Michigan Lands It's 24th Commitment for 2010: Richard Ash Looks to Spark the Michigan Defense

Rich Rodriguez has had a lot of success recruiting Pahokee, Florida and he just added another high profile commit on the defensive line, Richard Ash. Richard is considered a 4 Star defensive tackle to Rivals with an offer list from the who's who in college football: Florida, FSU, USC, UCLA, Miami, South Carolina, WVU and so on. Some of the bigger programs "cooled" on Richard after they started to fill up and performance at a U of F camp last summer.

Still a number of programs continued to recruit the 6"4 263 pound tackle and he committed to West Virginia a couple of weeks ago. Still, the current Pahokee contingent in Ann Arbor wouldn't give up and convinced Richard to take a visit to Ann Arbor for the Ohio State game. (It always amazes me when Florida kids visit in November and come away very excited to be a Wolverine. That really talks to Ann Arbor, the University, and the football program). Current Wolverines Martavious Odoms,Vincent Smith and Brandin Hawthorne all hail from the Pahokee, (aka The Muck) Florida.

Ever since the Michigan visit the rumors have been swirling that Richard was very interested in committing to the Wolverines but didn't want to de-commit from WVU. With the recent news that West Virgina's Assistant Head Coach and top Florida recruiter Doc Holliday was taking the Marshall head coaching job, Richard had an opening and made the final decision to become a Wolverine.

Richard gives Michigan much needed depth on the D-line but the Michigan coaches would like the luxury of red shirting Ash in 2010 so he can add on weight, work on technique, and get "Barwised".

What's next? This is commit number 23 for the 2010 class and there are only a few remaining spots. Michigan plans to sign 28 players in February due to under signing the 2009 class and an estimated 8 early enrollees in January.

The other big question is: What does this do to the recruitment of instate defensive line prospect Johnathon Hankins who is down to Ohio State, Florida, and Michigan? The inside word on Hankins is that he is 50/50 between Michigan and Ohio State and an announcement could come as early as next week. Michigan would love to have both Hankins (who plays more middle/nose guard) and Ash in this class.