Jaydon Hood Sees Perfect Fit At Michigan
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Over the past couple weeks, Michigan has rode a wealth of momentum on the recruiting with the recent pickups of Junior Colson, Jaydon Hood, Kechaun Bennett and Tristan Bounds. Three of those four prospects project as linebackers for the Wolverines, but they each will have a slightly different role.
For example, Fort Lauderdale (Fla.) St. Thomas Aquinas's Hood checks in at 6-1 and 212 pounds, and he is a textbook inside linebacker that U-M sees playing the Mike position. On the field, Hood is known for his closing speed, and he is a powerful tackler that is a big time asset in run defense. Hood spoke with Wolverine Digest about what he brings to the field and how he will impact the Michigan defense once he reaches college.
“I'm very fast, instinctive, strong and very physical at the point of attack,” Hood said. “I take pride in my instincts and how I can dissect a play before it happens or dissect it while it's happening if I've seen that. They do a lot of window dressing, so I take a lot of pride in that because I watch a lot of film.”
Last year, Hood racked up 115 tackles for West Palm Beach (Fla.) Cardinal Newman, but he has his is locked onto the idea of surpassing 150 total tackles this fall. Hood will play on the same defense as Michigan cornerback commit Ja'Den McBurrows and four-star defensive end Dallas Turner, so Aquinas has one of the more loaded defensive units in the country.
With that level of talent around him, Hood has the added advantage of being a film junkie. During the offseason and in-season as well, Hood spends hours each week breaking down film and studying both his game and his opponents.
“A lot of teams have a lot of tendencies,” Hood said. “I would do worksheets, and we would look at it like when they're doing this, they're doing this. When they're doing that, they're doing this and watch it over and over again. Then in a game, I knew what was happening.”
While Hood helps improve his on-field knowledge with his high school coaches, the Wolverines commit also studies tape with his future coaches at Michigan.
“Me and Coach [Don] Brown and Coach BJ [Mary], we watch film all the time,” Hood said. “We are always dissecting Michigan's football season, all the plays and how they do things and how they see me playing. They love it. I love it. It's going to be a good couple years there.”
In January, Hood transferred from Cardinal Newman to St. Thomas Aquinas, and it was at that time that his recruitment reached another level. According to Hood, Michigan offered him quickly, and then a slew of other programs followed suit.
“I got my Michigan offer in January in my first week at St. Thomas,” Hood said. “Once I got the offer, I got a bunch of other offers after that. Once that all cooled down, that's when they started building a relationship with me. Coach BJ started texting me a lot because we already had a relationship since my uncle knows him. I kind of picked up with him a lot and once things started getting serious, Coach Brown started talking to me every day. It was like between me, Coach Brown, BJ and then later on Coach [Jim] Harbaugh started calling me every week. The relationship just built, and that's kind of when I knew that it was what I want.”
As a four-star prospect who is ranked as the No. 11 player in the country at his position, Hood had been pursued by a host of top programs and held over 20 offers at the time of his pledge.
“It was definitely a hard decision because it kind of boiled down to Minnesota and Miami and Michigan,” Hood said. “It came down to little things, like real little things, like what I want. Once I did pros and cons between all three schools, Michigan checked all the boxes, so that's just kind of when I really knew.”'
The Michigan coaching staff sees Jaydon Hood playing the same role he currently occupies at St. Thomas Aquinas, and that was an important element for the 2021 prospect. In fact, the U-M staff often compare Hood to a pair of other linebackers that were (or currently are) successful at that position.
“They want me in the middle,” Hood said. “They kind of see me playing like Devin Bush or Cameron McGrone right now. That is the type of position they see me playing. That is actually the playing style that I see me playing, so it works out perfectly. That is what they tell me, they want me in the middle. They want me to play in that style, and I think it's perfect.”
Now Hood as part of the team's 2021 class, Michigan has the No. 6 group of commits in the country according to 247Sports.com's composite rankings.
What are your thoughts on Michigan landing Jaydon Hood? How do you see his career at Michigan unfolding? Will he wind up as a first-round pick, similar to Devin Bush? Let us know!