Michigan Football: Wolverines a legit contender for 5-star safety

Michigan football was named as a finalist with five-star safety Keon Sabb, as well as in-state defensive tackle Deone Walker on Wednesday. 

The recruitment of Keon Sabb has certainly been interesting from a Michigan football perspective but the Wolverines have been surging and after a recent visit, they are a finalist for the five-star safety.

When Sabb released a cut list earlier this summer, Michigan football wasn’t on it. But, things changed and the staff was able to get Sabb on campus for a visit. That led to a new final list being released on Wednesday and this time Michigan football made the cut.

It’s also starting to feel like the Wolverines are legitimate contenders in this race. Sabb will also announce his decision on Saturday at 4 PM EST.

As with Walter Nolen, Michigan football is dealing with some heavy hitters. Sabb has one crystal ball prediction to Clemson but the confidence level was recently dropped to three and none have followed. There is also just one projection from Rivals and it’s to Clemson. It was also last month.

The Tigers just took another safety prospect and it seems as though they have lost momentum here, while Michigan has been gaining. EJ Holland of Rivals reports (subscription required) that Michigan football is feeling optimistic but nobody out there is calling U-M the favorite.

Still, it’s been an impressive job by the staff to get back into the mix, and Michigan football fans have a reason to pay attention to what the 6-foot-2, 200-pound safety ranked 22nd overall in the 2022 class does on Saturday.

Breaking down Walker’s top five

Deone Walker is one of Michigan football’s top targets at defensive tackle in 2022 and on Wednesday, he also released his top five which included the Wolverines.

In addition to the Wolverines, Walker, a 6-foot-6, 340-pound DT also included three SEC schools on his list: Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, and then Arizona State.

Kentucky did seem to be a real threat when Steve Clinkscale was there, but his addition to Michigan’s staff had to hurt the Wildcats. It’s hard to pass on an elite program such as Georgia, so the Bulldogs would probably be my biggest worry in this recruiting battle.

Walker is rated as a four-star prospect by the 247 sports composite rankings (325th overall) and he’s got eight crystal ball predictions for Michigan with an average confidence level of seven on a scale of 1-10.

So Michigan is definitely the favorite for Walker. As far as Sabb — stayed tuned.