Michigan football team ‘s 2016 WR recriutment was a disaster, Eddie McDoom gone
By Ash Thompson
The Michigan football team has now lost its entire highly touted 2016 wide receiver class. What went wrong is something we will likely never really know.
The number of players who were with the Michigan football team in 2017 that will not be returning in 2018 continues to grow. Eddie McDoom has left Ann Arbor according to Mlive.com. There have been a lot of reports like this one. How much of this is good for the Michigan program?
Maurice Ways and Drake Harris requested graduate transfers. That is common among those players with remaining eligibility who have graduated, and want to continue their free education elsewhere. Those are not exactly black marks on the program, and players like that are free to go as they see fit.
Wide receiver Kekoa Crawford was not on Michigan’s 2018 roster August 2. Also missing were running back Kareem Walker and tight end Tyrone Wheatley Jr. Crawford and Wheatley were not highly touted players when they came to Michigan.
Walker was, however, a highly sought after prospect. He was committed to Ohio State before changing to Michigan. He wasn’t academically eligible during his freshman year. A bevy of injuries and off the field rumors accompanied his second season at the school.
You can spin those three losses in a way that makes them addition by subtraction. Eddie McDoom was a four-star recruit in 2016. He was in the mix to start for, and play a big role for the offense in the slot. It is difficult to spin that loss as a positive in context.
McDoom is the fourth wide receiver from the 2016 recruiting class to leave. Ahmir Mitchell, Nate Johnson, Crawford and McDoom have all moved on. That is the entire Michigan 2016 class of receivers. That is a pattern.
The School had the number eight recruiting class in the nation that year. These players are all finding scholarships elsewhere. They have not been stars for the Michigan Football team, but they’re talented athletes. Mitchell and Johnson did not leave of their own accord, but discipline is still on the staff to a certain extent.
At what point does someone need to take a look at what’s happening in that receiver room? That is too many players for it to mean nothing. McDoom was respectful of Harbaugh and the staff in his Instagram farewell. We will likely never find out his entire reason for moving on.
McDoom is the eleventh wide receiver to not finish his eligibility with the Wolverines since 2012. Only three have taken their collegiate careers to completion in Ann Arbor. This is not an anomaly.
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Did Michigan err on the side of talent over tenacity? Did they choose danger over discipline? We will probably never really know what went wrong in 2016.