Michigan Football: The Profiles: Last Take on the 2022 Recruiting Class
It's never too late to evaluate the previous recruiting class and the impacts they have made, or in some cases, haven't made, on a college football team. The 2022 Michigan Wolverines were coming off of a losing effort in the College Football Playoff the year prior and looked to bolster their roster via the transfer portal and traditional high school recruiting. Despite a number of talented players donning the Maize and Blue, there are still several questions surrounding the class and its overall impact.
The 247Sports.com evaluation of the class reads as follows:
It is a B+ class with an 'A' for transfers. This class was more spray than the relatively laser 2022 class. Despite two straight trips to the Playoff, this class was hampered by a new NIL era, the recruiting market's own overreactions, and a lack of available playing time on a roster stacked for a national championship run (it was a success), but also by themselves. The result was Michigan stocked up on as many high ceilings as they could get their hands on. It moves up to an 'A-' class if you count the transfers, though. I was pretty high on all of them but Tuttle (Wallace joined too late for a writeup), and perhaps too high on Henderson only. This was really hard to grade though because there are so many projects. A positional rundown, with transfers in parentheticals: QB: F (C). Bell moved to WR immediately, Tuttle a 6th year career backup. Would have been nice to have a JJ successor in the wings, or just another competitor.RB: A-. No superstars but both guys expected to be major contributors.WR: B+. Smallish except for Bell, but all expected to play above their rankings.TE: B- (A). Far be it from me to question Michigan TE recruiting but Loveland sets a new bar. I claim the title of blog chief of saw it coming with Barner.OL: C+ (A). Two high floors (Link, Herring) and a ceiling (Efobi) is a small class for the 2x Joe Moore winners. I thought the transfers were outstanding.DT: B. I really like Pierce. Even if you file Brandt and Bahr here, I wanted another pure DT because OMG and KG aren't gonna be here 4 years.Edge: B+ (B+). Etta should get more talk, the rest are DE/DTs (Brandt) or high-upside projects. I thought Stewart was Mike Danna.LB: B (A+). Everyone loves Hewlett's ceiling but Hayden Moore seems like a find. Bridgman, eh. Hausmann's gonna be a star.S: C+. Brandyn Hillman was a good pull, but needed more than one high-upside positional convert.CB: A- (B). Jyaire Hill is a future 1st rounder, DJ Waller is a wild card, Calhoun didn't stick around; I thought he was more of a floor than a catch. Trying to grade Wallace on what I thought when he committed; he'd be an A from what we know today.SP: B+. Samaha was born to go to Michigan, but the history of #1 Kornblue Ks is encouraging.
Despite the overall grade of the class, there are several standout players who could become special. Cam Barron discusses the highs and lows of the class and how several of the players could still become key contributors despite their limited action so far.
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