Losing Greg Frey could hurt Michigan in its final push for 2018 offensive line recruits

The first thing that came to mind when I initially saw the news that Greg Frey took the offensive line job at Florida State with Willie Taggart was the following:

“Oh, s***.”

That was my first thought because I truly think Frey is a good coach. He has coached up lowly-recruited linemen that have been drafted into the NFL — the most recent players being Dan Feeney and Jason Spriggs last year at Indiana.

But another reason I worry about his departure is because Michigan’s two biggest remaining 2018 offensive line recruiting targets have been heavily recruited by Frey.

5-star Nicholas Petit-Frere and 4-star Jarrett Patterson, Michigan’s final two offensive line targets for the 2018 cycle, were mainly recruited by Frey. Drevno has done a small portion of the recruiting on both these guys, but with Frey gone it got much more difficult for Michigan to land either of these guys.

Petit-Frere said Frey heading to Florida State would have an impact on his recruitment, according to Tomahawk Nation. With Frey now gone, it’s going to be incredibly difficult for Michigan to land the 5-star offensive lineman, especially if Frey and Taggart recruit Petit-Frere hard over the next month, which I expect them to do so.

Patterson has been receiving a lot of crystal ball picks to Michigan within the last month or so on 247Sports, but that may change with Frey’s departure. He currently holds 29 percent of the crystal ball picks, with UCLA leading with 43 percent, and Arizona State, the school he de-committed from in December, holds down the remaining 29 percent.

Even though Michigan was able to secure a large majority of its 2018 class during the early signing period, the Wolverines only signed one (!) offensive lineman — 4-star Jalen Mayfield. Not to discredit Mayfield, because I think he could be a solid player, but my philosophy is you can never have too many offensive linemen. For a team like Michigan that failed to produce consistency on the offensive line all season, only having one committed to your upcoming recruiting class is, clearly, not good.

With Frey gone, it’s only going to complicate things for Harbaugh and the Wolverines to land these remaining two offensive line targets. So if/when Patterson and Petit-Frere sign with other schools come National Signing Day, I will more than likely be saying the same thing I said when Frey took the Florida State job.

“Oh, s***.”