Tuesday Michigan Recruiting Roundup: Top 100 players planning March visits

It’s the eve of what used to be the biggest day in the recruiting calendar, but with Michigan’s class pretty much finished, I bet you forgot tomorrow is National Signing Day.

After James Pogorelc committed to Stanford last week, Michigan’s seemingly final 2020 target went off the board, so barring any surprises, they’re fully onto the 2021 and 2022 classes. Here’s what the staff has been up to with those classes.

Five-star OT planning his spring visits

Michigan has been in the top three for elite 2021 five-star offensive lineman Landon Tengwall for a while now, and he’s looking to wrap up his recruitment soon, according to his interview with The Michigan Insider’s Sam Webb ($).

Tengwall described his busy plans for the months of March and April, when he can start taking official visits.

“I’m looking to try to go up in mid-March,” he said about Michigan. “It’ll be a busy March and April for me because I’m going up to Notre Dame twice and Penn State twice in March and April. And then probably Michigan once or twice. But I’m trying to figure out what date that will be. But I should be up at Michigan sometime in March or April.”

From the amount of visits he’s planning, you can surmise Michigan is probably running third in this race behind Penn State and Notre Dame. In fact, Webb put in a crystal ball for Tengwall to Penn State after this interview, so odds may be slim with the No. 5 tackle in the country. Michigan will have to really knock it out of the park on his official and try to get a second visit in this span to have a chance.

Michigan impresses four-star DE

While it wasn’t a huge recruiting event last weekend, Michigan did host a notable prospect in Virginia four-star defensive end Kelvin Gilliam. Gilliam caught up with TMI’s Brice Marich to describe his visit ($).

Chris Partridge was once his primary recruiter, offering him over a year ago, but Shaun Nua has picked up the slack to smooth the transition.

“(I talked with) mainly coach Nua and his scheme,” said Gilliam. “Very good coach and his philosophy. We have a good relationship. He’s been to my school a couple times and loves my ability to get to the quarterback.”

Listed as a defensive end, Gilliam is 6-foot-3, 250 pounds and could easily bulk up to defensive tackle, but it’s unclear where the staff likes him. Moving forward, Gilliam said Michigan is “high” on his list and he wants to take another visit in the future. He doesn’t have any other visits planned or crystal ball selections, so this race is wide open for Michigan to take control.

Offer from Michigan very meaningful to top 2022 CB

One of several members of the 2022 class Michigan offered in the past couple weeks was Florida cornerback Earl Little Jr, who has a special relationship with the school. His father Earl briefly attended Michigan for a semester before transferring back home to Miami.

That didn’t negatively impact his or his son’s view of Michigan, though, based on the reaction he described to receiving the offer he described to TMI’s Marich ($).

“This means a lot being that my dad went to school there to play football, and that I’m a very hard worker and all this hard work is paying off,” said Little Jr. “I gave him a call and told him and before you knew it, he started yelling through the phone out of excitement and was congratulating me and all that good stuff.”

Little added Michigan is “definitely in my top five.”

Michigan is among a group of schools that includes LSU, Miami, Arizona State, NC State, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Syracuse and West Virginia. Although he is not in the cursory top 100 for the class now, it looks like Little will be a national recruit when it’s all said and done based on that list.

2022 Four-star safety planning March visit to Ann Arbor

A prospect who is in that top 100 group in 2022 is Wisconsin safety Braelon Allen, who sits No. 76 in the country and No. 5 at safety early on. According to TMI’s Marich, he plans to visit sometime in the next couple months ($).

“Yes, I’ll be visiting next month,” said Allen. “It will be more of a personal visit instead of like a junior day.”

Michigan has not offered yet, but it’s something he’s looking forward to if and when it does happen.

“It’d be huge. Always have been a top school for me,” Allen said. “The first team I ever played for (in fourth grade) were the Wolverines, so I’ve always had some love for Michigan.”

Allen only holds three offers so far, but they’re a good group in Notre Dame, Wisconsin, and Iowa. The local Badgers hold 50 percent of the crystal balls, while Notre Dame and foggy have 25 percent each.

That’s it for this week’s Tuesday Recruiting Roundup. Check back in to Maize n Brew soon for more of the latest Michigan recruiting updates.