will be much rejoicing on the internets. Yes, it's National Signing Day, and Michigan is in it for Six of those high school students. MagnusThunder has provided us with the run down of what to expect, along with brief bio's of each recruit. In no particular order the six are:
Chris Barnett, TE (Hurst, TX)
Frank Clark, OLB (Cleveland, OH)
Darian Cooper, DT (Hyattsville, MD)
Jake Fisher, OT (Traverse City, MI)
Thomas Rawls, RB (Flint, MI) - BOOM COMMIT'd
Leilon Willingham, OLB (Denver, CO)
The general consensus is that Michigan is in good shape with these guys, but that doesn't mean they're definitely going blue. Courtesy of TomVH over at mgoblog, here's the schedule for signing day:
- MI RB Thomas Rawls: Signing Day at 9:30am.
- CO LB Leilon Willingham: Signing Day at 7pm MT. Michigan is in great shape still with Willingham. He'll be choosing between Michigan, ASU, Colorado, Washington, and UCF presumably.
- OH LB Frank Clark: Signing Day around 10 or 11am.
- MD DT Darian Cooper: Signing Day.
- MI OL Jake Fisher: Either announcing the day before signing day, or on signing day. Visit to Oregon went well. He plans on talking it over with his parents and then deciding.
- TX TE Chris Barnett: Will announce on Saturday. Wants to weigh out all the options rather than think on emotion. The Michigan visit went very well. He is deciding between Arkansas and Michigan.
The first recruit could drop as early as today with MI lineman and former Michigan commit Jake Fisher. Like Magnus mentions in his "what the expect" post, there doesn't seem to be any smoke around some surprise recruits. The biggest surprise would be landing all six of the guys here on this list. Most expect 3 or 4 of the six above. Hoke and his staff have done well to solidify the majority of Rodriguez's work in progress class, and have been actively adding guys in the interim, with the marquee guy being Chris Bryant, a fringe 4-star offensive lineman.
While all of the guys above represent a position of need, Maryland Defensive Tackle Darian Cooper is the guy I'll be watching. DT is a severe position of need (our depth chart goes "Martin...um...erm...) and Cooper is a legit 4-star who will likely contribute next year if he goes blue. He was impressed with Michigan after his visit, and hopefully the lure of early playing time will be enough to snag him on Saturday.
Through it all, remember that these are high school kids making a big decision, and wish all the guys the best of luck no matter what their choice is. Vitriol in the comments section will get you suspended/banned. Keep this in mind.
So who are you most excited about? Consider this your open thread until tomorrow. Go Blue!