The Michigan Wolverines may have won the national championship this season, but the team’s recruiting classes have not been particularly dominant as the team’s 2023 and 2024 recruiting classes have ranked just No. 20 nationally. This week, one Michigan insider is explaining why that could be the case.
During a recent appearance on ‘Andy Staples On3,’ Clayton Sayfie of The Wolverines of the On3 Network was asked whether or not Jim Harbaugh’s flirtation with the NFL played an impact on the slow recruiting efforts.
“I do understand. Sure, would recruiting probably be a little bit better if he didn’t do this? Absolutely. But it’s also, partly, the price you pay when Jim Hackett, Michigan’s former interim athletic director, went and pried a guy out of the NFL that was coaching in a Super Bowl a year and a half earlier,” Sayfie said. “That’s kind of what the deal is here.”
But there’s a bigger reason why Sayfie thinks Michigan’s recruiting efforts are lagging behind: NIL.
“I think NIL is a bigger factor than the Jim Harbaugh flirtations,” Sayfie said.” I think all of it is kind of a perfect storm for them that they have taken a step back a little bit in recruiting.”
“More so 15 to 20ish is where they’ve been finishing the last couple of cycles. And, really, that is not good enough,” said Sayfie. “I don’t know that’s the correlation here, necessarily. Or if that’s the full reason that they’ve been behind in some other areas like that.”
If Michigan is going to continue to be dominant in college football, they’ll likely need to recruit at a higher level. Let’s see if they can change that in the future.
