Joel Klatt critical of Michigan for not recruiting well after playoff berths

Fox Sports commentator Joel Klatt was breaking down National Signing Day on the Joel Klatt Show last week when the topic of Big Ten champion Michigan.

He was surprised by how they did on the recruiting cycle, and not in a positive way.

“My next surprise, on the kind of negative side if you will, was Michigan,” Klatt said. “Michigan landed at…19th overall class despite two straight playoff appearances, despite two straight Big Ten titles, despite two straight wins over their rival, the Ohio State Buckeyes. That should have translated into more momentum. We’ve seen them have in their history under Harbaugh much better classes than this. It’s kind of strange. They were third in the Big Ten by the way. It’s not even like they were just second in the Big Ten. They were third in the Big Ten. Penn State jumped up ahead of them.

The 2023 Wolverines recruiting class ranks 19th in the 2023 On3 Consensus Team Recruiting Rankings but only features eight four-star players.

Four-star EDGE Enow Etta is the highest-rated recruit. He is the No. 123 overall recruit in the 2023 cycle, according to the On3 Consensus, a complete and equally weighted industry-generated average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies.

That one was a bit of a head scratcher to me,” Klatt said.

Joel Klatt compares the recruiting classes for Michigan and USC

Another school Joel Klatt discussed on the show as having a somewhat dissapointing recruiting class in addition to Michigan was USC.

But Klatt did add that while their recruiting classes were below what he expected, he understands they might have had their focus elsewhere.

“Now to be fair, and I want to just say this, to be fair…you don’t know exactly how each coach or collective or program or athletic department is approaching the NIL conversation with incoming recruits,” Klatt said. “That is impacting drastically where these recruits end up. Drastically impacts that. You’ve seen some teams lean more into the transfer portal, because those are known commodities. I know this guy can play. I know that he can come in here and contribute and maybe fill a need. That’s where Michigan and USC have done really well, in particular over the last two years. These two classes that they each signed out of the transfer portal were really good. So I want to be fair to each of these teams, programs, coaches, all of it, recruiting departments. Was I surprised where their high school recruiting rankings were? Yes, I thought that they were going to have more momentum. Does more go into it now than what did two and three and four years ago? Absolutely.”