Michigan Football: Are Wolverines struggles impacting recruits?

Michigan football has been struggling so far in 2019 and in terms of recruiting, things can change quickly, so is the bad loss at Wisconsin going to hurt?

Recruiting is a cutthroat business, one in which only the best survive and during the first few weeks of the Michigan football season, Jim Harbaugh and company have looked anything but sharp.

Just weeks after Harbaugh was talking up all the talent his program had accumulated in Ann Arbor, even going as far to compare Michigan football to Alabama, the wheels seem to be coming off.

Not only did the Wolverines struggle more than expected in wins over Army and Middle Tennessee State, but the team also didn’t even look like it belonged against Wisconsin this Saturday.

That’s a look that’s not going to help when it comes to recruiting and soon enough, it could have a real impact if things don’t change quickly.

While there have been rumors (there always are) about certain Michigan commits looking elsewhere, especially Braiden McGregor, there doesn’t seem to be any truth to it, at least according to Brice Marich of the Michigan Insider ($), who said McGregor was still all-in on the Wolverines.

A.J. Henning, another prized commitment of Michigan football’s in the 2020 class also said that even though other schools keep pushing, his recruitment is closed. The interesting thing though is will it stay that way?

Through three games, the speed-in-space offense of Josh Gattis has been an abysmal failure. The Wolverines are scoring just 26 points a game and rank closer to 100th in national scoring average than the top 10.

For McGregor, that may not be a huge concern. He seems to have built a solid relationship with Shaun Nua and head coach Jim Harbaugh, yet elite players also want to win and play for championships.

The defense at Michigan has had a better reputation over the past few years, especially in terms of getting guys to the NFL, so that will help. Offensively, it’s a different story.

A big recruiting tool, it seems at least, with the Wolverines has been Gattis and the transition he’s leading on the offensive end. So far, things haven’t gone well, although it’s hard to blame Gattis for that.

Harbaugh is the one who hired a first-time play-caller to run the offense for a team expected to compete or national championships. You can argue whether or not that’s a realistic expectation but Harbaugh himself said Michigan should be the Big Ten favorite this season.

Now things are off to a rocky start and while it hasn’t crept into recruiting yet, the sharks are in the water and the Wolverines can’t have the look of a sinking ship, not if they want to keep one of the top recruiting class in 2020.