3 recruits Michigan football has to sign in the Early Signing Period

The 2022 early signing period is just over a month away, with the Michigan Wolverines looking to add some key pieces into the fold before wrapping up the large majority of their class. Here are a few candidates who are critical for them to add if they want their roster to stack up with the contenders in the Big Ten and the country.

*Note: Five-star OT Josh Conerly would have been included in here, but he’s already stated he is planning to wait until the second signing period in February.

Three-star WR/S Amorion Walker

The versatile Louisiana athlete can play on either side of the ball, but Michigan needs him more on offense, since there is only one wide receiver committed so far.

Walker has been committed to Notre Dame since last March, but Ron Bellamy’s connections to his head coach have gotten Michigan seriously involved here. After visiting for the Washington game, a few Crystal Ball predictions came in for Michigan, but he didn’t pull the trigger then.

A couple weeks ago, Walker visited South Bend for a game as they pulled out all the stops to try and keep him in the fold. We’ll see if it ended up working or not. You would’ve liked to see Walker flip already with the momentum from the Washington game, but Michigan is still plugging away.

Four-star LB Jimmy Rolder

With former top linebacker target Lander Barton committing to hometown Utah a couple days ago, the focus at linebacker will move almost solely onto Rolder, who has blown up on the recruiting trail in the past few weeks.

Rolder made a trip to Ann Arbor for the Northwestern game soon after getting offered, and it was shaping up to be a Michigan-Iowa battle before Ohio State jumped in and also got a visit. Now the Buckeyes are trying to get Rolder back up for an official, which would be hard for any other school to overcome.

If Rolder doesn’t end up making it back to Columbus and Michigan can get him on campus for The Game at the end of the season, I like Michigan’s chances here.

Four-star S Zeke Berry

Berry is another late riser who has shot up the rankings, from a three-star all the way into the top 250 on the composite and top 100 on 247Sports. With that new attention, Berry decommitted from Arizona and made Michigan and Oregon the two favorites.

Oregon has the baked-in advantage from being a West Coast school, but Berry has already used his official visit there and has yet to see Michigan. With that card still left to play for Michigan, it could provide just the bump needed at the end of the season to wrap up Berry for the class.