Monday Michigan Recruiting Roundup: Vince Marrow speaks to Chris Clark?

Is Vince Marrow joining Michigan's coaching staff?

New head football coach Jim Harbaugh is continuing to add pieces to his coaching staff. Over the weekend, rumors popped up of a possible offer to Kentucky tight ends coach and recruiting coordinator Vince Marrow to joinMichigan's staff, a guy who has been key in bringing in some of the best talent in the country to Lexington.

One of the ongoing sagas since Harbaugh was hired has been the status of five-star 2015 tight end Chris Clark (Avon, Connecticut), who told Scout's Kyle Bogenschutz that he was contacted by Marrow on Sunday. (FREE)

"I talked to him this morning and to be honest I don’t even know why cause he hasn’t officially taken the job yet," Clark said. "I guess just in terms of (he mentioned) he’s seen my game and thinks he could give the right coaching to develop me into a first round caliber type tight end.

"Basically (he was) implying that he’d be a great coach for me."

...

"If you had to ask me I do think he’s going to end up being the tight ends coach (at Michigan)," Clark said. "But he hasn’t made anything official."

Couple this with the fact that Marrow recently followed Clark on Twitter and it seems like a pretty safe bet that both end up at Michigan, right?

Wrong, apparently, as Kentucky Sports Radio is reporting that Marrow will stay with the Wildcats and will be given a significant pay raise.

BREAKING: Source tells KSR that Vince Marrow will return to Kentucky. Deal to be announced tomorrow

— Matt Jones (@KySportsRadio) January 5, 2015

I would not put a whole lot of stock into this report just yet. It seems very unlikely that a guy who isn't joining Michigan's staff would contact one of their top remaining recruiting targets on the board. Clark does hold an offer from Kentucky, but they have never been a significant factor in his recruitment and do not look to be one moving forward. This saga will be interesting to watch unfold.

More on Clark

Over the weekend, Clark named the final two schools in the running for his services, UCLA and Michigan. He spoke with 247Sports' Tom Loy about the decision.

I got UCLA as my leader," said Clark. "The last couple of days, I’ve been talking a lot to [head] Coach [Jim] Mora and I just have a really good feeling about coach, his staff and UCLA. I just need to get out there for a visit. And with Michigan, I don’t know too much about [head] Coach [Jim] Harbaugh. I need to meet him in person to get a good feel about him. There’s a part of me that feels UCLA is going to be the place for me, but I need to take both visits and see what happens. It’ll definitely come down to just these two. I’m not 100 percent sure on the dates, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be at UCLA Jan. 16 and then Michigan on Jan. 23."

Clark set his official visit dates on Sunday evening via his Twitter account.

Officials set #GoBlue jan 14 #Bruins jan 23 !!!

— Chris Clark (@Clark8Chris) January 4, 2015

On Saturday, I posted a brief update on the status of Clark, which can be found here. Spoiler alert: Things look good for the Wolverines.

John Kelly reacts to phone call from Harbaugh

Coach Harbaugh has been busy on the recruiting trail since taking the job last week. One of Michigan's top targets moving forward is three-star athlete John Kelly (Oak Park, Michigan).

Kelly can play both running back and defensive back, the latter of which the Wolverines were looking for him to play back when they offered in October.

Kelly spoke to Mark Snyder of the Detroit Free Press over the weekend after receiving a phone call from Harbaugh himself. (FREE)

“He asked me a couple personal questions about my life and he actually brought my game up,” Kelly said. “I guess coach (Chris) Singletary was telling him about me or showed him some film or something. They were telling me I’m the best overall player in the state, so that’s why they really want to come after me so much.”

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“(Harbaugh) seemed like a pretty cool guy,” said Kelly, who added there were no promises about team success only that he would “get Michigan back on track.” “We met pretty much eye-to-eye once we were on the phone talking for a minute. He seemed like a pretty cool coach. I know a lot of people would say he’s pretty tough to play for but I couldn’t tell (that).”

Another interesting tidbit that Kelly dropped was that he was told as of now that Fred Jackson will be the running backs coach, which echos what a few other recruits have told me, although nothing is for certain right now.

Kentrail Moran talks Harbaugh and more

Several recruits have responded positively to the hiring of Harbaugh. Saturday afternoon, I was able to catch up briefly with 2016 four-star running back Kentrail Moran (O'Fallon, Illinois), who was excited to hear the news of UM's new coach. (FREE)

Moran told me that he is still in the process of narrowing down his schools, but that Michigan is at the top of the list. He is considering other schools, but they have not offered him yet.

He had a strong reaction to Harbaugh being brought in:

"Wow, Michigan is back," was his reaction to the news.

"I think he brings a lot to the table as a coach," he said. "He's going to do great things there."

2016 quarterback talks, you guessed it, Harbaugh

Five-star 2016 quarterback Shea Patterson (Shreveport, Louisiana) spoke to me on Sunday afternoon briefly about Harbaugh at Michigan.

He did not really want to get into specifics since he hasn't heard from anyone on the yet-to-be-finalized staff, but here is what he had to say:

I'd like to wait until I hear from the new staff before I start talking about Michigan, but coach Harbaugh is obviously a great coach. I'm very interested.

I was definitely excited. I mean, what quarterback wouldn't wanna play for a guy like Harbaugh?

That's it for Monday. Check back in Wednesday for a roundup of the latest in Michigan football recruiting.