Michigan’s June recruiting boom puts Wolverines back on track
Brady Hart and Jayvan Boggs of Cocoa Football talk about the unstoppable slant game
Cocoa High QB Brady Hart and WR Jayvan Boggs combined for touchdowns on two slant plays in a 41-3 win over Sarasota Booker in the FHSAA Class 2A semifinals.
It was the last weekend in May when Michigan’s new head coach Sherrone Moore appeared at the Sound Mind Sound Body football camp at Wayne State.
The Wolverines were, of course, the defending national champions. And yet there were some in college football who felt UM was not going to capitalize on its moment at the top.
After all, the Wolverines had lost their head coach to the NFL – as well as six members of the defense and special teams team – and the offense was marked by promotions across the board. Moore was promoted from offensive coordinator to head coach, Kirk Campbell took over as OC, and Grant Newsome was promoted from tight ends to offensive line coach.
Adding to the restructuring, Moore & Co. lost two players in the weeks after completing his team: defensive line coaches Greg Scruggs and Denard Robinson were both fired for drunken driving charges.
From the day Moore was hired on Jan. 26 to the moment he spoke to a semicircle of reporters in late May — a period of more than four months — UM had received only five verbal commitments for the class of 2025, only two of which were for Moore.
Still, the 38-year-old didn’t panic when he first tried to put together a recruiting class.
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“We just want to get the right guys,” Wayne State’s Moore said when asked if the foundation is in place for UM to have a successful offseason. “We’re never in a rush to just have numbers or to sign guys just to sign. We want to make sure it’s properly analyzed, that they come to campus, that we know who they are and that they know who we are.”
“That’s all we’re trying to do.”
In the month of June – and now, a few days into July – the Wolverines have done just that.
From June 10 to July 1, Michigan was able to sign nine players, including eight for the Class of 2025 – the most UM has had for a single class in a single month in at least the last decade. Of these recent commitments to the rising graduating class, six are rated as four-star prospects in 247 Sports’ composite rankings and all but one (Georgia RB Chase Taylor) are ranked as top-450 players in the nation.
The class, which has 13 commitments and is ranked No. 15 nationally by 247 Sports, is a far cry from where it was on Memorial Day weekend. Back then, UM had a class closer to the mid-50s. That was until the official visiting season began and the recruits started pouring in.
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“We’ve got a big month coming up,” new tight ends coach Steve Casula told the Wayne State Free Press in May. “June is a big month … but this is Michigan. You can’t get any better than this.”
The recruits seemed to think so too.
The foundation of the course, as is often the case at UM, is in the trenches. Lou Esposito, the former Western Michigan defensive coordinator who was poached from Kalamazoo to replace Scruggs and coach the defensive line in Ann Arbor, hit the ground running.
The excitement started when Michigan signed 4-star DL Nathaniel Marshall in April (Moore’s first direct commit), then 4-star DT Jaylen Williams (No. 240 nationally) in early June, and then 4-star edge Julius Holly (No. 303) last week.
“Coach Lou Esposito is a great coach,” Holly told On3.com last month. “He’s a great guy who can improve my game as a weak-side end on their defense.”
And then there’s Bobby Kanka, a four-star defensive tackle from Howell who was the first to commit in August 2023. Kanka took an official visit in June as part of a strong class of four that could add one or two more players over the summer.
On the other side of the trenches, UM has signed two offensive linemen with ties to Michigan State. Avery Gach, a four-star and top-250 prospect, is the son of a former Spartan. But that’s nothing compared to Kaden Strayhorn — who was a five-star as a freshman before slipping to three stars today — whose father, Jason Strayhorn, was a standout lineman in East Lansing and still works as a radio analyst for Michigan State radio broadcasts.
Nevertheless, the younger Strayhorn chose UM.
“I don’t like everything they stand for, but it’s not a coward’s place,” Jason Strayhorn told Rico Beard on the “This Is Sparta” podcast. “It’s not. We’ve looked closely at what’s going on there.”
“I’ve spoken here on the record about those bastards. I know what that is to me and what it means to me. But now, with the new head coach that recruited him, at his position, he had a relationship with him. … He’s been very proactive about it. The resources they have outside of the game of football … how can you deny that as a father?”
The best news for Michigan, however, may be the athletes the team is signing at the skill positions. Four-star Kainoa Winston (Washington) is a top-100 player at safety; four-star running back Donovan Johnson (Bradenton, Fla.) is a top-300 player; four-star wide receiver Jacob Washington (Louisiana) is a top-330 player at the outside position, while his teammate, running back Jasper Parker, is a fast-rising top-450 player who had offers from Alabama, Florida State, Oregon and USC.
There’s also four-star quarterback Carter Smith (Fort Myers, Fla.), who is ranked No. 163 overall and No. 14 among signal-callers. The Wolverines even have their sights set on their quarterback for Class 26: four-star quarterback Brady Hart (Cocoa, Fla.), who is ranked No. 144 in his junior class and is the No. 9 quarterback.
Still, not everything has been perfect for UM in recent weeks. The Wolverines were widely considered the favorite to sign four-star OL Hardy Watts, but the 6-foot-6, 295-pound lineman shocked the recruiting world on Monday when he chose Wisconsin instead.
It also looks like they will be without defensive tackle Maxwell Roy, another four-star lineman heavily courted by the team who took an official visit last month, but all signs point to him transferring to rival Ohio State.
By all accounts, Moore seems to be a natural fit for the recruiting circuit. Like on the field, there will be wins and losses, but beyond Moore’s vision, the direction of the entire program has helped UM lay the foundation for what could end up as a top-10 class.
“If you look at the guys we just won a national title with, we didn’t have a lot of five-star players,” Moore said on The Champions Circle LAB podcast earlier in the offseason. “We had some. We want to have elite talent, don’t get me wrong, but I think there’s enough of it out there that you can find someone who fits the culture as well.”
“When you talk to business people, it’s all about alignment and how that works. It starts at the top. It starts at the top and then goes down and then it goes up and down, you can turn it either way. Everyone has to be on board with the vision. When you have that, you have something that’s super powerful.”
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