Michigan Football: Is 3-star WR Brenden Rice the next commit?

Michigan football landed a commitment from A.J. Henning Wednesday and there are signs that fellow wideout Brenden Rice could soon follow suit.

The past few days have been pretty exciting for Michigan football fans, with good recruiting news breaking left and right. Four players committed on Sunday, then a couple more on Monday and then Wednesday, A.J. Henning, the biggest target of all, said he was joining the Wolverines.

With the commitment of Henning, the 80th-ranked player in 2020 according to the 247 composite rankings and the top player in the state of Illinois, Michigan football jumped all the way up to No. 9 in the class rankings for 2020.

That announcement capped off a flurry of commitments that began with William Mohan, Aaron Lewis, Jordan Morant and Reece Atteberry over the weekend. It was followed up with pledges from Eamonn Dennis, Jeffrey Persi and dual-sport athlete Gaige Garcia, who will also wrestle.

Henning is the eighth player to commit to Michigan football since Sunday morning and since Matt Dudek, the director of recruiting at UM, teased 10 commitments, the Wolverines aren’t done yet.

One name to watch that could be among those 10 players, is three-star wideout Brenden Rice, who yes, is the son of NFL Hall-of-Fame receiver Jerry Rice. While Henning and Dennis will bring a dynamic aspect to wide receiver, they are both 5-foot-10 and UM needs size too.

That’s where Rice may come in as he stands 6-foot-2 and weighs 203 pounds. He runs the 40 in 4.56 and doesn’t have blazing speed. But neither did his father and we all know how that worked out.

Josh Gattis, the Wolverines new offensive coordinator has been his primary recruiter and seems to be really high on Rice, who has good hands and is fearless going over the middle. He is also good at getting yards after the catch, which is a staple of the speed-in-space offense.

Previously, Rice was considered an Oregon lean but after visiting Ann Arbor last weekend, that has changed and now all of his crystal balls are with Michigan. Even Oregon expert Kevin Wade, who covers the Ducks for 247 sports, flipped his crystal ball to the Wolverines.

With that in mind, this twitter interaction with Henning and 2021 five-star quarterback J.J. McCarthy makes perfect sense. McCarthy is also committed to Michigan football and is friends with Henning.

Henning tweeted that they would be a dynamic duo, to which Rice responded with a curious-thought emoji. Henning then amended his statement from duo to trio, indicating McCarthy, Henning and Rice.

So it seems like Rice to UM is a strong bet. The only thing we don’t really know is if Rice has informed the Michigan staff and if he is among the top guys Dudek hinted about or if he is an additional commitment (when/if it becomes official).

Obviously, until Rice announces, nothing is certain but it definitely sounds like this trio of players will all be part of the Michigan football program in 2020 and beyond.