Michigan coaches spent the bye week traveling to watch their top remaining targets play in their games, while also evaluating new prospects. One position board Michigan is clearly looking to expand is linebacker, with a new offer going out and interest in an in-state player increasing.
Rising midwest LB receives Michigan offer
As senior season film comes out, new hot prospects start to enter the football recruiting market. One of the hottest 2023 names right now is Illinois linebacker Jimmy Rolder, who has picked up offers from Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan, Purdue, Cincinnati, Iowa, and the big one, Ohio State, in a little over a week.
Rolder is currently committed to Illinois to play baseball, but 247Sports Illinois insider Jeremy Werner admits Michigan poses the biggest threat to the Illini ($).
Werner points out defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald was on the sidelines for Rolder’s game last Saturday, which is a significant move given how recently Michigan offered.
That move will be reciprocated this Saturday when Rolder visits Ann Arbor for the game against Northwestern. Rolder recently visited Iowa, earning a Hawkeye offer, but watched them falter greatly against Purdue.
Unranked until this run of offers, Rolder has yet to receive a composite score, but has a high three-star rating of 88 on 247Sports and a four-star rating on Rivals.
Michigan keeping tabs on in-state LB
Another 2022 linebacker who has seen a bunch of offers roll in because of his senior tape is Walled Lake Western three-star Air Force commit Aidan Vaughan. 247Sports’ Allen Trieu broke down his rapidly evolving recruitment ($).
In a span of two days, Vaughan received offers from West Virginia, Louisville, Maryland and Syracuse after only having Bowling Green, Western Michigan and Air Force before that.
Trieu added that several Big Ten schools are keeping its eye on Vaughan, including Michigan.
“...he has seen interest come from Iowa, who had him on campus last weekend, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan,” explained Trieu.
Vaughan mentioned he is planning to visit Louisville and Wisconsin soon. The Michigan Insider’s Brice Marich reported Michigan has invited Vaughan to the Northwestern game ($) but he’s “not sure if (he’ll) be attending yet.”
Michigan coach attends game of three-star DB
Another name to file away as a potential offer soon is 2022 three-star cornerback Elijah Reed. 247Sports’ Steve Wiltfong recapped how Reed’s recruitment is blowing up (FREE).
Currently unranked, the 6-foot-3, 180-pound Reed has picked up offers from Purdue, West Virginia, Illinois and Utah in October. He is also hearing from Michigan, Michigan State, Louisville, Indiana and NC State.
So far, Reed has official visits planned for Kentucky, Utah and Purdue.
As a Louisville native, it made sense for cornerbacks coach and former Kentucky coach Steve Clinkscale to pay Reed’s high school a visit during the bye week.
While the Wolverines have several irons in the fire at cornerback, they would probably like Reed to official visit to Ann Arbor at some point, though they will probably need to offer first.
Reed’s trainer Chris Vaughn compared him to a former Wolverine when describing his game.
“He’s Benjamin St.-Juste with a little more twitch and more aggressive,” Vaughn stated.