Michigan Thursday: Says Good Bye To Big Willie and Sir Patrick

Big Willie Henry is packing his bags and heading to the NFL Draft.  He was waiting to hear from the NFL on his draft status and I guess it was a good answer.   Big Willie was a late throw in to a Brady Hoke class from Glenville and turned out to be an NFL quality defensive lineman.  He was always strong but his technique got much better as the years went on under Coach Mattison. 

His size and dominance will be missed on next years team, but his opportunity is now on a professional level.  My guess is he is probably a 3rd - 4th round draft pick.   Good Luck Big Willie and I hope you have a long NFL career.

The other news yesterday is that 2016 verbal commit CB Sir Patrick Scott de-committed from the Wolverines highly ranked class.  If your wondering, I don't believe this is a surprise to the Michigan coaches and probably was expected.   I hate to speculate about kids but the rumor is his academics might not be inline.   For example, to go on an official visit you have to jump through a ton of academic hurdles to be eligible to take the trip.   Scott has yet to go on any officials, which might be a sign. 

This now should open a spot for Hill or this weeks visitor S Khaleke Hudson who has been making a ton of noise since a very good performance in Semper Fi All Star game a couple weeks ago.   Hudson is visiting A2 tomorrow.   I wouldn't be surprised if Michigan wanted to take all 3 (Long, Hill and Hudson).    Hudson is rated as a 3 star athlete to Rivals.

NJ Jordan Fuller is also a candidate (he won the NJ Gatorade Player of the Year over Gary) but he is listed as an athlete and I believe he wants to play corner over playing safety.    Michigan seems to be in good shape at corner with Hill and Long right now.

So Bob where are the numbers at now?

The coaches were for sure saving a spot for Willie.   So yes, this could push the class size to 28, which is the ceiling for true freshman with the Big Ten.  I believe the rule is you can take 25 recruits and can back date 3 for early enrollees.   I guess there is some flexibility/special circumstances on the early enrollees and using their scholarship in the 2015 class that could jump the number above 28.  Michigan of course has 7 guys enrolled early from this class.   Either way, Michigan has to stay at or under 85 scholarships.  I would still expect that we will see 8-9 more departures from the current roster.

• 2016 WR and current teammate of Gary, Donald Stewart will be visiting Stanford this weekend and Michigan on the 22nd.   Those are his final two schools.   If I had to guess, he probably is leaning towards Stanford with Michigan's recent WR commits.

• Today is the last day of the recruiting dead period, so look for Jimmy to be spending the night at recruits house and plenty of visitors the next 3 weekends.

• With Big Willie gone, Michigan now really needs to focus on the Dline with the likes of Gary, Murphy and 1/22 visitor Boss Tagaloa. 

from The BIG HOUSE Blog http://mbighouse.blogspot.com/2016/01/michigan-thursday-says-good-bye-to-big.html