Michigan Football: What a few wins could mean for recruiting

Michigan football beat Rutgers last Saturday and for recruiting purposes, winning the next two games is going to be really important.

In the world of college football, there are no meaningless games and even though Michigan football can’t win any championships the next two weeks, the games are still very important.

Obviously, they are important for head coach Jim Harbaugh, who may have saved his job with a comeback win over Rutgers. It seems like a long shot that he would be fired, but losing to the Scarlet Knights, following the disaster against Michigan State could force some movement.

The key now for Harbaugh and the Wolverines is to build on that and with Penn State and Maryland coming to the Big House the next two weeks, there is a good opportunity to do that.

Penn State has had an even rougher go than Michigan as the Nittany Lions are still winless. However, they would love to beat Michigan and in this recruiting cycle alone, have nabbed four pretty good players from the state of Michigan.

Beating Penn State could help with other in-state recruits and also with another 2021 target, which is defensive tackle George Rooks. It could be different now, but it has felt like a Michigan-Penn State battle and an impressive showing for the Wolverines could really help.

How two wins could help Michigan football recruiting

Don’t forget, Rooks is probably the top target left for Michigan at defensive tackle after Rayshaun Benny ended up committing to Michigan State. So Rooks is pretty important and so is building more momentum with a number of key recruits taking visits elsewhere.

So far, the 2021 class looks pretty secure, but Xavier Worthy is taking a visit to Alabama, while 2022 recruits Will Johnson and Domani Jackson are each supposed to visit Ohio State.

These are all self-guided visits of course and these same players also took trips to Ann Arbor recently too.

The Wolverines have been trending with crystal ball picks for Will Johnson and are also considered among the favorites right now, if not the favorite, for Jackson.

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Those are both five-star recruits and each of them is ranked in the top 8 of the 2022 class. They are both elite corners and guys like that could change the Wolverines defense instantly and in a significant way.

If they came in the package deal that they have talked about, I have no doubt that they would be day-one starters and probably only for three years with their talent level.

But they aren’t going to come if Michigan is 2-7 or 3-6 and doesn’t even get into a bowl game. Many of these recruits have looked at the struggles as an opportunity for playing time, but also to be part of fixing things.

Johnson and Jackson each have connections to Michigan, so that draw makes sense and so far, the Wolverines have done a good job in each of their recruitments.

Sealing the deal though, is going to take some success on the field. Beating Rutgers certainly helped, but wins in the next two weeks would likely stabilize things with Jim Harbaugh, which would be good from a recruiting perspective.

The 2021 class, as long as it holds, is very good and U-M is off to a strong start in 2022, so that’s a reason to want Harbaugh to stay around and a couple of more wins can’t hurt.

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