To avoid a 5000-word post, I'm breaking the roundup into two parts. Today's covers the performances of Michigan's commits—plus a new offer—from the weekend's The Opening finals. Tomorrow's will cover the considerable recruiting fallout from the weekend.
McCaffrey Builds Rapport With Iowa McCaffrey
#Michigan commit Dylan McCaffrey FEELING it now! Coonects with Ambry Thomas on 60 yard TD. @Tavonn_ is a BEAST!! pic.twitter.com/UBvq5FZzsO
— Sam Webb (@SamWebb77) July 10, 2016
This year's iteration of Nike's elite camp, The Opening, has come and gone, and Michigan's commits and top targets acquitted themselves well. Team Hypercool, the squad comprised largely of Michigan recruits, made a nice run in the 7-on-7 tournament—knocking off Buckeye-heavy Team LunerBeast in the process—despite minor injuries causing Donovan Peoples-Jones and Nico Collins to both sit out by the end of the tourney.
Quarterback commit Dylan McCaffrey had a strong weekend. 247 ranked him as the second-best quarterback on Saturday, praising his decision-making, and placed him fifth after Sunday's action:
Michigan commit Dylan McCaffrey - He looks like a pro on the field. Not in terms of his size or physical traits, not even his technique. The way he processes what's in front of him is elite though. He has a glaring technical flaw that he needs to clean up but when that happens, he's going to be special for Jim Harbaugh.
Unfortunately, Simmons didn't elaborate on the "glaring technical flaw," which I assume has something to do with McCaffrey's long delivery—he brings the ball down low before releasing, a habit that can be fixed over time.
With Peoples-Jones and Collins both sidelined by the final day, McCaffrey had to build a rapport with other receivers, and he found a pair of unlikely go-to targets. One was four-star MI CB Ambry Thomas, who flipped sides of the ball and showed he's a very talented receiver prospect. TMI's Josh Newkirk:
He already had a stellar Saturday showing at cornerback, but late in the evening he switched to offense due to injuries at wide receiver for Hypercool.
And the switch worked for Thomas, how well exactly? Well, the four-star standout caught four touchdowns of 40+ yards on simple go routes, he simply just out ran his opponent. It was one of the better performances you’ll ever see in a camp setting.
While Thomas is first and foremost a (very good) cornerback prospect, he's got the potential to play both ways in college. His performance earned him a spot on the all-tournament team.
McCaffrey's other favorite target came in as a nondescript three-star who'd had only MAC offers until last month. IA WR Oliver Martin left with a Michigan offer after earning the trust of his potential future teammates, per Sam Webb:
His chemistry with McCaffrey was readily apparent on an over the shoulder throw 40 yards down the seam for a score in the semis. That was clearly Martin single biggest play, but where he consistently did damage was in the short and intermediate areas. He consistently moved the chains. Michigan fans should picture Grant Perry, but bigger, stronger, faster, and with more shake. This isn’t a kid that the Wolverines were heavily involved with before The Opening, but they are now. Thanks to some not-so subtle suggestions from the Michigan commits at The Opening, the Maize & Blue offered Martin a scholarship Sunday night. He spoke to The Michigan Insider afterward and expressed his strong interest.
247's Steve Wiltfong wrote a feature on Martin today that is well worth your time; in addition to being a football prospect who's going to rise up the rankings considerably, Martin is a D-I baseball prospect and state champion swimmer, and his younger sister just nearly made the Olympic swim team as a rising high school junior. Their father was a standout swimmer; their mother the same in track. Michigan might have just found the Iowa McCaffreys.
[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the roundup.]
St-Juste Belongs
There's more from The Opening than I can summarize in one roundup, so I'll note here that TMI's recaps from Saturday and Sunday are free, informative, and pretty comprehensive.
It was apparently very difficult to actually get a look at the OL/DL drills—SBNation punted on choosing top linemen as a result—but Sam managed to scout Kai-Leon Herbert, whose outlier 247 ranking should get a bump if they saw the same thing he did on Saturday:
Kai-Leon Herbert had really good day. He was matched up Hunter Echols and won two of three reps showing good feet and great lateral quickness. The key for Herbert moving forward as told by his coaches -- is technique. On the couple of times we saw him beaten came when he overset and allowed a pass rusher to get to the inside. A minor technical flaw, according to his coaches, that is easily corrected. You can’t teach his length his length, and his can’t teach his athleticism. And right now, at just 285-pounds, he has room to add 20 to 300 pounds of muscle. This kid is just scratching the service of how good he can be
The 7-on-7 wasn't an ideal showcase for fellow M commits AJ Dillon, O'Maury Samuels, and Josh Ross—running backs and linebackers are marginalized in the pass-heavy format, but Sam said all three held their own in limited opportunities.
Michigan biggest winner from the weekend was Canadian cornerback Benjamin St-Juste, who posted great combine numbers—including a 99th-percentile mark in the shuttle, which measures agility—and cracked 247's top ten defensive performers list on Saturday:
You're just not going to find a more impressive looking cornerback than St. Juste who hails from Canada. He's a legit 6-3, 190 pounds and he's so long. He was really good on Saturday at staying hip-to-hip with wide receivers and then finding the ball when the quarterback tried to test him. He's an ideal physical outside cornerback and his stock is going to climb with his performance this weekend.
St-Juste is likely headed for four-star status. Now is a fun time to revisit the comments from last year's commitment post.
Michigan ended up with three commits with top-25 SPARQ combine scores at the event: Dillon at #9, Samuels at #21, and St-Juste at #25. You can see video of Samuels' absurd 44.3-inch vertical leap here; this is him at the apex:
42 doesn't look too excited about following that up. It's hard to blame him.