Hand's Visit to Alabama Nothing to Fret Over
Da'Shawn Hand is Michigan's top remaining prospect in the class of 2014. He finally took his official visit to Alabama this past weekend, giving the visit high praise afterward:
🐘🐘🐘Rollllllllllll tide!!!!! 🐘🐘🐘
— Da'shawn Hand (@TheHand54) October 25, 2013
This visit couldn't of been any better. Had a great time in T-Town
— Da'shawn Hand (@TheHand54) October 27, 2013
Many Michigan faithful out there will see this as Michigan's lead crumbling away, but don't fret. Da'Shawn knew he was going to have an awesome time at Alabama, and he'll have a great time at Florida, too. Everything he tweets during trips is going to be positive.
Florida doesn't intimidate me as much as Alabama. The Gators will probably throw a more impressive academic package at Hand than Alabama could, but the program is on the down slope. The fact that he's visiting on November 9th – he decides on the 14th – means that Hand almost certainly isn't ending up a Gator.
Alabama helped itself this weekend, but I would still be surprised if Hand chose anyone other than Michigan.
Winovich Upping His Stock
Edwin Weathersby of Bleacher Report put together a list of the 2014's ten best pass rushers. Michigan commitment Chase Winovich made the cut:
An overlooked player in Michigan's class is 3-star linebacker Chase Winovich. A Pennsylvania native, Winovich is 6'4" and 215 pounds.
He shows deceptive first-step quickness, which surprises offensive tackles on the edges. Winovich has solid length in his arms to stay clean during a rush, and can explode in short areas to get to the quarterback.
He isn't a natural pass-rusher, and needs to use his hands better, but Michigan will be surprised at how well Winovich can pressure passers.
The only thing I disagree with Weathersby on is Winovich's quickness. Chase doesn't have deceptive quickness – he has great quickness for such a long linebacker. He has the potential to be a terror at the SAM position in college and should learn well under a solid group of SAMs.
Winovich isn't only killing it on defense. He ran for well over 200 yards in his team's latest victory, earning his picture in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
#Michigan LB commit Chase Winovich is today's P-G centerpiece after rushing for 246 yards and 4 TDs last night: pic.twitter.com/56QWl9MeyW
— Stephen J. Nesbitt (@stephenjnesbitt) October 26, 2013
You can vote for him for player of the week here.
General Notes and Multimedia Items
Damien Harris ran for a billion yards and a thousand scores in yet another contest. You can see highlights of his latest performance over at Hudl.
One thing Rivals always does that I thoroughly enjoy is its review of how the freshman class' five-star players are playing. Derrick Green is obviously on the list.
Southfield's Malik McDowell and Lawrence Marshall played at Clarkston Friday for bragging rights. Scout has pictures of all of the major players in the game.
...and that's it for this Monday. Recruiting is relatively slow during the middle of the season, but our Tuesday summary of high school action and Wednesday 2015 board updates will give you your weekly recruiting fix. We'll also be debuting yet another weekly piece on Wednesday.