ROAD TO GLORY
RTG-01 · Underdog Run · Week 0
ROAD TO GLORY
RTG-01 · Underdog Run · Week 0
Regional recruiting notebook
Morning. Two hundred eleven of these now. Thanks to the 41 of you who upgraded in July — that paid for the gas to Ypsilanti and back twice, which is genuinely the entire business model.
Season's here. Let's do the 2027 quarterbacks, then the mailbag, then I'm going to complain about camp season one more time and then never again.
Reminder on methodology, since I got emails: this is my board. It is not 247's, it is not On3's, and it is not "who has offers." It is who I have watched, in person or on full-game film, and how I'd take them. I have watched every player on this list live at least once except one, and I say which one.
Also getting looks: Cam Rittenour (Zeeland East), Josiah Ferreira (Warren De La Salle, might end up a safety), Trey Winkelman (Midland Dow).
Ken, I get some version of this email four times a year and I want to answer it properly for once instead of being flip about it.
I did look it up. Thirty-five and zero, seventy-five percent, 850 rushing. Those are the numbers, they check out in the Tri-County's box scores, and they are outstanding numbers.
Here's my honest problem. I put five guys on that board and I've seen four of them play with my own eyes. That's the whole standard I hold myself to and it's the only thing that makes this newsletter worth two hundred eleven issues. I have not seen Fenton play. Fenton is not on my schedule this fall because I'm doing Belleville, King, Rockford, Muskegon and about nine Detroit-area Fridays, and there are only so many Fridays.
So the answer is: I don't know. I'm not going to pretend the numbers aren't interesting. I'm also not going to put a kid on a quarterback board off a stat line and a highlight reel, because that's exactly how this industry gets things wrong in both directions.
What I'll say is what I always say. Flint Metro is not a place that gets scouted. Kid's listed at 175. No camps, so no verified height or time. He got hurt before the playoffs, so there's no postseason film at all. Every single one of those is a reason a college staff moves on to the next name, and none of them are the kid's fault, and all of them are still real.
If Fenton is 5–0 in October and somebody sends me full-game film — full game, not cutups — I'll watch it. That's not a brush-off. That's what I'd tell anybody.
Chase Lynch, edge, Fenton. Since we're on Fenton. 6-4, long, bends, actually rushes with a plan instead of just running upfield. Eastern's been out to see him twice, Ferris has been in contact, and I think that's light. He's a MAC starter. Somebody's going to get a bargain in December.
I said I'd complain once and then stop. Here it is.
Three of the five quarterbacks on my board got their first offer inside forty-eight hours of a camp. Not after a game. After a camp — a June morning where a coach watched them throw in shorts for ninety minutes and got a verified height and a laser time.
That is the actual gate. Not film, not production, not winning. Standing in front of somebody in June.
The kids who go to camps are the kids whose parents can pay for camps, whose seven-on-seven program has a relationship with the organizer, and whose high school coach knows who to call. That's not a scandal, it's just how the funnel is built. But every year I find a player in October who was flat-out better than a guy who got offered in June, and every year the October guy is out of luck because the boards are full.
Anyway. Friday. Go watch a game. — Wes Trombley
The Mitten Board is written by Wes Trombley, who has covered Michigan high school football since 2011 and holds no affiliation with any recruiting service. Free tier gets the board and the mailbag. Paid tier gets film notes and the Friday live thread. 1,340 subscribers.