Tuesday Morning Brews: Early signings eve

Happy Tuesday, folks. Welcome to Morning Brews. This morning we have an assorted grab bag of mostly recruiting news, given the proximity to the early signing period. We also check in with women’s basketball. As a scheduling matter, the Brews will be taking a short holiday break over the next week or so. I plan to have the Brews return a week from Thursday (Dec. 28), meaning there will be no Brews this Thursday or next Tuesday. Here’s wishing you and yours a happy holiday season.

Back to sports, today is early signing period eve with the 72-hour window opening tomorrow. It is expected that most recruits, and I’ve seen estimates as high as 70%, will sign during the early period. For Michigan, it looks like over half the class will sign early. If that does indeed happen, and a high percentage of recruits across college football sign early, then I suspect that the early period will have the potential to become the ‘normal’ period in the future and the February NSD will become the ‘late’ period.

Let’s get to it:

Michigan is continuing to put the full court press on four-star recruit Otis Reese. Reese, an OLB and highest-ranked player currently in Michigan’s 2018 class, has been receiving plenty of attention from Georgia as of late. Part of Michigan’s plan to keep him in the boat is plenty of visits from coaches. This time, it was two of Michigan’s strongest recruiters in Greg Frey and Chris Partridge who made the trip down to visit with Reese and his family. Reese isn’t expected to sign during the early period, and Michigan will have to fight hard to hold on to his commitment, but the Wolverines appear to still be in the driver’s seat.

Jarrett Patterson was recently on campus for a visit, and the Wolverines knocked it out of the park. With the early signing period fast approaching, Tim Drevno went in-home with Patterson to keep Michigan at the front of the young man’s mind. This past weekend, Patterson visited UCLA - the school seen as Michigan’s competition for the four-star OT’s services. However, according to Steve Lorenz ($), the Wolverines still lead. Patterson isn’t expected to sign this week, so there’s plenty of time left in this recruiting battle. Patterson is a key target for the Wolverines this cycle, so keep this one in mind as we get closer to February.

Michigan extended the first batch of 2020 cycle offers over the weekend, and Detroit King CB Rashawn Williams was among those who heard from the Wolverines. Williams already holds 11 offers from the likes of Michigan, Ohio State, Michigan State, Indiana, and a collection of MAC and ACC schools. Current Michigan player Ambry Thomas is from Detroit King, and that could be an advantage in Williams’ recruitment. He recently told Brice Marich of 247 ($), “He’s like a big brother. It means a lot (with Ambry at Michigan) because if he tells me that I should be there I would listen to his word and see how I’ll fit in.”

In the category of ‘old friend alerts,’ former Michigan RB Kingston Davis has settled on UAB as his transfer destination. Davis was a three-star recruit out of Prattville, AL, and he was a part of the 2016 recruiting class. He picked the Wolverines over schools like Florida, Mississippi State, Ole Miss, and Louisville. After seeing limited playing time his freshman year, he transferred to a JUCO for the 2017 season. Davis will returning to the FBS level in 2018, and he’ll be immediately eligible to play during the upcoming season.

Women’s basketball keeps on rolling. Michigan earned its 10th win on the season with a 77-45 victory over the Fort Wayne Mastodons. As usual, Michigan was led by Katelynn Flaherty, who tallied 21 pts. Hallie Thome contributed 18 pts. and 8 rebs. Nicole Munger had 13 pts. and Deja Church had 11 pts. Kim Barnes Arico’s squad will be back in action on Thursday when they take on Delaware State. The B1G schedule starts a week from Thursday, when Penn State comes to town on December 28th.