Thursday Recruiting Roundup: U-M continues communication with top OL targets

Happy Thursday, and welcome to another Michigan Recruiting Roundup!

I hope you all are staying safe and indoors as much as possible. Writing these roundups and doing the Future Brew podcasts every week are helping me stay sane, and I hope our content on Maize n Brew is providing that same relief for you.

In today’s roundup, we dive into the offensive line for football, and provide a little note on basketball, so let’s get to it!

Warinner chats with 3 targets, 2 commits

Brice Marich over at The Michigan Insider ($) reported Michigan offensive line coach Ed Warinner was expected to speak with five total players in the 2021 class on Tuesday, including two already-committed players.

The commits were four-star center Raheem Anderson and four-star tackle Giovanni El-Hadi. The targets he talked to are presumably the top three remaining targets on Michigan’s offensive line board — four-star guard Rocco Spindler, four-star guard Drew Kendall and three-star tackle Tristan Bounds.

At this moment, Kendall seems to be a Michigan lean, with 75 percent of the crystal balls favoring the Wolverines. Spindler, however, is teetering back and forth between Michigan and Notre Dame, with the Irish probably holding a small lead as of now.

As for Bounds, no true leader has emerged in his recruitment, so this was a chance for Warinner to get Michigan out in front — which would be a good thing considering Michigan’s two other tackle targets have committed elsewhere, and another (in-state four-star Garrett Dellinger) is a lean to LSU.

California OT says U-M ‘standing out’

Perhaps one guy who could fill that tackle spot Warinner and company are looking for is 2021 three-star William Reed. The 6-foot-5, 260-pounder from Sammamish, Washington talked with 247Sports’ Brandon Huffman ($) and told him which schools are standing out in his recruitment.

“I have 23 offers at the moment,” Reed said. “The offers standing out to me at the moment are the Ivy Leagues, Cal, Michigan and Virginia Tech.”

Reed was also asked which coaches he is closest with. Interestingly enough, he named a Michigan coach not named Ed Warinner.

“Some of the coaches I am close with are coach (Angus) McClure from Cal, coach (Shaun) Nua from Michigan, coach (Beau) Davidson and coach (Vance) Vice from Virginia Tech, coach (Tim) Murphy from Harvard, coach (Tony) Reno from Yale and coach (Chris) Zarkoskie from Princeton,” Reed said.

Nua is the West Coast recruiter for Michigan, so it shouldn’t be a huge surprise to hear this. Reed told Huffman all his recruiting attention is at offensive tackle right now, so Nua is not recruiting him to play on defense.

I think Reed would be a solid option if it comes down to them really wanting another tackle. Saying his offers from Michigan and Virginia Tech are standing out goes to show he is more open to leaving that area than the typical West Coast recruit.

Me and my good friend Jon Simmons talked more about Michigan’s offensive tackle board on this week’s Future Brew podcast, which you can listen to by clicking here.

Howard virtually visits 2021 five-star G

According to StockRisers.com’s Jake Weingarten, Juwan Howard held a virtual visit with 2021 five-star guard Trevor Keels Tuesday night.

The 6-foot-5, 210-pounder from Fairfax, Virginia is the No. 2 shooting guard and No. 18 overall player in his class, per 247Sports’ composite ranking. Other schools on him include Virginia, Duke, North Carolina, Ohio State and Villanova, among others.

After striking out on Josh Christopher in the 2020 cycle, it appears Howard is not backing down from going after elite prospects, as he shouldn’t. Guard is going to be a big position of need in the 2021 class, so Howard may as well go after the best of the best, and Keels is certainly among the top at the position.

Michigan basketball’s 2021 class currently has zero commits.

That’s all for this week! We’ll be back Tuesday for another Michigan Recruiting Roundup.