I started a bit of offseason content during the long offseason so I might as well finish it. I'll post the 3-, 4-, and 5-star teams next to each other at the end and link a poll if you want to compare.

What is this? I'm making a team of Michigan four-stars since 1990. Offense is here. For the writeups I gave up on focusing on the recruiting rankings because compared to 3-stars (there's always a reason) and 5-stars (there's always a story), 4-star recruitments are boring. Instead I'll try to tell you something about the guy you didn't know.

More All-Michigan [Blank] Teams: 5-Stars, 3-Stars, Pro Offense/Pro Defense, 1879-Before Bo, Extracurriculars, Position-Switchers, Highlights, Numbers Offense/Numbers Defense, In-State, Names, Small Guys, Big Guys, Freshmen

Rules: Lower bound: must be a four-star to at least one major ranker of his era, and average over 4.0 stars on the Seth scale. Upper bound: cannot a 5-star to anybody or average higher than a 4.50 on the Seth scale. Since 1990 because data go back that far. College performance considered only.

Defensive Tackle

Left: photo via Maize and Blue Nation. Right: Bryan Fuller

Mo Hurst (2013) burst into the consciousness of recruiters with a play he made while on offense, as the nation delighted in the fullback shrugging off eleven overmatched Northeastern schoolchildren for a 70-yard touchdown run.

The rest of the tape was the dude teleporting into the backfield. His coach used "yay" as an adjective.

The recruiting comp for Hurst was Mike Martin (2008), whom Brian described as "pulsing" and "a single twitching muscle." A wrestler and "crab person" for his perfect pad level, the Detroit Catholic Central committed to Lloyd Carr in June and stuck when the staff switched. In the interim he blew up, with his film showing a slab of muscle running down ballcarriers like a linebacker. Because Michigan had just experienced The Horror while this was happening, every recruiter checked in with Martin to ask if he's sure he wanted to "be on a sinking ship."

All of that negative recruiting might have helped Michigan keep Martin in the fold when Notre Dame made their serious run at him in November; according to Mike he was swayable right up until his Notre Dame recruiter started his visit by badmouthing Michigan. If everyone else started their pitch with why he shouldn't choose Michigan, that probably meant they knew Michigan had the most to offer. I have his contact so I might reach out about bringing back this shirt:

[After THE JUMP: Even I can't make Dan Rumishek interesting, but I can certainly make you appreciate uninteresting]

2nd Team

Alan Branch (2004) was described as superbly athletic when he came in. He was also a 6'6"/315-pound offensive tackle prospect. He didn't have a run of 70 yards on his highlight reel like Mo Hurst, but he did have a 55-yard one.

Eric Wilson (1996), who was out of Monroe, MI, is really the only other guy on the list below to be a starter. I don't have much on him as a recruit except he was another OL/DL question mark, which was common in that day for a high schooler, except Wilson also flipped to offense as an offensive lineman and fullback in the pros as well. The Detroit News had him #3 in-state behind John Anes and QB/DB prospect Mateen Cleaves, who was expected to play basketball.

The Field

Defensive End

Left: Eric Upchurch/MGoBlog. Right: I don't know I've had it since 1998 maybe SI?

Both of these guys could have been too highly ranked for this exercise but for one standout non-believer. In the case of James Hall (1995) that was Superprep. While today the #12 prospect in Louisiana is a solid 4-star, back in 1995 the "James Hall is too small" line to explain pushing him down the rankings became part of Hall's legend. He was also "too small" when it came time for the NFL draft. The Lions picked him up as a free agent; this remains the only savvy Lions roster move of my adulthood, and we're stretching that definition to the legal one.

As for Chris Wormley (2012) we still like to hold over the guy who does Midwest scouting for Rivals.

He is also the subject of one of the Michigan recruiting world's most persistent ongoing unhinged rants: WHY DOES JOSH HELMHOLDT HATE CHRIS WORMLEY? If you have a Rivals subscription, you've read that dozens of times. I don't know. Don't ask me. Leave it alone, man.

That take was formulated over a few games when Whitmer whipped up on future cannabis distributors and Wormley didn't seem entirely interested in leaving them with lasting damage. On the other hand were various Ohio recruiters, including Bucknuts, who saw the ideal college strongside end with pass rush upside.

2nd Team

Ryan Van Bergen (2007) and Dan Rumishek (1998)

Before he was the Philosopher King, and The Flow, and the comp point for every DT-ish strongside end recruit with good balance Michigan's reeled in since, Ryan Van Bergen was a 238-pound outside linebacker that some people categorized as a tight end.

Dan Rumishek was RVB without the pressers or the hair. An afterthought of the ridiculous 1998 class, Rumishek's 31 starts and 48 games are behind only Vic Hobson and Todd Howard for that class. He's also the most forgettable Michigan regular in history. This was true from the start; it was only my NCAA videogame rostering obsession that caught the Daily calling him Josh in the roster we published my (and Dan's) freshman year.

The Field

Linebacker

Left: via Sporting News, Center: Patrick Barron, right: Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images

Michigan pursued Devin Bush Jr. (2016) like he was five-star, hiring his father/head coach, recruiting his two best friends Josh Metellus and Devin Gil, and letting in-state 4.5* David Reese and Todd Howard-coached 4* Tuf Borland slip away to Florida and Ohio State, respectively. Brian was kinda ornery about it.

Bush is the linebacker version of Tyree Kinnel: a mid four-star recruit who Michigan really needs to pan out because of holes left by late Hoke recruiting.

Larry Foote (1998) was Devin Bush before it was cool. Back in our year they called a guy who's 5'11"/225 a safety (or a running back), and the recruiters worried if the squat terror from two ends (7 Mile and Dequindre, then moved to Brightmoor) of Detroit got to Michigan two decades too late. Foote had a kid the entire time he was at Michigan and didn't know it; he met his son in 2004.

Sam Sword (1994) was not a running back. He was huge—at least 6'2"/240 when he stepped on campus, a legendary football, basketball and baseball star for a school in Saginaw that normally sends its talent to the other schools in Saginaw. When they do send them to Michigan however, they're almost always awesome. Besides Sword, the list Arthur Hill alumni is Dick Rifenburg, who was the star receiver of the Mad Magicians; Harry Hawkins and Charles Rube, the great tackle and scatback of the Benny-to-Bennie era; Joe (John Orton) Goodsell, a star lineman who signed up for WWI because he was mad at Yost; Shonte Peoples, who was Michigan's first five-star recruit when stars first became a thing; and Terry Looby, whom Bo recruited in 1989 to help lure Peoples.

2nd Team

Ian Gold (1996) came on our 1999 edition of The Teams podcast and related his own recruiting story (at 1:08:30), which is he was a running back until the day he came to practice and his notebook was suddenly in the defense pile.

Ben Gedeon and Mike McCray (2013) both signed the year after Hoke and Mattison restocked the linebacker room, in case you're wondering what might befall the latest class to come in on the heels of four other ILBs. His nickname in high school was "The Freak." McCray II was the son and namesake of an Ohio State captain, but Ohio State didn't have interest in the legacy until it was too late to make up ground.

The Field

Hybrid Space Player

I guess I did this for the 3- and 5-star teams in order to shoe in Peppers and Khaleke so now I'm obligated. Which is stupid because there are only four options available. I guess we're going with Stevie Brown (2006) for being a solid Spur in Rich Rod's defense. Brown was the kind of five-star who fell down to four-star territory because he outgrew cornerback, where he'd been rated so highly. I'm trying to find something that shows this on the internet but I was told once that Brown's slide was too late for the U.S. Army All-American Bowl to change their cover athlete, which means somewhere out there is a collection of programs featuring Adrian Peterson, Jadeveon Clowney, Rashan Gary, Vince Young, Trevor Lawrence, Terrelle Pryor, and one Stevie Brown.

2nd team

Junior Colson (2021). Fight me, assholes.

Safety

left: Fuller, right: Barron

Michigan's long safety wilderness came out of nowhere. I mean you can go back to Benny Friedman, who wouldn't just sit back and wait for punts like his contemporaries, or 1950s star Lowell Perry, who's the guy they had to invent the word "rangy" for (go ahead, look it up). There's an unbroken chain from Perry to Bill Freehan (yes the Tigers catcher) to Rick Volk to Tom Curtis to Thom Darden to Dwight Hicks to Mike Harden to Tony Jackson to Ivan Hicks to Tony Gant to Tripp Welborne. There was a blip during the Chuck Winters years, but right after that we had 5* Tommy Hendricks coming in and 3* Marcus Ray working out.

My freshman year, 1998, Ray got injured and they made Hendricks the short safety, putting DeWayne Patmon deep. Patmon was…meh. He was also one of the better free safeties at Michigan in the next two decades. I'm sorry we have to do this:

• 2000: Cato June (who was a very good…linebacker)
• 2001-'02: Charles Drake, a converted RB who played like it until the tail end of his career.
• 2003: Put Marlin Jackson there, then he's hurt, and Willis Barringer is lost, and ultimately you have Jacob Stewart returning that pick against Minnesota because Michigan was down to Jacob Stewart.
• 2004: Blame Ryan Mundy
• 2005: Angry Michigan Safety-Hating God becomes the first Angry Blank Hating deity.
• 2006: Jamar Adams (yay) and Ryan Mundy until we'd had enough then it was Brandent Englemon reading a book while the front seven did its thing.
• 2007: Jamar Adams (yay) and Brandent Englemon (good at reading books)
• 2008: Blame Stevie Brown
• 2009: NEVER FORGET PART 1
• 2010: NEVER SAY IT CAN'T GET WORSE
• 2011-'12: Thomas Gordon but only after Marvin Robinson attempted.

Jamar Adams was a fine boring safety who was consistently opposite a flashing "Throw at Me" sign. Thomas Gordon was Patmon-level, and that felt like mana from a kinder deity by that point. Then Jarrod Wilson (2012) came aboard. He was "long" and "lengthy" and "smooth" and "covered a lot of ground" and "rangy" and was "not Courtney Avery" but he also had a rough freshman debut and was behind Avery going into 2013 until Avery got hurt. All of our football bits nodes were pointing to more of the bad. And then it went fine.

Also the cornerbackish Delano Hill (2013) (now officially just Lano) and Dymonte Thomas came around, and nowadays we moan about Brad Hawkins as if he wouldn't have been gold on any of those teams.

2nd Team:

See the above list for why we're stretching here. Tyree Kinnel (2015) wasn't boring in the way the above were, but he's so boring off the field that everybody Adam Schnepp talked to for his profile just said "leader." Take this story from Kinnel's high school career:

On senior night, he told his coach that he wanted to let a player start over him who had never started. His coach reminded Tyree that he had started for four straight years for the varsity squad, already a record. Didn’t he want to keep his streak alive? Tyree told his coach “No.” “He doesn’t care about that record,” says Erica. “He just wanted some other kid to feel what he has felt for four years every Friday night.”

Charles Drake (1999) was an extremely athletic running back who got moved to safety when that depth chart fell apart, and the other option was Jon Shaw. He was eventually fine. He also came up with "The Wolf Pack" as a nickname for the Michigan secondary, because of the Rudyard Kipling poem Lloyd Carr made them all memorize. I have this from someone in the MGoCommunity who had classes with him:

Given my major, I knew a lot of the athletes, but Charles was by far the nicest, most considerate football player I knew. He was nice for a regular person, much less a revenue athlete. I'll always remember him for the time I missed a week of Anatomy class preparing for the LSAT, and he had noticed I wasn't in class and took an extra copy of all the handouts for me. Just a class individual.

Hehehe, I'll never remember the look on his face as he was joking around with the skeleton's arm in his hand and I informed him that it was a real human skeleton, not plastic. It was as if he had seen a ghost. After that, he always had to sit on the other side of the class from where the skeleton was.

Chuck passed away in 2012. He was just 30.

The Field:

Daydrion probably shouldn't count; I think my system is overrating BCI's ranking.

Cornerback

left: UM Bentley Library, right: Fuller

Ambry and David Long made the five-star cut, but at least I can count the one ranking for Ty Law (1992), that being from Tom Lemming/Prep Football Report, which named him the #9 safety. Law, who's the nephew of Hall of Famer Tony Dorsett, used to train with his uncle in Dallas so people certainly knew about the star from Aliquippa.

Our other top dude is Jourdan Lewis (2013), who got an MGoBlog comp to… Terry Richardson?

Why Terry Richardson? Richardson is a highly athletic cover corner who is extraordinarily slight and is still working through that as he tries to get on the field. Also is from Cass Tech, yeah.

Lewis is taller and gets praise for playing larger than he seems; I still suspect that as he moves up a level of competition the result when he tries to tackle a guy is going to look a lot like Courtney Avery as a freshman: dive and pray. If he can overcome that he can be a Countess heir apparent. This will take time and luck.

So YEAH, before the Detroit Cat thing was a thing, Cass Tech cornerback meant a dust mite who does little in college.

2nd Team: Lavert Hill (2016), Leon Hall (2003)

Lavert Hill transferred from Cass Tech to Martin Luther King, which is why we had to make the Jourdan Lewis Prophesy about a Detroit corner and no longer a Technician specifically. He also flipped his commitment after opening up an early pledge to Penn State. That didn't stop a PSU hockey PA announcer from introducing him during a later visit. Hill committed to Michigan two weeks later. More awkward is which Penn State coach at the time thought it would be a good idea to get into a Twitter fight over it with legalistic Michigan fans:

@Birm Negative!!! know your rules leave it to the Coaches!! #WeAre

— Josh Gattis (@Coach_Gattis) January 17, 2016

As far as my memory goes, Lean Hall was the first of these "What did we do to deserve this man?" flawless cornerbacks from California. Donovan Warren, David Long, and Darion Green-Warren are the other examples. They're all the same recruitment: Stanford interest, quietly goes about without narrowing his list or letting on which way he's leaning, some USC hype that builds from people who expect USC to get whomever they target, then a signing day shift to Michigan. You can't force it—that's how you get Chris Richards and Johnny Sears. If the weird and wonderful luck holds maybe Ceyair Wright in 2021 will be the next.

The Field:

The Teams

So this is cheating a bit because I changed the rules when I got to defense to include guys who ended up in the high 4* range (with offense I went up to 4.30 for some reason). But this is fair.

OFFENSE:

BACKFIELD
Pos	★★★★★		★★★★		★★★
QB	Chad Henne (2004-'07)		Denard Robinson (2009-'12)		Tom Brady (1995-'99)
RB	Tyrone Wheatley (1991-'94)		Mike Hart (2004-'07)		Karan Higdon (2015-'18)
RB	Anthony Thomas (1997-'00)		Chris Perry (2000-'03)		T. Biakabutuka (1999-'02)
FB	Chris Floyd (1994-'97)		Aaron Shea (1995-'99)		B.J. Askew (1999-'02)
RECEIVERS
Pos	★★★★★		★★★★		★★★
WR	Amani Toomer (1992-'95)		Devin Funchess (2012-'14)		Braylon Edwards (2001-'04)
WR	David Terrell (1998-'00)		Jeremy Gallon (2009-'13)		Roy Roundtree (2008-'12)
WR	Marquise Walker (1998-'01)		Junior Hemingway (2007-'11)		Ronnie Bell (2018-)
TE	Jeremy Tuman (1994-'98)		Jake Butt (2013-'16)		Sean McKeon (2016-'19)
TE	Tim Massaquoi (2001-'05)		Bennie Joppru (1998-'02)		Jay Riemersma (1991-'95)
OFFENSIVE LINE
Pos	★★★★★		★★★★		★★★
LT	Jeff Backus (1996-'00)		Jake Long (2003-'07)		Jon Runyan Sr. (1991-'95)
LG	Damon Denson (1993-'96)		Steve Hutchinson (1996-'00)		Jon Goodwin (1998-'01)
C	Rod Payne (1992-'96)		David Baas (2000-'04)		David Molk (2007-'11)
RG	Maurice Williams (1997-'00)		Mike Onwenu (2016-'19)		Joe Marinaro (1991-'95)
RT	Trezelle Jenkins (1991-'94)		Taylor Lewan (2009-'13)		Jon Jansen (1994-'98)

DEFENSE:

DEFENSIVE LINE
Pos	★★★★★		★★★★		★★★
NT	Will Carr (1993-'96)		Mike Martin (2008-'11)		Rob Renes (1995-'99)
DT	Jason Horn (1991-'95)		Mo Hurst (2013-'17)		Willie Henry (2012-'15)
SDE	Rashan Gary (2016-'18)		Chris Wormley (2012-'16)		Glen Steele (1993-'97)
WDE	Brandon Graham (2006-'09)		James Hall (1995-'98)		Chase Winovich (2014-'18)
LINEBACKERS
Pos	★★★★★		★★★★		★★★
SAM	LaMarr Woodley (2003-'06)		Sam Sword (1994-'97)		Jake Ryan (2010-'14)
MLB	Victor Hobson (1998-'02)		Devin Bush (2016-'18)		David Harris (2003-'06)
WLB	Prescott Burgess (2003-'06)		Larry Foote (1998-'01)		Dhani Jones (1995-'99)
HSP	Jabrill Peppers (2014-'16)		Stevie Brown (2005-'08)		Khaleke Hudson (2016-'19)
SECONDARY
Pos	★★★★★		★★★★		★★★
SS	Dymonte Thomas (2013-'16)		Jarrod Wilson (2012-'15)		Marcus Ray (1994-'98)
FS	Tommy Hendricks (1996-'99)		Lano Hill (2013-'16)		Jamar Adams (2004-'07)
CB	Charles Woodson (1995-'97)		Ty Law (1992-'94)		Andre Weathers (1995-'98)
CB	Marlin Jackson (2001-'04)		Jourdan Lewis (2013-'16)		Channing Stribling (2013-'16)
CB	David Long (2016-'18)		Leon Hall (2003-'06)		Jeremy Clark (2013-'16)

Oh right, because including the 4* guys who were still top-100 makes a huge field and a team that's ridiculously stacked on offense. Which team is first? Poll on Twitter:

You get to go into a season with a team made up of entirely Michigan 5-stars, 4-stars, or 3-stars since 1990. Which do you take?

— Seth M. Fisher (@Misopogon) September 25, 2020