Big Ten Bloggers Roundtable - Recruiting Edition

Props to Zombie Nation, a venerable PSU blog, for hosting the first BTB Roundtable since the season ended. Cheers!

1. Were you pleased with this year's recruiting class? Where did your team excel? Where did they fall short? 

 I think there is no other way to feel about this year's class other than good. We had issues to address, such as a new QB, more WRs and rebuilding the defensive line, at least the interior portions. But I think we did get the QBs situation resolved with two very promising players in Tate Forcier and Denard Robinson. Which will end up starting? Who knows. Forcier has the leg up on Robinson by having enrolled early. I think offensively, Michigan did very well this year getting good players at almost every position.

The areas I think we probably fell short in shoring up were linebacker and defensive back. We did get some guys that I think could end up making an impact in 3 years, but no standout playmakers.

2. Name one or two players you want to see get on the field ASAP, and where you think they will fit in. 

Easy. Tate Forcier and William Campbell.

Forcier will be on the field this year at the QB position. He might have to battle for it with Denard Robinson, but I feel that his enrolling early and getting a handle of this offense is going to mean getting the starting nod once fall rolls around.

William Campbell, the 5-star DT from Detroit, will probably be an instant starter at defensive tackle. He will fill the massive hole left by departing senior Terrance Taylor. He also enrolled in January.

3. This one's purely for the sake of argument. Much has been made about the SEC's recruiting 'dominance' over the Big Ten, particularly this year. Either validate that claim, or try to prove it wrong. At least vent a little bit. You know you want to.

Well, the SEC has the luxury of being the home schools for many of the best recruits in the country. Let's face it, fast players who run the spread-option in high school usually come from Florida. There's no questions about that.

But, I will say that Michigan did it's part to help refute the notion that only fast guys from Florida go to SEC schools. 8 of Michigan's 22-member class are from the state of Florida, and all of them are skill-position players. Michigan's assistant coaches who have strong ties to high schools in Florida did a very good job getting kids to take Michigan seriously.

So yeah, I will vent a little by saying that this idea that good players from southern states don't want to go north to play at Big Ten is at least, starting to go away. Will it continue? Probably not. But I do get a little disturbed when local media guys get all wrapped up about who's winning the in-state recruiting battle. As far as I'm concerned, while there may be good players from the state of Michigan, we will still get those guys (William Campbell), but let's not ignore the fact that great players might not all come from Michigan. I'll give Rodriguez and his staff credit for getting great kids from other states, even if it means sacrificing some local recruits to Michigan State.

4. Going into next year (already), where does your team need to focus its efforts? How about the Big Ten as a whole? What can the conference/your team do better to attract more highly-regarded recruits, or is it even an issue?

Well, this could be a really long drawn-out answer, but I'll just say...win.

Really, that's all we need to do. Michigan has based it's traditions on winning. If we stop winning, everything else will suffer. I don't think we're to that point where we're not going to sell-out all of our home games yet. But clearly the foundation of Michigan faithful and it's loyal fan base has been shaken by a 3-9 season. There's no questions we're in rebuilding mode now. But we're doing everything else right. We're getting good coaches/players to come here. We have (are going to have) the best facilities in the country. All that's left is to start winning games again. Go to some bowls and put the 2008 season behind us.

One word/number answers...
How many freshmen (in your class) redshirt in 2009?

16.

Did you watch live TV coverage on signing day? If not, how many times did you hit 'refresh' on your browser on signing day?

mgoblog.

Are you going to your spring game? 

YES!