Stars matter? Jim Harbaugh believes Michigan can win title … and break NFL Draft record
By Bruce Feldman
Jul 31, 2023
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“Stars matter.” It’s the lens in which my colleague, recruiting reporter Ari Wasserman, views recruiting and team talent. Earlier this month, it became part of a fascinating discussion, when Ari was a guest on The Audible. The crux of Ari’s argument: “Mr. Stars Matter” was skeptical whether Michigan is talented enough to win the national title this year.
Talent, as Ari and some other college football media define it, is rooted primarily in what a team’s players’ recruiting rankings were when they were signed out of high school or junior college. To back that up, 247Sports’ Bud Elliott created the Blue Chip Ratio, examining the makeup of a team’s roster based on its star rankings to gauge which teams have a realistic shot at winning a national championship and which don’t.
Ari, citing that Michigan ranked 14th among FBS programs in the number of four and five-stars on its roster, asked me whether I believe “a team that is 30 percent below Georgia and Alabama in the Blue Chip Ratio can win a national championship in 2023?” Technically, according to Elliott’s research, the Wolverines would be 36 percent behind Alabama, 31 percent behind Ohio State and 23 percent behind the Bulldogs.
I wanted to dig much deeper into this subject because while I do buy the premise of the Blue Chip Ratio, I think there’s a lot left out in the margins that matters. Obviously, Michigan has thumped a much more “talented” team in each of the past two years when it’s faced Ohio State. Also, on paper, the Wolverines are more talented according to the Blue Chip Ratio than past national champions — 2016 Clemson (52 precent) and 2013 FSU (53) — were.
As Ari has noted, though, the top end of the recruiting talent food chain — namely Alabama and Georgia — have widened the gap when it comes to gobbling up blue-chippers in the past few years.
But let’s get more into how it all fits for the 2023, where those three most stocked rosters each have to replace multi-year starting quarterbacks. And remember, two of those quarterbacks went at the top of the 2023 NFL Draft, Bryce Young and C.J. Stroud, and the third, Stetson Bennett, will probably have a statue made in his honor in Athens, Ga.
If you break down the Wolverines’ projected starting 22, it is an impressive group. On Michigan’s offense, only one player had less than a four-star ranking: Guard Zak Zinter (three stars), who is a two-time All Big Ten player. Two players in the backfield were five-stars, QB J.J. McCarthy and running back Donovan Edwards.
Defensively, there are four former three-stars: linebacker Mike Barrett and defensive backs Mike Sainristil, Rod Moore and Josh Wallace with one five-star, sophomore cornerback Will Johnson. Those number rate favorably against the 2010 Auburn title team that started eight three-stars and had one less five-star (although one of those two five-stars is arguably the best player in college football history: Cam Newton.)
LSU’s 2019 juggernaut that went 15-0 started five three-stars and a two-star in Justin Jefferson.
I thought it would help to bring in some experts who have also studied the players Michigan has, live and on tape. But before we get to them, something Jim Harbaugh told me this week really got my attention.
Mike Sainristil is a leader on the Wolverines team … and a former three-star recruit. Photo: Marc Lebryk / USA Today
The view from the inside
Harbaugh knows his roster better than anyone. He’s also got a keen eye for talent and development. He once turned the worst program in Power 5 football, Stanford, into one that won a BCS bowl and finished No. 4 by his fourth year there. He also spent 14 years as an NFL quarterback and later coached in the league, taking a long downtrodden 49ers team and leading them to the Super Bowl in his second year. When asked about the talent on his roster, he made a bold prediction to The Athletic.“I think we’ll have 20 guys picked (in the next NFL draft),” Harbaugh told me. “I bet we break that (draft) record. (Georgia) had 15 that year.”
Harbaugh proceeded to rattle off seven upperclass offensive linemen, the same ones that Jim Nagy, the Senior Bowl executive director had also told me about: Trevor Keegan, Drake Nugent, Zinter, Trente Jones, Karsen Barnhart, Myles Hinton and LaDarius Henderson. He named two running backs, Blake Corum and Edwards; McCarthy; and tight end A.J. Barner.
“And maybe other tight ends,” Harbaugh said, “but for sure Barner.”
Among the others: wideouts Cornelius Johnson and Roman Wilson; D-linemen Kris Jenkins, Braiden McGregor and Jaylen Harrell, LBs Junior Colson and Mike Barrett, Sainristil and transfer corner Josh Wallace. There were a couple of other players he thought might get drafted and two more players who he thought might not end up declaring for the 2024 draft.
Not surprisingly, the Wolverine players also didn’t buy that based on old recruiting rankings that they might not have enough “talent” to win a national title.
”Stars don’t matter,” Sainristil told The Athletic at Big Ten media days. “What matters is having guys on your team who are willing to buy into the program and go that extra mile to help the team get to where it needs to be. At the end of the day, a star is just what somebody behind some computer saw of you and thought of you. But as long as you have that self-confidence and you have a culture in a program that is going to bring the best out of you with a great supporting cast around, great strength coaches and great coaches, you can go from a one-star to being a potential Heisman winner.
“So don’t ever let a star (ranking) blind the picture of what a team can be or what you yourself can be.”
GO DEEPER
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As Corum began to answer the question about the merits of the star system, he looked about 15 feet in front of him, at Sainristil.
“When I was in high school, I wanted to be a five-star too, but when you get to college all of that goes out the window, honestly,” he said. “The stars don’t matter. If you told me he was a three-star (Sainristil), well that’s one heck of a three-star. He should’ve been a five-star. The amount of distance he can cover as we saw in the Ohio State when he deflected that one pass, it’s crazy. He’s so athletic. He might not be that big in stature, but he comes down and isn’t scared to hit you, and his IQ for the game is so good.
“I think we have one of the most talented teams in college football, if not the most talented team. I don’t think you need eight five-stars, ten four-stars. The stars don’t matter. If you can play ball, you can play ball. If a coach can coach, he can coach. You coach a good team and your players buy in. You create a good culture that can’t be breakable. That’s how you play winning football.”
Michigan has proven it can outperform the recruiting rankings. Its 2018 signing class was only ranked No. 22, but was later re-evaluated as the nation’s third-best in 2022 by The Athletic’s Max Olson. That group was followed by another crop that had been ranked No. 8 by the online recruiting sites — the highest of any of the classes that now make up their roster — but ended up also No. 3 in the re-rank four years later.
Jenkins is another example of how hard it can be to evaluate high school prospects. He was a three-star coming out of high school and was listed at 239 pounds. But the son of a former NFL star defensive tackle has emerged as a dominant force. He played last season at 287 pounds and is now up to 302. In 2022, he had 54 tackles to go with 20 QB pressures. According to Pro Football Focus, Jenkins led all defensive linemen in the country in run stops.
Harbaugh calls Jenkins the biggest Freak in his program.
“He’s the mutant of all mutants,” Harbaugh said. “He’s the poster child for ‘enthusiasm unknown to mankind.’ Watch him become a top-10 pick. He’s super explosive.”
Jenkins looks and plays a lot like the defensive linemen Georgia and Alabama have been relying on.
Harbaugh has taken a tact that has played a key role in helping the Wolverines get over a long drought against the Buttguys, when, in 2021, he implemented the Beat Ohio period of practice, which became an amped-up 9-on-7 drill that ratcheted up the physicality Michigan wanted to combat the Buttguys speed and talent. The result has been two dominant performances where Michigan has mauled Ohio State. Now, as The Athletic first reported earlier this offseason, Harbaugh has added a Beat Georgia period.
When asked about it, both the coach and his players evoked the pro wrestling legend Ric Flair’s famous line, “To be The Man, you have to beat The Man.”
The Beat Georgia drill, which calls for the offense to play in heavy personnel groupings with two and three tight ends on the field, is different from the one geared toward the Buttguys, Harbaugh said, because it’s 11-on-11. What Harbaugh sees in Georgia is a physicality that enables them to run the ball even when the other team knows they’re going to run and also has the ability to shut down the other team’s running attack when they both know what’s coming.
“That’s what I really respect about that team.” said Harbaugh.
“They’re that top dog, but it goes beyond too,” Jenkins said. “It can be Georgia, Ohio State … obviously our rivals or any team we face because have a target on our back. We’re not taking any team for granted. The biggest thing is when it comes to great programs, it’s more than five-star or four-star guys. It’s really the mindset and how far the mindset and culture is going to take you. If you have the proper mindset and culture in your program, the sky is the limit.”
The view from NFL scouts
From a scouting perspective, Senior Bowl executive director Jim Nagy said when he looks at his big board of 2024 NFL Draft prospects, he sees a ton of Michigan logos all over the place.“This is a legit talented team,” Nagy said. “To have seven offensive linemen in this class, to have this much experienced, talented depth, is unheard of.”
But it’s more than the O-line and the stars.
“Roman Wilson is gonna be a guy that bursts on the scene,” Nagy said. “He can fly. They have really good young tight ends. Jenkins is a dang good player. Really good against the run, very disciplined. I watched McGregor’s tape the other day. I liked this kid better than (Bengals Pro Bowler) Trey Hendrickson coming out. He’s got the heavy hands and is aggressive and he’s a better athlete.”
Dane Brugler, The Athletic’s NFL draft analyst, said he was having a similar conversation about whether the Wolverines were talented enough to win a national title this year with midwest NFL scout.
“Best running back tandem in the country. Probably the top offensive line; (it’s) a unit that has won the Joe Moore Award the last two years and this year might be their best O-line,” said Brugler. “(There’s) a quarterback with all the talent and the intangibles to be a Heisman contender and a few draftable wide receivers. I haven’t studied the defense yet, but the offense is set up to through the Big Ten again.”
The view from the TV booth
NBC’s Todd Blackledge, the analyst for three Michigan games in 2022, including its lone loss of the season against TCU, has also called a lot of Alabama and Georgia games. He offered a nuanced take on whether not having enough top-rated recruits will prevent a team from winning a national title.“I think I read some of those same things, and I get where they’re coming from,” said the former NFL QB. “I do think that Georgia and Alabama are a breed apart. The way they’ve recruited year-in and year-out. The way they continue to reload and never rebuild. When Clemson was winning national players, they had some elite players, but I don’t know if that roster top to bottom was as good. But they (Clemson) had the right pieces in place.
“I think Michigan is very talented. I don’t know if they’re as talented top to bottom as Ohio State, but I do think Michigan has a championship culture and I think they have a physical toughness. To me, that has been the bigger difference the last two years. Michigan has some intangibles that make them a special team. Is that enough to win a national championship? I think they have a quarterback now who is capable of leading them to that. He’s seasoned and he’s the leader. I don’t see elite wide receivers, but they’ve been excellent on the offensive line, got excellent running backs, excellent tight ends and defensively, they are talented. I think they’re capable.”
McCarthy, a 20-year-old junior, is the wild card, according to several of the analysts we spoke with. Worth noting: Of the four teams that won national titles in the past 15 years with relatively modest recruiting rankings, each had a legitimate play-making superstar quarterback — Cam Newton, Jameis Winston, Trevor Lawrence or Joe Burrow.
Last week at Big Ten media days, Harbaugh called McCarthy “a once-in-a-generational type of quarterback at Michigan.” In his first season as a starter, McCarthy threw for 2,719 yards with a 22-to-5 TD-INT ratio. At Ohio State, he threw three touchdowns and ran for a fourth in the 45-23 romp. Against TCU, he threw for a career-high 343 yards and ran for 52 more, but he also threw two pick-sixes to go with his two touchdown passes in a 51-45 defeat in the Fiesta Bowl.
Harbaugh gushed about McCarthy’s progress, comparing him to Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen. “Everything he does athletically, everything he does throwing the football are at the elite level.”
Former Notre Dame star Brady Quinn, who also got to watch McCarthy a half-dozen times last year, was effusive in his view of the quarterback.
“I think J.J. is super talented,” he said. “The only question is, why they don’t lean on him more? But maybe it’s because they’re so good at running back and they feel like that’s what they need to do to win.”
Jake Butt, a former Wolverines tight end who called two Michigan games in 2022 for Big Ten Network, said he thinks Harbaugh’s team has “all the talent in the world,” but the challenge is for them to realize their full potential, and a key to that will be unleashing McCarthy more this year.
“I think what has harmed them is, it’s very easy for Michigan to run the ball 40 times a game and beat up on a bunch of opponents. But then you get to TCU and it was hard, tough sledding, and it took them awhile to start to rely on that pass game,” he said. “If you’re not maximizing J.J.’s throwing ability and play-making ability — it’s a little bit like Pat Mahomes (and obviously he’s one of one) — but they just let him make plays at times. I think J.J.’s capable of making some of those one-of-one types of plays, but the challenge is for them to let him do some of those in the games when you know you’re gonna win even though it doesn’t matter. Let him get those repetitions and build his confidence because he’ll need it when you have to play Georgia, Alabama or Ohio State in the Playoff.
“He’s as gifted as anybody in the country, and you’ve seen that at times. Even in his freshman year, one of his first games, he’s rolling right and launches it across the field — it’s a no-no for quarterbacks but if you have that kind of capability, you can do it. And you saw it in the TCU game. He made mistakes but that dude made a ton of plays too. It’s just that Michigan doesn’t ask that from him or need it from him, so you don’t see it consistently. I think they’ll really benefit from letting him loose, especially games that they’re winning, let him rep it in a game setting because that’s when you really build your confidence.”
Fox’s Joel Klatt, who called six Michigan games in 2022, said he thinks Michigan’s “top-end talent is as good as anybody’s in the country. I think Michigan is better suited than before to actually go win it. They actually have some of the best players in college football. The Ohio State game was the first one in J.J’s career there where I’d say they won because of him rather than with him. He had never been required to be the reason they won the game, and he did it in Columbus which was quite remarkable.
“When you get into the Playoff, you’re gonna have to win a game 42-38, 42-35. And he proved he could go on the road and do that.”
The Wolverines are in a unique position entering the season. They whipped Ohio State and then watched that Buttguys team put Georgia on the ropes and come within a last-second field goal of defeating the Bulldogs — yet Michigan is coming off of two disappointing Playoff performances.
“We definitely can’t take for granted where this program has come from,” Sainristil said. “Three years ago we were a 2-4 football team. And to even be able to be in the position we are now, competing for Big Ten championships, competing to be in the Playoff, is a huge jump within itself. What we need to understand is that we made it to the Playoff two years in a row, and we lost two years in a row. What aren’t we doing that is gonna get us over that hump? Where is the complacency within the program?
“We just have to continuously do the things necessary and never get comfortable. We heard that we were playing TCU and instantly, it was like, ‘Oh, yeah, we’re just gonna run the ball against them.’ No, this is a team that is in the Playoff. At no point in time, should we ever feel that because of their play style, that we’re automatically gonna be able to do what we think we want. Acting a certain way just gives other teams motivation, and when you give guys added motivation and that little extra push, it can backfire, like it did against us.”
