Michigan Football: What it means to miss on 4-star Garrett Dellinger

Michigan football missed out on one of its top targets from the 2021 recruiting class as Garrett Dellinger picked LSU over the Wolverines.

When top Michigan football target for 2021, Garrett Dellinger announced his decision to go to LSU Wednesday, it wasn’t a big shock. That was the expected result for months.

But after a big push by the Wolverines recently, there was still some hope that Michigan football would find a way to land the top-100 offensive tackle from its own state. However, the 6-foot-5 offensive lineman from Clarkston, who plays with Rocco Spindler, another O-line priority, picked the defending national champs officially.

Michigan football definitely wanted Dellinger and will likely still try to flip the offensive tackle in the coming months, however, the Wolverines are still in good shape in terms of 2021 O-line recruits.

Even if Michigan football didn’t add another recruit this cycle, it would still have an offensive line class that most FBS programs would kill for. For starters, the Wolverines have a top-100 tackle in Giovanni El-Hadi and that’s along with two other four-star recruits in Greg Crippen and Raheem Anderson, guys who can each play center and guard.

On top of that, the Wolverines recently landed a commitment from three-star offensive tackle Tristan Bounds, whos stands nearly 6-foot-8. Just look at what Ed Warinner did with Jon Runyan Jr. the past two seasons and that should get you plenty excited about what he could with Bounds.

At any rate, two solid tackle prospects and two interior guys is a good haul. Yet, the Wolverines happen to be considered the favorite for four-star guard Drew Kendall and are also a leading contender for Spindler.

Kendall has been talking about making a decision soon, but now that the Wolverines O-line board has shrunk further, with Thomas Cole and Dellinger committing within days, Kendall could take his time. Unless Michigan starts seriously recruiting someone else, it looks the like the fifth and sixth offensive line spots in 2021 are for Spindler and Kendall.

If one of them doesn’t commit, I’d expect Michigan to be happy with five. And honestly, if the Wolverines missed on both, which seems unlikely, it could do a lot worse that then four commitments it currently has.