Quick analysis: What four-star 2020 cornerback Darion Green-Warren brings

Darion Green-Warren made it official on Saturday when announcing his pledge to the Michigan Wolverines, giving them their second cornerback commit in the class of 2020 and a player that should figure into the rotation somewhat early on in his career in Ann Arbor.

Green-Warren actually already signed with Michigan prior to the early period ending in December and kept it under wraps until the All-American game so as to be able to announce during the television broadcast.

Green-Warren is a four-star prospect and the 14th-overall player at his position in the country, according to the 247Sports Composite.

This is a nice get for Michigan considering cornerback is not a position group that they are all that deep at going into next season. They will lose Lavert Hill to graduation and while Ambry Thomas and Vincent Gray can probably be penciled in as starters next year, the Wolverines are a bit thin there otherwise.

He’s a nice combination of size and speed and does well in coverage against players that may be either a bit larger or a bit faster than him due to good fundamentals. Green-Warren is not shy about tackling, which can also be a thing at times that players at his position seem unwilling to do. He is also fairly quick in and out of his breaks and is quick to diagnose and react to what he sees. While he only recorded a 4.67 second 40-yard dash back in February, he plays much faster than that and it would not be a surprise to see him in the 4.5s once he is in a college training program.

Green-Warren stands at 6-feet tall and at 187 pounds, according to his profile on 247Sports.

With everything that Green-Warren brings to the table as a prospect mixed with the fact that he is from California as well, it is hard to shake the David Long comparison and he looks like a player that could similarly factor into the rotation early, though Long was just a bit of a better athlete coming in. This corner class as a whole is looking better as we get closer to next season after the week that fellow four-star Andre Seldon just had at the Under Armour All-American game.

Michigan can thank USC’s ineptitude on the recruiting trail for this one, as they have had an extremely difficult time under Clay Helton in keeping some of their top talents inside the state. As recently as a month or so ago, Green-Warren was a silent commit to USC, but the official visit he took for the weekend of Dec. 6 seemed to push Michigan over the edge. Hats off to Sherrone Moore and Mike Zordich in this race and Jim Harbaugh being able to close the deal.

This moves the Wolverines’ 2020 class up to 11th in the country and second in the Big Ten behind Ohio State.