Warwick (RI) Bishop Hendricken DE Kwity Paye (image via TheWolverine)
Warwick (RI) Bishop Hendricken defensive end Kwity Paye flipped his commitment from Boston College to Michigan.
Paye is listed at 6’4″, 235 lbs. and claims a 4.75 forty. As a junior in 2015, he made 68 tackles, 5.5 sacks, 1 forced fumble, 1 fumble recovery, and 1 blocked field goal; he also carried the ball 19 times for 244 yards (12.8 yards/carry) and 8 touchdowns. This season he has 23 carries for 422 yards (18.3 yards/carry) and 6 scores.
RATINGS
ESPN: 4-star, 80 grade, #26 WDE
Rivals: 3-star, #40 WDE
Scout: 3-star, #70 DE
247 Sports: 3-star, 86 grade, #42 WDE, #806 overall
Hit the jump for more.
Paye committed to Boston College in December of 2015 when Don Brown was the Eagles’ defensive coordinator. Then, of course, he was offered by Michigan. After several months with the Wolverines, Brown and Michigan offered Paye. He considered the offer, took an official visit on October 1 for the game against Wisconsin, and then pulled the trigger earlier this week. It seemed to be a foregone conclusion that he would pick Michigan as long as they continued to pursue him.
Paye appears to be the alpha male on his team (if not his conference). He’s one of the biggest players, and he outclasses almost everyone when it comes to speed and hitting ability. He has a good frame for a weakside end prospect or could play a role as a 3-4 outside linebacker. He’s aware of how to use his hands, and he does a good job of keeping separation from offensive tackles to work his pass rush and play his run responsibilities. He can bend around the edge and has the speed to chase down quarterbacks from behind. He appears to be a high-motor guy who will make plays on special teams, from the backside of plays, etc. When he breaks away on offense, he doesn’t spend time high-stepping, dancing, or jogging – he just hustles across the goal line. Whether as a defender or blocker, he lays some big hits.
On the negative side, Paye plays pretty weak competition in Rhode Island. He’s the best athlete on the field, and usually by a wide margin. For example, he’s the #1 player in Rhode Island but just the #806 player in the country, according to 247 Sports. So there may be an adjustment period. He needs to get stronger – which is the case for almost everyone – but the biggest thing I see is that he needs to learn a wider variety of pass rush moves. He uses his hands already, which is good, but he generally just locks out an offensive lineman or dips his shoulder coming off the edge.
It would be difficult to argue against Michigan’s player development along the defensive line. Virtually everyone with at least three years in the program is a solid NFL prospect, and the two guys lagging behind are Chase Winovich (who spent a year at LB and then a year at FB) and Lawrence Marshall (who has had “other” issues). It’s not out of the question for those guys to get to that level, either. I’m struggling to come up with a Michigan comparison, but maybe Mario Ojemudia would be a good starting point.
Michigan now has 18 commitments in the 2017 class, including three weakside end types: Paye, Corey Malone-Hatcher, and Luiji Vilain. The class should reach 23 at the minimum, according to the 2016 Scholarship Count (LINK). Michigan only has three Rhode Island products in its database, with QB/HB Donald ZanFagna the most recent one . . . from 1948-1952.
TTB Rating: 81 (ratings explanation)
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I look at Kwity Paye and I think to myself, “Fullback.”
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If he can catch it.
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I watched the vid again, and am changing my mind, I’m going with Ace or whoever it is over there that thinks he’s a SAM.
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Possibly. As a DE, he is way below par for the kind of recruit we need to be landing. If we ever want to compete at the highest level, we can’t keep signing low-rated projects while Alabama and OSU are loading up on top 100 guys.
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Well, OSU’s two starting defensive ends were #289 and #181 overall (Tyquan Lewis and Sam Hubbard). Luckily, we have #95 and #284 overall (Luiji Vilain and Corey Malone-Hatcher).
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Yes we know that some guys don’t pan out and lower-rated guys surge to the top. I guess what we are saying is that OSU is really killing it with recruiting with 5 5-star guys and #1 ranking while we have 0 5-star guys and #9 at 247.
I feel like all things equal, recruiting will determine the victor. If Harbaugh doesn’t catch up quick, we might keep losing to OSU.
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And we might not keep losing. Harbaugh was in a similar (but probably worse) situation at Stanford and did pretty well against USC. Recruiting matters, but we’re recruiting very well.
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They are identifying recruits they believe can help them win championships and going after these recruits hard (regardless of where they’re ranked). I’m not sure what more you guys want Harbaugh and his coaches to do. They work their asses off on the recruiting trail. They can’t force every single 5 star to sign with UM.
Anyway, Harbaugh has only had 1 full recruiting class, which was top 5 and included the consensus #1 overall recruit. The team is ranked #2 in both polls and will end up signing another top 5 recruiting class and perhaps the #1 overall recruit again. JH has the program rolling.
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Saban and Meyer are doing exactly the same thing, but they’re getting better recruits. They’re beating us for pretty much every high ranked recruit this year. And these are the guys who are going to make the cores of these teams 3-4 years down the road. It’s fine to say that Harbaugh is “getting there”, but how long do you want to wait to compete at the highest level?
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Well, we’re ranked #2 right now. So I’d say we’re competing at just about the highest level.
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Um…no. We’ve won 7 of 7 games so far this year, with one win (a close shave) against another top 10 team. The rest has been mostly baby seal clubbing. There’s a huge difference between being #2 in October and being #2 in December.
We haven’t won a game against a highly ranked opponent on the road, we haven’t beaten Ohio State, we haven’t won a division championship, we haven’t won a conference championship, we haven’t made the playoff and we haven’t won a national championship. Those are the things we have to do, and more than once, to be competing at the highest level. Going undefeated over half a season and wracking up gaudy stats isn’t enough. You have to be winning the big games against the best teams.
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So basically what you’re saying is, we can’t possibly be competing at the highest level right now. Your argument is invincible because we didn’t win a national championship in Year 1 under Harbaugh. I guess I can’t argue with that.
Michigan is good right now. Harbaugh is doing a very good job of recruiting. Enjoy it while it lasts. I don’t see the reason for being a Negative Nancy just because Michigan’s fourth-best DE recruit isn’t in the top 300 (which Vilain, Malone-Hatcher, and Jeter are).
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Well, your claim that we are playing at the “highest level” as a program requires more support than you’ve given. And no, it’s not likely that we’d show it in a year and a half, any more than an NFL player could prove that they’re an all-time great after only being in the league for two years. Winning SOMETHING more than individual games this year would be a good start, though.
And no, it’s not “just because Michigan’s 4th best DE recruit isn’t in the top 300”. It’s because our chief rival has 11 recruits in the top 100, and we continue to have none, but are signing a bunch of three stars. I’m still waiting for your projection on how we close that talent gap so that we can compete on something close to a level playing field, because that gap is very real.
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I’m not really worried about it until we see them play Ohio State. If we beat OSU and/or go undefeated, then you don’t really have a point. If we don’t and continue to see a talent gap, then maybe you have a point.
I can’t prove that we’re playing “at the highest level” with anything more than the fact that we have a 7-0 team, we’re ranked #2, and we’re blowing almost everybody out. It’s October 28, so that’s all the evidence I have. It’s an inherently unfair argument if you dismiss all the tangible evidence I have and only accept the evidence that “Ohio State has verbal commitments from lots of good players that may or may not sign with them in February and Michigan doesn’t have as many verbal commitments from good players who may or may not sign with them in February.”
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Some people are determined not to enjoy life.
If you are a Michigan fan who can not enjoy what is happening this year you should seriously reevaluate your choices and/or yourself.
It doesn’t get much better than this. Even Alabama fans aren’t enjoying themselves as much as MIchigan fans this year because they set such a high bar last year (and in years past).
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It’s about the come up.
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Um..yeah, it does get better than this for a college football program. Really. We’ve beaten up on some so-so teams for half a season, and yeah, it’s been fun to watch, but the past decade or so of suck under Hoke and Rodriguez and late Carr has not lowered my standards for what I consider to be a truly successful season. We’re not there yet.
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We aren’t at the end of the season yet. With that I agree.
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This is too simplistic Suduri.
Michigan can win the game (and do so consistently in The Game) without winning the recruiting battle outright.
They do have to get within reasonable range talentwise, to let coaching, player development, and character to give them the edge, but they are already there.
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Bottom line, OSU has 11 top 100 players and five 5 stars in the 2017 recruiting class. We have zero of both. Their average star rating is 4.24 on Scout, ours is 3.42. We have eight 3 stars, and OSU has one. Alabama is way out ahead of us on both, too. That’s a huge talent gap to make up, so the question remains, when are we going to start landing elite players?
And we’re not talking about a Texas or a USC, schools whose recent history has been to make shit stew out of great recruits. We’re talking about two coaches with a proven track record of turning elite recruits into elite college players, and doing it quickly. Harbaugh is not going to close the long term talent gap by outcoaching Meyer and Saban. At best, he’ll be even up, leaving the talent level as the deciding factor.
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Harbaugh is never going to out recruit Meyer… firstly Ohio is more talent rich than Michigan, secondly Meyer has 3 rings, thirdly his offense requires more athletes who are generally ranked higher while Harbaugh needs more tough guys (FB, H-Back types) who are generally ranked lower. As long as Harbaugh puts together top 10 classes, we will be fine because he is a proven talent developer and coach, but Ohio St will always recruit in the top 5.
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Well, it’s not even a question of OUT-recruiting Meyer. If he were even up, or even close, that’d be fine, but right now, Harbaugh is way behind. That’s not a recipe for long term success.
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I am pretty sure that Michigan’s class this year will be at the very least top 10, and probably more towards top 5.
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Never say never or always, but yeah. Michigan needs a better approach than outrecruit to beat OSU.
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So when Harbaugh beat Pete Carroll at USC in 2007 and 2009, USC was terrible and couldn’t develop players? National champion Pete Carroll? Super Bowl winner Pete Carroll? That’s an interesting take.
That’s not really the bottom line. The bottom line is winning. So far Harbaugh is 0-1 against OSU in one chance, but right now Michigan is ranked higher and undefeated while OSU has one loss to a mediocre PSU team.
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Frankly, I couldn’t care less what Harbaugh did at Stanford. I’m not a Stanford fan, and he’s not coaching those players any more. Nor what Pete Carroll did in the NFL.
When Harbaugh beats Ohio State when he’s coaching at Michigan, then we can talk. So far he hasn’t. We don’t win anything for being temporarily ranked ahead of them. Unless we get it done on the field against them, all the Rutgers beat downs in the world won’t matter.
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“When Harbaugh beats Ohio State when he’s coaching at Michigan, then we can talk.”
So…I guess we can’t talk, then?
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No, we can’t really talk about how Michigan is playing “at the highest level”, no. All the Penn State and Rutgers beatings in the world won’t get us over that hump.
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I double negative care also. Harbaugh’s Stanford rebuild is as impressive of a program reboot as has occurred in the last decade. It’s up there with Johnson/Schellenburger at Miami, Meyer/Wittingham at Utah, Bellotti/Kelly at Oregon, Beemer/Foster at Va Tech, Briles at Baylor, Boise State, etc. It raised Harbaugh’s profile significantly, and continues to the longer they continue to win, which still means something because perceptions matter in CFB: for recruiting, rankings, exposure, etc.
While Harbaugh@Stanford doesn’t guarantee a Saban-like ascension to dominance at a power program, it’s certainly useful evidence of Harbaugh’s ability to elevate a program dramatically.
Everyone is aware of the stakes of the Ohio State game and nobody thinks shutting down Rutgers is definitive.
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The standards and expectations at Michigan are and should be much higher than those at Stanford, wouldn’t you agree? Harbaugh’s best at Stanford is not nearly good enough here.
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Harbaugh already has far more talent at Michigan than he had at Stanford.
The situations are different, but that doesn’t mean the events and outcomes (potential and realized) are entirely unrelated.
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Getting talent on your roster is a means to an end, not an end in itself.
The only expectations are for what he does with that talent on the field. Potential no longer excites me, only results.
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And yet, all you want to talk about is the potential of what happens in a game 5 weeks from now, instead of appreciating the results thusfar.
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To support Thunder’s point here – you can’t just look blindly at rankings.
Yes, any old 3-star, would be a disappointment but context matters and not all 3-star guys were the same.
Hubbard’s rankings may not have been great but OSU and UM went after the kid HARD. He was a huge priority for both. Winovich was rated decently well but he wasn’t offered by UM or OSU until way later than Hubbard.
Likewise in this case you have a guy that Don Brown has identified as a great fit. He might be a lot better at Michigan than he would be at other schools.
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Come on…can we at least agree not to trot out the tired and debunked “stars aren’t everything, look at Mike Hart” argument? Yes, any particular 3 star can potentially end up as a better college player than a particular 4 or 5 star, but overall, 5 stars do better than 4 stars and 4 stars do better than 3 stars. That’s not my opinion, it’s well supported fact, and you know that as well as I do.
The bottom line remains, OSU has eleven top 100 guys and five 5 star guys in the 2017 class, while we have none of either. They have 11 guys in their class who are more highly rated than our best guy. That’s not the kind of talent gap that you can just wave away by saying that our recruits are a “great fit”. Do you have any reason to think that OSU doesn’t like their (more talented) guys just as much, and doesn’t think they’re just as good a fit for what THEY want to do?
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This is explicitly not that. This is saying that there are circumstances that point to exceeding the rankings or diminishing them. Your ability to interpret this stuff may not be good but it shouldn’t be dismissed that others might be able to outperform the rankings collective — especially our coaches.
Some guys are just fliers (e.g., Jeremy Clark was crazy tall and athletic and happened to pan out but many others like him do not) but some give you very good reason to expect more. For example — Guys like Frank Clark and Caris Levert were late bloomers. For example — Guys like McDoom and Johnson had offers that vastly exceed their rankings. For example – Guys like Hill and Higdon have offers from schools/coaches who have excellent reputations at certain positions (e.g., Bielema RBs, Iowa safeties)
The point is there is a lot of room for interpretation in these things. The recruiting guys (most of them anyway) are not actually experts – if they were they’d be hired by NFL or college teams. They are members of the media. Some of them are good, most are guessing.
If you just assume every 3 star is inherently inferior to every 4-star you will be right often but wrong often too. But if you actually care enough to read people like Thunder’s posts, and think independently, you can make reasonable adjustments to the rankings based on reliable pieces of additional information.
For example – I’m on record here as thinking the 4-star WR recruits (Hawkins, Crawford, and Mitchell) were less impressive than the 3-star WR recruits (McDoom, Johnson, Evans) in the last class. I based that on their recruiting storylines and offers. I was dubious of Drake Harris based on some rumors about his character and the backwards judgement (in my estimation of picking Izzo over Beilein for basketball and Hoke over Dantonio for football).
Now Of course nobody is going to be right all the time and I certainly haven’t been (still waiting on those Freddy Canteen heismans). But that doesn’t change the fact that, while useful as indicators — you have to look past the rankings. Bitching about every 3 star recruit is as silly as assuming everyone is going to pan out.
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I can appreciate some good healthy brake-pushing on the hype train.
Michigan is not necessarily going to beat OSU and isn’t necessarily a top 5 team. It is true that they HAVE had struggles (stopping the run against UCF, scoring on Wisc, turnovers and pass defense against Colorado) at times and this could be meaningful against OSU or even Iowa.
Michigan’s crazy defensive stats don’t mean a thing for OSU are inflated due to some bad opponents. We had crazy impressive D-stats last year at this time too and got destroyed in the second half of OSU ’15, at home.
Michigan’s recruiting class almost certainly won’t finish #2 in the country and will very probably end up behind OSU.
etc.
These things are true, but all that said, Michigan has done almost everything you could hope they would do up till now. They are undefeated. They have the #2 recruiting class in the country. These accomplishments may be fleeting but if you are going to talk about being results-oriented than you have to appreciate those results.
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But if you do want to indulge in speculation, there are reasons to think they will extend to OSU, the Big Ten Championship and the post season (rose bowl or playoff look highly likely).
1. The defenses hiccups came early in the year when a) not yet at full strength (Charlton, Mone, Lewis) and b) when still getting up to speed with Brown’s scheme.
2. Michigan’s schedule hasn’t been nearly as week as it looked in the preseason and, other than OSU, looks just as manageable in the next 4 weeks as the previous 7 despite a couple of legitimate road games.
3. Other teams play cupcakes too. A couple weeks ago we thought PSU fell in that category. What has OSU done that is so impressive – beaten an Oklahoma team barely getting by the likes of Texas, Texas Tech and TCU? Washington’s best win is 2-5 Oregon. “Ain’t played nobody” goes for everybody. The only teams holding a scalp more impressive than Michigan (Wisconsin’s) are Alabama (TAMU) and Clemson (Louisville).
4. Harbaugh’s recruiting eye was demonstrated to be excellent at Stanford and Don Brown managed pretty well at BC. Even if you prohibited Michigan from landing ANY 4 or 5 star players those 2 might be able to upset OSU occasionally. With the mostly 4 and 5 star kids they are landing we are well within the “margin of victory”. Michigan won’t be fighting an uphill battle based on a fractional star differential.
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FYI
You’re not going to catch my comment count by not responding to a 20-something deep string within your post.
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I wasn’t too excited about Paye when looking at his rankings. But he is pretty dang athletic after viewing his film. Bottom line: if Don Brown wants this kid, then I want him.
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Ojemudia is actually a really good comparison. Don’t penalize the kid because of the weak competition or the fact that he didn’t transfer to IMG like everybody else. Don Brown loves speed and this guy is perfect for his defense. Hard worker too, will do whatever he is asked, won’t complain, and won’t post a twitter update every two hours. When Larry Foote mentioned a few years back that MI needed to stop recruiting “trust fund babies” this is exactly what he had in mind.
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I won’t watch too much film of players until I find out they are either committed or are near committing. When I saw his 3-star ranking and offer list I was thinking the worst. Especially since he’s from Rhode Island. But, I saw some traits that should carry over to the college level. He’s the kind of player that will end up having an impact because you can tell he loves playing the game and he hustles his butt off. He reminds me of a smaller Ezekiel Ansah. Won’t give up on plays, great hands (though needs to work on hitting with his shoulder pads, which seems to have improved since sophomore year film) and plus agility. He’ll be the guy who shows flashes in college and will continue to improve with this coaching staff. He’s definitely a OLB or DE. Can’t see him playing fullback against bigger competition.
I agree on the recruiting though. It seems like Paye would be a player that we could continue to pursue and take in Jan/Feb if some of the other guys we want are no longer interested. Is that fair to him? Probably not. However, that’s the life of todays recruiting in my mind. That’s my gripe with this types of players. They aren’t being pursued by other competitors, nor do they have the offers but Michigan seems to rush to get them to commit (Ben Mason, Kurt Taylor, etc).
I do like Paye, especially after watching his film. In fact, I like him more than Jeter. I would just rather wait on these types of guys until later. The Michigan hype may only increase over the next couple months and that’s when you can flip a lot of great recruits, especially upon coaching changes.
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I think Winovich is pretty good – at least as a pass rusher – right now. That he’s getting significant snaps when Michigan has 7 other guys on the DL who will likely get drafted in the NFL, that’s a testament to his skills.
If Michigan wanted to get Rashan Gary more snaps they could use him at WDE more often. But those snaps are going to Winovich because he’s been effective and promising.
To me, he’s on the star track. Considering it’s his first year at the position the other issues besides pass rush should get coached up (Praise to Mattison). I expect that at you’ll see Winovich’s name on all conference teams in 2017 and 2018.
His experience playing QB, TE, LB should be an asset.
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