Report: Michigan 3-star commit Amauri Pesek-Hickson will not sign LOI

Three-star athlete commitment Amauri Pesek-Hickson will reportedly not sign his letter of intent with Michigan Wednesday, per a report by Nick Baumgardner of the Detroit Free Press.

The Leawood (Kan.) product verbally pledged to Michigan back in November and planned to officially sign at the February National Signing Day.

Pesek-Hickson’s family told Baumgardner that Jim Harbaugh visited them last week to request him to attend prep school and reclassify to the 2020 class.

“Because of the scholarship situation, Amauri right now is the odd man out (for 2019),” Pesek-Hickson’s father, Shermaine Hickson, told Baumgardner. “He’s in, but he’s out. What that means is that he basically, to come to Michigan — and this was a conversation we had face-to-face (Wednesday) at Amauri’s basketball game with coach Harbaugh — was that he wants to use the remaining scholarships for a grad transfer.”

Hickson stated that the grad transfer would likely be a defensive lineman. Harbaugh and Don Brown have been actively pursuing Rice defensive tackle Zach Abercrumbia.

Pesek-Hickson is still sorting out the decision with his family. The 6-foot-3, 210-pounder expresses interest towards in-state schools Kansas and Kansas State.

At the time of his pledge, Michigan put a plan in place for him to bring his grade-point average up during his fall semester at Blue Valley North. He scored a 30 on his ACT, and held a 2.69 GPA last fall. His father told Baumgardner that his son was working on a 4.0 GPA last semester.

“Amauri had been in contact with (Michigan director of recruiting Matt Dudek after his fall grades came in) and he told Amauri he was good to go for February,” Shermaine Hickson told Baumgardner. “Once his grades came back and Michigan got his grades, Dudek was like ‘he’s good to go.’”

After that exchange, Michigan didn’t call back until after the NFL early-entry deadline on Jan. 14. The Wolverines had just found out that four players (Rashan Gary, Devin Bush Jr., David Long, Zach Gentry) had left, and three players (Ben Bredeson, Lavert Hill, Shea Patterson) had returned.

Pesek-Hickson’s father wanted more clarity on if the prep school option was an academic or scholarship numbers issue. He implied an understanding that it was still an academics issue after the January conversation.

“Amauri only thought prep school was an option if he couldn’t get in from a GPA standpoint at Michigan,” Shermaine Hickson told Baumgardner. “When you get a 30 on your ACT, you’re pretty much going to school somewhere. Let’s not act like that’s nothing. But the GPA thing for Michigan, as they made it, was that he had to get his GPA up. We understood that.

“But he did his part in the (fall semester). So we kind of felt internally, you should’ve told us about the number situation in early January and what your plans were. If he wanted a defensive lineman, we would’ve understood that.”

Pesek-Hickson and his family plan to have a final decision made by the end of the month.