Wolverine Wednesday: Has never seen this before

I have a quick question for you:   Do you think it's possible for someone to be on the Michigan Football team without ever playing any High School Football?  I guess there could be a situation where a basketball player wanted to play TE and could make the team.   What about at QB?

Thanks to BHB reader Uncle Ron's question I did some research on Michigan walk-on QB Alex Swieca.  What I found was a very interesting story.   Alex never played HS football because he went to the Frisch School, a Jewish day school in New Jersey that didn’t have a football team.   After HS he decided to take a year of study in Israel and played for the amateur Israel Football League.  He sent Big Al Borges some tape and Al replied:   “We learned about Alex through the tape he sent us, and we, as a staff, liked what we saw,” said Michigan offensive coordinator Al Borges. “He had the footwork and the arm that you like in a young quarterback.”

“I was surprised when I found out he hadn’t played high school football, because quarterback is so technique-orientated, and it usually takes years of practice to get to a point where you can play at a place like Michigan,” said Jack Kennedy, a redshirt junior and backup quarterback with the Wolverines. “He has pretty good mechanics.”

Added Borges: “He got a late start, but he’s starting to get acclimated. The fun part is to watch him learn on a daily basis. He’s such a great kid and is doing a great job for us on the practice field."

I highly recommend reading the full story by the NY Daily News.   I am now a big fan of Alex and  wish him good luck and a few game snaps next year.

•  Hill and Conley got their stars on Tuesday on Rivals.  Both are 3 star prospects. 

• If you don't follow Michigan Basketball recruiting too close.  The Wolverines lost out on an instate 4 star prospect a couple years ago to Central Michigan to play for his dad who was the head coach.  That recruit is Trey Zeigler a shooting guard who has been averaging 16 points a game for the Chips as a Sophomore. CMU fired his dad about a month ago and Trey has asked and gotten his release.  He plans on visiting Duke this week and even though Michigan was probably his second choice when he picked CMU it's not clear if Michigan even has a spot for him.   From early reports it sounds like Duke, UCLA and Detroit are the front runners to land the talented guard. 

• With the 3 freshman that graduated early and are in spring camp got me thinking about kids that might be trying to enroll early next year.  That list includes: Logan Tuley-Tilman, Taco Charlton,  Dymonte Thomas, Khalid Hill and Shane Morris.   It's hard to know right now if they will be able to graduate early still in their Junior year but now is the time to plan for it.