The 2021 Under Armour All-American Game will be played in January of 2021. The following participants have committed to or signed a Letter of Intent to play for Michigan:
2021
Giovanni El-Hadi, OT – Sterling Heights, MI*
Jaydon Hood, LB – Ft. Lauderdale, FL*
Branden Jennings, LB – Jacksonville, FL*
2020
Blake Corum, RB – Baltimore, MD
Micah Mazzccua, OT – Baltimore, MD
Braiden McGregor, DE – Port Huron, MI#
Andre Seldon, Jr., CB – Belleville, MI
2019
Zach Charbonnet, RB – Thousand Oaks, CA
Quinten Johnson, S – Washington, DC
Trente Jones, OT – Loganville, GA
Nolan Rumler, OG – Akron, OH
Mazi Smith, DT – East Kentwood, MI
Anthony Solomon, LB – Fort Lauderdale, FL
2018
Mustapha Muhammad, TE – Missouri City, TX
Myles Sims, CB – Atlanta, GA
2017
Jaylen Kelly-Powell, S – Detroit, MI
Kwity Paye, DE – Warwick, RI
Cesar Ruiz, C – Bradenton, FL
Luiji Vilain, DE – Alexandria, VA
Earlier this week, I posted about former Michigan players who have transferred (LINK).
Up next is the players who were at one time committed to the Wolverines.
FORMER COMMITS
RB Tim Baldwin (Indiana): Baldwin is listed as a 6’0″, 217 lb. freshman running back at Indiana.
WR Kalil Branham (Kentucky): Branham, listed at 6’1″ and 202 lbs., is expected to be a backup for the Wildcats this season.
WR George Campbell: Campbell spent last year at West Virginia and applied for a sixth year of eligibility, which was not approved by the NCAA. His career ended and it does not look like he has had an NFL opportunity.
Baltimore (MD) St. Frances offensive lineman Micah Mazzccua committed to Baylor and their new coach, Dave Aranda. According to a source, Baylor is not Michigan.
Mazzccua committed to Michigan in February 2019 (LINK) and I gave him a TTB Rating of 69. However, there were questions about whether he would ultimately end up in Michigan’s class. He tweeted after the early National Signing Day that he would be signing on February 5 . . . but he didn’t necessarily say that signature would be for Michigan.
Mazzccua played with running back Blake Corum and linebackers Osman Savage and Nikhai Hill-Green at St. Frances, all of whom signed with Michigan in December. He also joined Corum at the Under Armour All-American Game, but as I somewhat expected, Mazzccua did not start and looked just okay when he did play.
I expected Mazzccua to end up at guard at the next level, and I think the other linemen in Michigan’s 2020 class have more upside. The Wolverines are still pursuing the limited options still available to sign in February, and they are also looking at grad transfer options on the offensive line (LINK).
This departure from the 2020 recruiting class has been expected for a while. I have not included him in the 2020 Scholarship Count for several weeks (LINK), so this doesn’t change the outlook much; Michigan is currently sitting at 85 scholarship guys.
Mazzccua is the fifth player to rescind his commitment to Michigan in some way, shape, or form, joining RB Tim Baldwin (Indiana), WR Kalil Branham (Kentucky), QB J.D. Johnson (retired), and DT Denver Warren (undecided).
I have, let’s say, “opinions” about the writers for various blogs, sites, etc. around the Michigan media sphere. Some of them are great, and some of them aren’t. A guy who’s quickly moving up the list is TheWolverine.com’s E.J. Holland. Here’s a nugget from a recent batch of recruiting nuggets (LINK):
On how much enrolling early will help Green-Warren: “I think it’s going to help him a lot because now he’s going to get there and put on that extra weight. You have to realize that we stripped 25-30 pounds off of him when he left Mater Dei, which is a powerlifting school. He was looking more like a safety. We took that weight off, and he’s running with the wide receivers and looking like a corner again. Getting in the weight room early with Michigan is going to help a lot. With the weight room comes power and speed.”
For what it’s worth, my favorite recruiting-related guys/bloggers are Seth (MGoBlog), Sam Webb (247 Sports), Steve Lorenz (247 Sports), and Tom VanHaaren (ESPN), with E.J. pretty quickly moving onto that list.