20Jan 2016
Video: Jabrill Peppers highlights
Even though Jabrill Peppers played a wee bit in 2014, this past season was essentially his first year of playing college football. The results were pretty exhilarating.
Even though Jabrill Peppers played a wee bit in 2014, this past season was essentially his first year of playing college football. The results were pretty exhilarating.
Dylan Crawford is the #129 player in the country
Rivals released its final top 100 on Monday (LINK). Here’s the final 250 (LINK). Here’s what it looked like back in December (LINK).
Movement for Michigan commits:
Below the jump are the rest of Michigan’s targets.
Ben Bredeson (#74) is Michigan’s top-ranked recruit for 2016
Rivals released its final list of top 100 prospects for the 2016 cycle (LINK). Here’s what it looked like back in December (LINK). Michigan has just one prospect on the list at this point.
Hit the jump for the rest of the top 100.
Olathe (KS) North safety Isaiah Simmons
DECOMMITMENT
Upper Marlboro (MD) Riverdale Baptist cornerback Sir Patrick Scott decommitted from Michigan (LINK).
ADDED TO THE BOARD: 2016
Winter Garden (FL) West Orange wide receiver Eddie McDoom decommitted from Oregon. McDoom is a 5’11”, 170 lb. prospect who had committed to the Ducks in December, but also has offers from Clemson, Florida, Miami, Ohio State, and Oklahoma, among others. He’s a 247 Composite 3-star, the #67 wide receiver, and #405 overall. He recently caught a touchdown pass in the Under Armour All-American Game. Interestingly, McDoom was one of a couple wide receiver commits who took an Oregon spot that could have gone to Dylan Crawford, who committed to Michigan two weekends ago. McDoom says that when he made it clear to Oregon that he wanted to take other visits – mainly to Michigan – the Ducks pulled his offer. Michigan fans are familiar with that policy, since it sounds similar to Brady Hoke’s approach. Now McDoom is scheduled to come to Ann Arbor next weekend, and it’s unclear whether this situation will affect Crawford or not. If Michigan is able to secure a commitment from McDoom and keep Crawford, that may sew up the receiver position before Donald Stewart and Pie Young decide to commit.
Olathe (KS) North safety Isaiah Simmons was offered by Michigan. He’s a 6’3″, 212 lb. prospect with offers from Clemson, Louisville, Missouri, and Nebraska, among others. He’s a 247 Composite 4-star, the #16 safety, and #326 overall. Simmons is a large safety who also plays some wide receiver. He reminds me a little bit of Michigan cornerback Jeremy Clark, although Simmons is thicker at this stage in his career than Clark was. He has visits scheduled to Nebraska and Louisville for the next two weekends, so Michigan would likely have to bump one of those schools out of the way unless he decides to make a mid-week trip. If the name of Simmons’s school sounds familiar, Michigan recruited Jimmie Swain IV (Oregon) from there in the 2014 class.
ADDED TO THE BOARD: 2017
Port Washington (WI) Port Washington offensive tackle Tyler Beach was offered by Michigan. Beach is a 6’8″, 270 lb. prospect with offers from Bowling Green, Buffalo, Eastern Michigan, and Northern Illinois. He has not been offered by Wisconsin yet, but it’s often tough to pull players out of Wisconsin if the Badgers want them (Ben Bredeson is an exception).
Hit the jump for some more 2017 offers, a 2018 offer, some commitments elsewhere, and some random recruiting bits.
In case you haven’t noticed, I have been making some upgrades, changes, and tweaks to the site. Part of this is that I am becoming more comfortable with WordPress after moving over from Blogger. Another part is that I have a bit more time at this point in the year than I do from August through November, or even through December/early January, when Michigan is still in season. Despite my best efforts, the new site didn’t launch until right when football season began, which stunted my abilities to learn the ins and outs of WordPress earlier.
A few things to note:
ADVERTISEMENTS
When Blogger was hosted for free, I had little to no expenses until I started the site redesign drive (which many of you generously contributed to). Now I have a domain and hosting to pay for, as well as some occasional professional help with technical stuff. What I don’t want to do is clutter the site with ads. However, in reading about how to monetize blogs, I have picked out some tips and things that I would like to try, hopefully without being too invasive.
One of those is Amazon Associates. Amazon Associates works by basically giving a finder’s fee to the referring site if something is purchased on Amazon. When you click on an Amazon link, ad, banner, etc. and order something, I can earn 4% or more of that purchase for referring you. I put this in action myself by frequently using MGoBlog’s Amazon portal. I can’t make any money from using my own links. So literally every time I purchase something from Amazon, I go to MGoBlog, click on the Amazon link, and purchase through that link. My way of giving back to that site – where I spend a fair amount of time – is to give them 4%+ of my Amazon purchases. It may not sound like a ton, but it adds up. So if you’re inclined to help, please consider shopping on Amazon through my site. Along with the links I occasionally post within the content, there’s a permanent banner on the sidebar (currently a link to John U. Bacon’s Endzone).
AVATARS
I made a forum post about avatars (LINK). It directs you to Gravatar (LINK), where you can create one avatar to use on any number of WordPress sites that employ Gravatar. All it requires is your e-mail address, a password, and then a picture of your choice. It may not work on all the sites you visit (such as MGoBlog, 247 Sports, Rivals, etc.), but if you participate in other blogs and message boards, it might pop up there, too. I chose a Brandon Minor avatar.
FORUM
I’ve been trying to promote the use of the forum (LINK) more in recent weeks by tweeting some links and such. I’ve posted a fair amount of content on there, stuff that’s not necessarily front-page material, but is still football- or Big Ten- or recruiting-related. Oh, and also an occasional movie trailer or something similar that I’m excited about. You can keep up with comments made both on front-page posts and the forum by skimming the sidebar, which is helpful.
Do you have any other ideas or suggestions for the site?