Michigan Football: Latest on 5-stars Nyckoles Harbor, Dante Moore

Five-star athlete Nyckoles Harbor released a video that seemed to indicate Michigan football is among his final two teams. Plus more from the recruiting trail.

I didn’t think there would be any recruit that could challenge Dante Moore as the top target for the 2023 class but five-star athlete Nyckoles Harbor is one prospect that can.

Obviously, the quarterback position is the most important in football. But I would argue that edge rusher is the second-most important. You need an elite quarterback or at least a really good one and then you need to be really good at impacting the other team’s quarterback.

Michigan football was solid in both areas last season. Making sure that continues into the future depends on recruiting. The Wolverines have done well recruiting and developing edge rushers and that was true again in the 2022 class with the addition of Derrick Moore.

Looking to the 2023 recruiting class, Harbor, who isn’t an edge specifically, but likely would play that role at Michigan, is as elite as they come.

The 6-foot-5, 235-pounder ran the 100-meter dash in 10.29 recently, and in the video, he released Sunday which indicated Michigan football and USC are the finalists, he said he was hoping to run the 100 in 9.99.

That’s just insane. Harbor literally could be an Olympic sprinter and if Michigan football is able to land him and turn him into an edge rusher, watch out.

The ceiling is so high with his kid that it’s hard to know what it is, so if I had to choose between Harbor and Moore in 2023, I honestly might take Harbor.

However, Adam Friedman of Rivals also spoke to Harbor, who said he hadn’t narrowed his list. Still, the Wolverines are second according to the On3.com prediction machine behind Maryland and with his interest in academics, plus its ability to develop elite edge rushers, Michigan has a legitimate shot of winning his recruitment.

Dante Moore visits LSU

Notre Dame felt like the favorite and still does with Dante Moore, but LSU got an official visit last weekend and Joe Burrow was there to spend time with Moore which had to help the Tigers.

Still, Burrow isn’t going to be on the coaching staff and those types of things only go so far. Matt Weiss visited Moore at Detroit King last week and spent a few hours with the five-star QB according to Maize and Brew. 

That’s really promising but Jim Harbaugh also needs to start playing a more active role as he did with Will Johnson and Donovan Edwards. To be fair, head coaches weren’t allowed to visit recruits last week so Jim couldn’t if he wanted to, but he still needs to be more assertive.

Hopefully, Moore will get back to campus sometime soon and the same with Harbor who was supposed to come during the spring game but missed it for track.