Under former head coach Jim Harbaugh, the Michigan Wolverines were solid on the recruiting trail, but never consistently elite. They finished with the No. 8, 5, 22, 8, 10, 13, 9, 17 and 16 ranked recruiting classes during his tenure. All good classes, but they were never always at the top.
But now that Sherrone Moore is the new head coach in Ann Arbor, the hope is for things to change in that regard.
In speaking to the media during his opening press conference as head coach on Saturday morning, Moore spoke about the importance that recruiting — both high school and the transfer portal — has in this current landscape of college football, and how it is more important than ever to recruit at a high level.
“(Recruiting has) changed. It’s changed tremendously, but we’re going to be extremely aggressive with it,” Moore said. “We’re going to attack it just like we’re attacking scheme. We’re going to do it the same way, the same attitude, relentlessly, so we make sure that we keep our great players here and we bring in great players to the program.”
The hope is for the recruiting efforts to skyrocket under Moore, and there’s no reason they shouldn’t be able to do so. Coming off a national championship, the Wolverines have an opportunity to now sell continuity with Moore as head coach, along with the success he has already had with the program.
Moore pointed to other successful programs and how they have stayed successful due to the wins they have had on the recruiting trail. The hope is for Michigan to be able to do that exact same thing.
“I think (recruiting) is huge,” Moore said. “You can watch the programs around the country that have sustainability and continued success — their head coaches are attacking and recruiting at a high level. (Harbaugh) did that, but I want to take it to another level. I want to attack it every single day, be recruiting, talking to kids, making sure that we have the resources that we need here on campus from an NIL standpoint, from a football standpoint … the players got to be a great fit, but we’re going to attack that relentlessly.”
NIL has a lot to do with how a school is able to recruit these days. Some schools do it really well, while others — like Michigan — just don’t have the fundraising that other schools currently have.
In order to attract the best players, you have to have a strong NIL foundation. Moore knows this, and he plans to work on that aspect of the football program as well.
“(NIL has) just become a big thing of college football,” Moore said. “It’s a part of what we do and how we have to operate. Times have changed and we have to continue to evolve, and we will.
“I think we’re gonna definitely attack (NIL). We’ve already started doing that, so we’ll definitely have conversations on how we’ll go about it.”
Needless to say, it appears Moore is ready to “SMASH” through a brick wall and get to work. In this day and age of college football, it all starts and ends with recruiting and having a solid NIL structure. If Moore is able to accomplish these things he is setting out to do, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Michigan’s recruiting classes consistently finish higher in the rankings than they have been in recent years.
