Michigan Football: Wolverines eye potential cornerstones in 2021

If Michigan football is going to start winning on the field, it has to start winning more on the recruiting trail and in 2021, the Wolverines have a chance.

Recruiting is the lifeblood of any winning college football program and over the past few years, while Michigan football has done a good job, it hasn’t done enough.

That’s evident by the results on the field. Despite all the resources needed to succeed, Michigan football is 0-5 against Ohio State under Jim Harbaugh and the Wolverines haven’t won a Big Ten conference championship since 2004.

That 15-year stretch is shocking. People want to say Michigan isn’t an elite program on a national level and maybe that’s true. But Bo and Lloyd Carr routinely won Big Ten title, even if some of them were shared.

Of course, now, you can’t share titles, not with conference championship games. That means you have to win your division and for the Wolverines that means beating Ohio State or getting very fortunate. Remember, the Wolverines were one play away from winning the division in 2018 without having to beat Ohio State. If only Maryland had pulled the upset.

But outside of that rare opportunity to clinch before beating OSU, Michigan needs to find a way to win The Game and the way to do it is get better players.

In 2020, Michigan had another solid class and ranks No. 2 in the Big Ten, after ranking higher than the Buckeyes in 2019. But in 2021, the Wolverines have a real opportunity to do something special with a number of high-end prospects in the state of Michigan.

U-M already has the No. 2 quarterback, J.J. McCarthy committed and in-state tackle, Giovanni El-Hadi, a top-100 left tackle. Those are two cornerstone pieces but wait, there’s more.

Rocco Spindler, an offensive lineman from Clarkston is ranked as the No. 40 prospect in 2021 and Donovan Edwards, a running back from West Bloomfield, is No. 49 and the Wolverines are the crystal ball leader with both by a good margin.

If all four of those guys committed and signed, that would give Michigan four top-100 recruits and at key positions. Rayshaun Benny, another top-200 lineman from the state, is also interested in Michigan, especially after the Wolverines started to consider him as a defensive lineman.

Those guys are exactly what the Wolverines need and after a recent visit showed a picture of them together, it seems like are a building a bond. And if they all end up in Ann Arbor, it might be the start of something.

McCarthy can’t turn it around alone but with some other cornerstone guys, it could give Michigan the ammunition needed to beat Ohio State.