Kyron Watson

http://recruiting.scout.com/a.z?s=73&p=8&c=1&nid=6719345[url][/url][url][/url]


He's put Michigan as HIGH on his list with Kansas but he just tweeted this...

Kyron Watson LB32 ‏@KyroGeeHit_RBs 32m

Trying To Get This Thang Set Up So Me And My Bro @JabrillPeppers Can Make Our Decision Live In The NY... #GOBLUE#JAYHAWKS#FIGHTINGILLNI#USC

This puts a spin on the Chase Winovich recruitment. I'd rather have Chase but Watson was definitely on my board.

Ok this drama is officially over....

For those that haven't been kept up to date, the last 2-3 days of this kid's recruitment has put A LOT of UM fans up in arms. Some fans are going as far as calling out the coach's recruiting tactics basically telling them they are no better than SEC coaches.

Let me try my best to give you the down and dirty on it chronologically....

1. Who is Kyron Watson? Answer - He's a 3* OLB from the east st louis area. His profiles all say he measures 6'1" 210-ish (we will touch on this later)

2. Kyron's dream school is UM. It's no rumor or opinion, he's publicly stated it several times.

3. After the Kyle Berger swing and miss, the staff basically sent out a wave of LB offers. Not to say they were in panic mode but the amount of LB offers sent out was a bit unusual to say the least. Kyron Watson was one of those offers. This was about 2-3 months ago.

4. Kyron instantly put UM #1 way ahead of anyone else. He had Kansas there prior and it seemed he was destined for Kansas before the UM offer.

5. Kyron had been trying to get on campus for a visit but the coaches kept pushing it back. Basically it looked like Kyron wanted to commit in person and the coaches knew it and were slow playing him. Why the slow play? Were they having second thoughts about him? Were they just jerking him around? Did they offer him without any intent of letting him commit?

My thoughts- sometime between the time of the offer and this last week UM decided to go another route with their LB recruitment. Was it because of Kyron himself or because of what has been happening with the team - again, my thought is both. First Kyron is NOWHERE near 6'1". He recently measured out at a Nike camp at 5'10.5". Furthermore, he was not the player at camp that his highlight tape made him out to be. The coaches have made it very clear they want size at LB and 6'3" is the mark. That doesn't mean they won't take a stud 6'1" OLB (see James Ross) but the goal is clearly SIZE SIZE SIZE to go with the athletic ability. Bottom line Watson doesn't seem to have enough of either.

6. Ringer leaves the program. Okay that opens a spot for Kyron right? Nope, but the coaches don't tell him. They continue to either lead him to believe or allow him to believe (big difference in the two, I know) that he can commit during his scheduled visit next week. Oh yes, by the way, they let him finally set a visit date so that tells me they were leading him to believe he could still commit.

7. Chase Winovich visits UM. It's 50/50 between UM and O$U right now. Chase leaves AA without committing and instantly the coaches start to really put some effort into the recruitment of a few LBs previously thought to be off the board. By the way, those LBs have the size they are looking for.

8. The coaches tell Kyron his offer is non-committable at this time while they evaluate the position a bit more. So basically to everyone in the world it seems like they are not going to let him commit.

9. The staff called him (I think last night) and gave him some spiel about "going a different direction" but clearly losing Ringer means they lost a MIKE LB so that doesn't make too much sense.

10. Kyron is no longer a UM target. He's bummed.


So the question is, Are our staff's recruiting tactics unethical?

My opinion...

1) Bottom line, our staff is clearly not the SEC. The track record to this point shows it. Period.

2) Hundreds of offers go out every year. Not every kid who gets an offer is going to be allowed to commit. The recruits know this. We turned away some nice 4* talent last year. The process isn't perfect.

3) I do believe our staff was NOT upfront with Kyron during this process. I think they should have told him the moment they realized he didn't fit the mold and that he wasn't the direction they wanted to go. I don't think they strung him along, I just think that they weren't quick enough to tell him so and that in turn led him to believe he had a spot. That lack of promptness is their fault. It happens, it's not the end of the world.

4) My UM bias allows me to tell myself that it's not the end of the world because there is still 7 solid months that he has to commit somewhere else. It's not like Kiffin last year when he pulled that kid's offer near the drop dead date.

5) My UM bias also allows me to tell myself that it's not the end of the world because we aren't over signing kids just to cut them next year a la the SEC so it's okay. But in reality, the truth is we really aren't.

6) Yes, it really sucks when a kid genuinely wants to be at UM but can't while at the same time the staff is trying to convince another kid that he should be at UM. That's just the way it is though.

So what do you think? Was the staff wrong?

FWIW, Kyron Watson is going to be just fine at Kansas. By the way, he committed there today.

Get the best that you can get. I wanted to play for UM when I was in high school, but it turned out they didn't have room for a slow undersized TE.

I agree FISH, get the best you can and FWIW I really do wish you had the size and speed to go to UM. Bummer

The only thing I worry about is that this is the exact same sh*t we bag on O$U and the SEC about. I would hate to fall into a pattern of handing out non-committable offers year in and year out. The bottom line is that the average fan doesn't know the difference and it can only put UM in a bad light, not the other way around.

Perfect world scenario - Do your diligence, offer only when ready, stand by that offer. Not that it was a perfect world scenario but UM didn't seem to do either of the three. Just playing the Devil's advocate here.

Not sure it matters but I both think that the coaches were in the wrong (albeit not major) and being nice. Nice in the manner that they knew the kid wouldn't be able to play here and they also knew that Kyron loved UM. Now Kyeon will forever be able to say "I was offered a scholarship to play Gootball at Michigan." When someone asks why he didn't go there he'll be able to say that he couldn't make it to campus for a visit before all of the spots opened up.

Bottom line, not totally cool by the Coaching staff but they've accomplished so much already that they are allowed this one hiccup (if it actually was one).

Another possible area is that they like the kid and offered him just so other schools would take a look at him. Maybe he gets more offers because the "almighty UM offered him".

2ndComingOfBo wrote:

...Not sure it matters but I both think that the coaches were in the wrong (albeit not major) and being nice...

+1

2ndComingOfBo wrote:

...Bottom line, not totally cool by the Coaching staff but they've accomplished so much already that they are allowed this one hiccup (if it actually was one)...

+1


This is EXACTLY how I feel.

So are him and Pepper's close, then? I would have burnt a scholarship on an undersized LB if it meant getting Peppers 100%.

Hopefully he isn't bad mouthing UofM now.

hailtoyourvictor wrote:

So are him and Pepper's close, then? I would have burnt a scholarship on an undersized LB if it meant getting Peppers 100%.

Hopefully he isn't bad mouthing UofM now.

The way Kyron tweets it seems like they are close. I doubt this has any effect on Peppers though. Peppers visits PSU this weekend and I expect a commit soon after.

I wasn't aware that Peppers and watson were friends, now it seems that UM was leading Kyron on as a way to get in good with Peppers. This looks like it's recruitings clean-dirty side. I can think of many things that would be worse, but still. This is Michigan, we don't need to play high school games. Evidently Coach Hoke is feeling the heat from Football fans.

Still, this wasn't that bad but at the same time it wasn't good.

Just get Peppers in here. Sometimes you have to get a little dirty.

Funny, we were just (sort of) talking about this:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1640013-brady-hokes-stellar-recruiting-contributes-to-michigan-wolverines-departures?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=michigan-wolverines-football

2ndComingOfBo wrote:

Funny, we were just (sort of) talking about this:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1640013-brady-hokes-stellar-recruiting-contributes-to-michigan-wolverines-departures?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=michigan-wolverines-football

I don't see this as a surprise. The article is pretty much spot on. The only thing is Ringer was a Hoke recruit. But Robinson and Jones were RichRod recruits. During the recruiting process, about this time last year, my brother-in-law and I talked about this in length. I'm going to have to send this link to him, he'll get a kick out of it.

Thanks for sharing 2nd.