Tuesday Recruiting Roundup: Status on Michigan’s top 2021 recruits

We’re a week away from signing day and there still hasn’t been any announcement about Jim Harbaugh’s job status. Given this fact, there is still a lot of uncertainty remaining among Michigan’s 2021 commits. Some have reiterated their intent to sign, while others are fielding interest from other schools smelling blood in the water.

Local school looking to poach three-star Michigan commit

Let’s get the less good news out of the way first. When I grouped Michigan’s commits in the likeliness they would end up decommitting, I put three-star cornerback Ja’Den McBurrows in the “Could Look Around” category. Well, The Michigan Insider’s Brice Marich reported Miami has been making a big push for McBurrows recently ($).

According to Marich, Miami’s “entire defensive coaching staff has been in frequent contact” with Michigan’s sole cornerback commit in the 2021 class.

McBurrows hasn’t been too interested, telling Marich “no, not really” when asked if he was concerned about Michigan coaches leaving. Jim Harbaugh, Don Brown and Mike Zordich have all kept in contact with McBurrows to keep him in the fold.

For now, it doesn’t look like too much to worry about, but he is worth keeping an eye on in the next week.

Michigan’s top 100 commits reaffirm their commitments

Michigan has four players currently ranked in the top 100 on the 247Sports Composite. Other than Xavier Worthy, who is deciding between Michigan and Alabama on Dec. 16, there have been reasons to believe that every other one of the elite prospects will sign in the early period.

Five-star quarterback J.J. McCarthy took to Twitter Monday to bluntly state his intention to sign with Michigan.

Our own Trevor Woods covered McCarthy’s recruitment in more detail.

Linebacker Junior Colson joined McCarthy later on Twitter to publicly re-state his commitment to Michigan.

Several schools are still trying to flip Colson, so this type of statement is a good sign and shows the leadership these players possess as they try to keep the class together through adversity.

Finally, TMI’s Marich spoke with offensive lineman Giovanni El-Hadi’s high school coach, Justin Newcomb, to gather some intel on how he’s feeling ($).

“I have talked with Gio since the season has ended for us and kept in contact with him and I know he remains solid with Michigan,” said Newcomb. “He’s actually been working hard on his classes and trying to enroll early to Michigan. That’s still the plan. He wants to get up there and help out right away. Haven’t heard anything of concerns with him and Michigan.”

As the longest tenured commit in the class, this isn’t surprising news about El-Hadi, but it’s still good to know that the top of Michigan’s class is locked in.

Overall, it’s pretty impressive how well the class has held together through this disastrous season. This is a testament both to the coaches, who have had to basically treat some recruits as uncommitted again, and the commits, whose relationship with each other is clearly very strong.

Stay tuned with Maize n Brew as we bring you plenty of more recruiting coverage until signing day and beyond!