Part Three: Matt Dudek Details Michigan’s Approach To Recruiting

Michigan director of recruiting Matt Dudek went in depth on how the Wolverines determine which coach will be a primary or a secondary recruiter for any given prospect.

As part of a regular segment on The Michigan Insider podcast, Sam Webb interviews a different member of the Michigan football community to provide an additional look into the Wolverines sports landscape.

Among topics covered on Wednesday, U-M director of recruiting Matt Dudek spoke at length on how the Michigan staff determines which coach is assigned to which recruit. Also, Dudek sheds light on how the staff zeroes in on the precise number of scholarships to offer in a given year.

Sam Webb: “A couple more here before we let you go. Again, not getting into any specific recruits, but it feels like the is a quickened pace in 2021 has gotten you guys off to what seems like an earlier start with recruiting and offering in the 2022 class. I don’t know if that’s accurate or not. It’s just my perception, but I wonder how close that is to reality.”

Matt Dudek: “No, I think it is, and truth be told, this time of year in the spring evaluations, you are going through, you are checking on the juniors you are recruiting, and you are checking with coaches. Is there anybody else on your team or in the area that is great as a 2021 or the current class that you are recruiting, and that’s where you get into the 2022s, the spring of their sophomore year essentially. That’s when the bulk of it happens, so I wouldn’t necessarily say that it’s uncommon to be offering and looking at 2022s at this point. They would be coming to campus as well. Not as many as the current class but certainly would. We would be communicating with them. Would they be having multiple chalk talks and multiple phone calls and those things? Not as many. They would still have them, but the rules are you can’t text them until September 1st their junior year, so it’s more of, it’s a little harder to get them on the phone and set those things up, but they happen. I think, I would say it’s not uncommon. It’s different this year, but I don’t think it’s uncommon to what this time of year would offer to 22s, 23s, 24s and out of class guys.”

Sam Webb: “Gotcha. And then, of course, we haven’t had an opportunity to really talk to you about the new additions to the coaching staff, Coach B.J. [Mary] and Coach [Bob] Shoop, so where have you assigned them regionally? How does the regional breakdown recruiting go now with those two additions to the staff?”

Matt Dudek: “Sure. So, we primarily do primary, secondary recruiting based on position, based on fit with the kid, based on various different things, then the area would be secondary to that a little bit. Obviously, B.J. is in Florida. He’s recruiting Florida for us. He’s recruiting Texas for us with his background at those two states, as well as linebackers, as well as other guys that we have deemed, ‘hey this is a good fit for B.J. and his personality to communicate with this kid and his family.’ Coach Shoop, again the safeties and he’s primarily in western Pennsylvania right now. We’ve got him and Coach [Mike] Zordich in there and a couple other places. He hasn’t had the opportunity to go on the road yet, so it’s one of those deals that we haven’t quite fixed his area quite yet. He’s doing a heck of a job recruiting the safeties, so we are really excited about that.”

Sam Webb: “Can you lay that out again? Because that is often a topic that is discussed without much real, without a whole lot of definitive word on the philosophy on where a given coach is recruiting. So, you say you prioritize position and personality, is that the way it goes? Kind of talk me through, talk us through that.”

Matt Dudek: “Yeah, sure. It’s based on the position primarily and then, you know, personality of the family, of the kid, of the staff, of the coach. Which side of the ball? Is there some kind of connection we can make early in the process? Using B.J. for an example, he has ties in Texas from his ties there, so we would lean on that a little bit. Whatever gives us the biggest lean on that young man and what kind of tie we can attach to that would be kind of the primary and secondary of it. I would say the position coach is usually the primary or the secondary recruiter on either, and then there are general areas that we have coaches assigned to. Sherrone [Moore] is in Chicago and in the Detroit area. Coach Brown is obviously in New England. Coach Zordich has a piece of Ohio. Coach [Ed] Warriner has a piece of Ohio. Coach [Ben] McDaniels has a piece of Ohio, going through kind of all of that. Really, when you have coaches and coaching changes and things like that, you don’t want to lose your area recruiter and then there is a big gap in it, so by having general areas and having those communicating, and yeah, he’s recruiting Pittsburgh where I’m from, but there’s also two other guys recruiting in there too because they are primary and secondary, so if there is a change, if there is a non-personality fit, let’s say that guy is a little more quiet and you’re a little more animated and vice versa, it just gives us an opportunity to get the right person and the right fit of that recruitment in on that recruitment.”

Sam Webb: “Alright, my very last one for you, Matt, and it’s a tough one. I wonder how you do it, but how do you in this day and age, how do you come up with a number for a class when the fluidity of a roster, with the transfer waiver hasn’t been approved yet. I can only imagine what that’s going to be like. How do you, like I say, project a class number when a roster is more fluid than it’s ever been?”

Matt Dudek: “Yeah, I think, and this is coach’s philosophy, you start off with a starter at every position. Doesn’t mean you are going to take five offensive lineman every year or doesn’t mean you are going to take three wide receivers or only two corners or only two safeties, but you kind of start off with that, then you have your 22 right there. Then you are limited by initial scholarships and what you can do, but I think when you look at it from a very broad view, you try to get one starter at every position and then you work from there. What is the number? Do we have enough guys leaving, graduating, exhausting their eligibility to take more? Do we not? Do we have to scale it back and only take two linebackers instead of three? And that evolves as time goes on, just kind of have a general idea of, you know, now and May typically you start having a general idea of where your class is going to end up numbers-wise. And you start getting the grades from your current players coming in and saying, okay, he’s nine credits short of graduating, so okay, we know that he’s exhausting his eligibility so we know we have that scholarship. When the transfers get added, that’s going to add a different dynamic, and I think it’s going to be another new normal, so to speak. There is a lot of evolution happening in college football in the recruiting side coming in the next couple of years, especially with the NIL as well, Name Image Likeness, so I think that’s another thing that is going to play a part in this whole process. I think it’s going to be really good, and it’s going to be really fun to see how everything evolves and transfers, if they can one-time transfer, I think that’s great and they make that move, the you’re going to have to, the timing of that is going to be really important for those recruits, you know? They are probably going to have to do it right after the season because schools are going to need to know, hey, what’s going on with the class? Do we have enough room for them? Do we have an extra spot for them? And if you wait until June, you might not have a spot. It’s going to be very interesting to see how the transfer plays out for sure.”

Note: This is part three of a three-part series that takes a look into the day-to-day process of Michigan football recruiting through the eyes of Matt Dudek. What intrigues you the most about the current recruiting cycle? Let us know!