Things discussed:
- Craig and Seth came on early to talk about Michigan's shifting portal strategy. Craig: new strategy is to get all high ceilings with freshmen and backfill with transfers. Seth: same portal strategy, just more guys in the portal who fit what Michigan's needs were or for whom Michigan fit their needs.
- The 2023 class: No top-100 guys? Staff shakeup prevented them from capitalizing on last year's playoff run.
- Seth: NIL was the story of the class, unfortunate that they didn't get the playoff payoff in recruiting because this was the year the NIL market was shaping itself out.
- Michigan couldn't play that game well, but everyone else is bad at it, and the top-100 is riddled with families and programs who thought it was about money. I predict this class will have a lot more kids in the portal because their decisions weren't made by best fit/best school/best development, and that hurts a place like Michigan that is objectively the best in college football at those things.
- Craig thinks Michigan's going to continue being behind on NIL. The rest of the panel thinks they won't be, that Michigan will figure out how to make their offering competitive.
- This is a job market, a new job market, and everyone has to figure out where the level is. In the near term that means establishing a collective and pay a salary to all the players. In the long term that means the market itself coming to terms with itself. In the short term this meant Michigan wasn't used to having these conversations, parents didn't know how to have these conversations, intermediaries were trying to get in an direct these conversations.
- Portal: They're mostly not plugging holes, they're adding guys, maximizing this window where they're championship caliber. Gotta care about the future and recruiting over your own guys, but I don't think Michigan's done that. If you're walking into your starting job at Michigan, they're going to fix that. Brian: A lot of the guys they got have 2+ years, e.g. Myles Hinton could redshirt and that makes him more like a recruit.
- Cornerback? They're looking, but options aren't as there. Should try to talk Turner into coming back because his draft stock isn't high right now.
- Corum? Seriously 50-50. Sam thinks he should go *shut up Sam!!!* but retaining stars like him is more possible with NIL because you can offer them security that the NFL won't.
- Favorite players of the class? We all have them. Jyaire Hill could be really special but probably not in Year 1.
- Hoops? Dickinson had a bad day, the quadruple technical was stupid on the refs and stupid on HD. Rough situation where they have three guys who aren't going to be great every day, and nobody else who can give them a boost.
