Michigan Football: What Makari Paige brings to the Wolverines

Michigan football added another great 2020 recruit with in-state star Makari Paige. Here’s what the rising senior will bring to the Wolverines in two years.

Makari Paige is listed as a safety for West Bloomfield High School where he plays for former Michigan football player Ron Bellamy. Since taking the head coaching job back in 2010, Ron produced some of the best football players in the country and Paige is no exception.

Makari is a 6-foot-3 183-pound safety and is ranked (according to 247Sports) 6th in-state, 22nd safety, and 243rd in the country and he currently holds a 9139 composite score. Rivals graded Paige a little higher at 18 in the county at his position.

What does that all mean? What does he bring to the Wolverines?

What Michigan football gets with the addition of Paige is a complete athlete. He’s a tall safety who can play man and he can drop inside the box as an extra tackler. He’s a thin Jabrill Peppers with the potential to move to Viper replacing Khaleke Hudson.

“They’re still coming in hard,” Paige told WolverinesWire. “They want to move me around – play free safety, rover, VIPER. Those are the positions – (they have me) moving around a lot.”

247Sports Allen Trieu provided the following scouting report on Paige:

"Tall, rangy prospect. Still looks skinny right now. Carries his weight well and can carry more. Very long limbs. Excellent ball skills and natural athleticism. Center-fielder type who can take away deep parts of the field with his physical attributes as well as instincts. Versatile. Able to come down into the box and is a solid tackler. Also can blitz off the edge and has shown the ability to play man-to-man coverage. Long-legged, so must continue to work on shortening his transitions and can still get faster in a straight line. Has the growth potential to figure into several spots and is versatile enough to play many roles, but true free safety is where we project him. Can be a multi-year starter on the Power 5 level and has the attributes to play beyond college."

This commitment comes days after the annual recruiting BBQ event which was well attended. During the event, two recruits committed (RJ Moten and Gregory Tarr) and many others took to Twitter thanking the coaches for the ‘amazing’ time they had.

Makari is just the latest addition to the 2020 class which has exploded since May. Headlined by A.J Henning and Braiden McGregor, this cycle has been unique in how quickly the class rose from 6 to 24 with Paige’s pledge.

The Wolverines class ranking should rise significantly as Paige is now the 6th highest recruit out of this colossal haul.

You can view the 247Sports list of commitments here.