Allen Gant (#12)
Rising fifth year senior linebacker Allen Gant has chosen to move on from Michigan. He will “explore other options,” which often means attempting to transfer to another school. After four years in Ann Arbor, he should be eligible to play immediately as a graduate transfer.
The son of former Michigan safety Tony Gant, Allen committed to Michigan in May 2011 (LINK) as a part of the class of 2012. He was recruited as a safety, but he never really contributed in the secondary. During his four years, he was mostly a special teamer and occasionally contributed as a backup linebacker in mop-up situations. He redshirted in 2012 and went on to make just 7 tackles in the next three seasons. He played SAM linebacker this past season, a position that was not used often since the Wolverines spent a lot of time in a nickel package. Theoretically, the SAM spot opened up with the graduation of James Ross III, but Gant probably wouldn’t have been the one filling that role, anyway.
As you can see, I was not much of a fan of Gant’s game when he committed. I gave him a TTB Rating of 58 initially and bumped that up to a 63 at the end of the recruiting cycle. Even those relatively low ratings were overestimations. He also had offers from a couple MAC schools, Cincinnati, Illinois, Kentucky, Stanford, and West Virginia. Like other former Wolverines, perhaps he can move on to the MAC and make some kind of impact. This departure had been expected for a while, and it should not hurt Michigan going forward.
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Interesting to consider a similarity between Swenson and Gant. Both were considered to be high-caliber prospects after their sophomore years but didn’t really develop as hoped and perspectives on them by the time their senior seasons were done were dramatically diminished.
Another thought: it’s a shame he didn’t “burn” his red-shirt. Imagine if Michigan could have used Gant on special teams instead of Houma or RJS and allowed those kids to red-shirt instead. Just another example where ‘burning’ a red-shirt (or not) isn’t always a cut-and-dry thing. In RJS’ case, it seemed clear he had no interest in red-shirting, regardless of team needs.
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