Michigan Football: Confidence fading with top target George Rooks

Now that Michigan football recruit George Rooks has pushed his decision, it’s hard to feel confident in the Wolverines chances.

There was hope that Michigan football was going to add a new commitment to its 2021 class this week, but that’s gone now as Oct. 1 came and went for top target George Rooks.

Rooks said not long ago he wanted to decide before Oct. 2, which is when his high school team begins its season. But, there were rumblings earlier this week that Rooks was likely to delay his decision and now it looks like we won’t hear from him until December.

The Wolverines are still among the top contenders in the mix, along with Penn State, Boston College and Pittsburgh. But it seems like Penn State has been gaining momentum and that was one place he took a self-guided visit to along with U-M.

Rooks also visited Penn State last season when the Nittany Lions hosted Michigan football, so he does have the experience of a gameday atmosphere there. Yet, his sister played basketball at Michigan, so he is plenty familiar there too.

“I am still just trying to figure everything out,” Rooks said Thursday to Brian Dohn of 247 sports ($). The defensive lineman from New Jersey is ranked as the No. 15 defensive tackle in the 247 composite rankings for 2021 and 195th overall.

He would fill a huge need for Michigan football up front and beyond that, the Wolverines could use more four-star defenders in their 2021 class. Right now, there are just four of them — Junior Colson, Quintin Somerville, Jaydon Hood and Kechaun Bennett according to the 247 composite.

And while Michigan is still the crystal ball leader, there haven’t been any new projections in months and the confidence level of the two crystal balls is only at a four.

How will this impact Rooks’ decision?

EJ Holland of Rivals ($) has compared this recruitment to that of Drew Kendall and we all know how that worked out for the Wolverines.

But it sort of comes back to the same exact situation. Rooks started trending with expert picks around May that predicted he would commit to Michigan. The talk was always surrounding a decision sometime in August, but just like with Kendall, it kept getting pushed back.

Now, he’s not going to make a decision until December and you have to ask yourself, if Michigan football was really the favorite, why the wait?

I don’t have a crystal ball pick or anything like that, but if I did, I would be really hesitant to keep it with the Wolverines and honestly, I’d probably flip it to Penn State. That’s where this feels like its headed.

Maybe I’m just carrying over bad vibes from the Kendall recruitment, but it seems like constant delays aren’t usually a good thing for the “long-time” favorite.