Michigan Football: Wolverines could try to flip Pac-12 QB commit

Michigan football is still without a quarterback commitment in the 2022 recruiting class but one Pac-12 commit could be the next target. 

Plenty of dominoes have already fallen when it comes to the 2022 recruiting class and quarterbacks. But Michigan football is still one team that’s still looking for a commitment at the game’s most important position.

That search has taken the Wolverines to California. Top 2022 quarterback target Nate Johnson is from Clovis and the three-star dual-threat is thought to be the most likely QB to end up in the class.

New QBs coach Matt Weiss really seems to like him and even told Johnson that he reminded him some of Lamar Jackson.

Yet, the addition of Courtney Morgan to the staff as director of player personnel has brought another name into focus and that’s Justyn Martin, a four-star prospect committed to Cal. He’s 6-foot-4, 210 pounds, and listed as a pro-style passer. He’s 269th overall in the 247 sports composite rankings for 2022, and 13th among pro-style QBs.

Michigan football isn’t entirely new to Marin’s recruitment, as there was some interest from previous quarterbacks coach Ben McDaniel. But it never materialized into anything serious.

Morgan has a really strong interest in Martin while he was at Fresno State, but it’s hard to recruit a kid that talented to Fresno State. However, now that he’s at Michigan, the Wolverines are back in the mix according to Brice March of the Michigan Insider (subscription required).

While Martin doesn’t have an offer yet from Michigan, he said he was interested in taking a visit, and it feels like if U-M offers, it would have a real chance of flipping his commitment.

More recruiting hires

Speaking of Morgan, his work on making over the recruiting department continues and on Tuesday, Michigan football announced the hiring of Christina Deruyter.

This move might not seem significant, but it’s another hire that puts Michigan on par with elite recruiting operations. And Deruyter has plenty of experience working around college football.

She spent the last two seasons at Texas Tech. And according to the announcement from Michigan, here are some of the things she did:

"“DeRuyter worked at Texas Tech during the 2019 and 2020 seasons, overseeing the on-campus recruiting efforts for the program. She organized and executed all aspects of the recruiting effort for the Red Raiders, including planning travel, accommodations, meals, meetings, tours and activities for every prospective student-athlete. DeRuyter also assisted with football operations during her time in Lubbock.”"

The Wolverines hired her away from Vanderbilt, where she recently joined the new coaching staff. It’s a good hire and it’s the third addition to the recruiting department in the past week or so.

All of a sudden, Michigan has a four-person recruiting operation, instead of a one-man show and it’s going to be a definite improvement.