Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Wolverine Wednsesday: Ricardo Miller Leaves the Team

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As Michigan fans we want all Wolverine recruits to turn out to be stars.  No matter if they are a 3 star prospect like Mike Hart, who turns into Michigan's leading rusher or Golden Boy Drew Henson who was one of the top prospect in the entire nation.  We have love for all that wear the Maize and Blue. 

With that said, many of use were rooting a little harder for Ricardo Miller to be a big success as a Michigan Wolverine.   If you do a search on his name here at BHB you will find a number of articles I wrote on him and his recruitment.   This  post was about how "committed" Ricardo was about becoming a Wolverine.   To refresh your memory, he was one of the top players in Florida, moved to Ann Arbor before his senior year to play at Pioneer to be as close to U of M as possible.  He enrolled early and just lived and breathed Michigan. 

I had even wondered if it made sense to give him the #1 jersey as a freshman, because of his commitment to the program and academics (he is a very good student as well).

Fast forward to now and Ricardo announced on his Facebook page that he has left the Michigan Football program as a redshirt sophomore and will graduate this May in 3 years.   So what happened between now and back when he was a freshman?

Your guess is as good as mine.  It might have started back when he transferred to Pioneer and they turned him into a TE to fit their offense.   He also went back and forth from WR to TE at Michigan and it seemed he never could find the right fit.   My guess is his speed was an issue and he just didn't have enough to see the field.   As a TE you have to be a strong a blocker and I'm guessing that wasn't his strong suit either.   True freshman Devin Funchess and walk-on Mike Kwiatkowski are playing at TE and we know all the folks playing WR.   The fact of the matter is Ricardo was not listed on the 4 deep depth chart at either position.  Both TE and WR are positions of need for the Wolverines, so it's really hard to imagine he didn't have a chance to compete at either spot. 

The good news is Ricardo is leaving Michigan with a degree in 3 years and I hope it has been a good experience for him academically.   We wish him well in life and at his next football destination. 

As an FYI:  Ricardo is still listed on the roster and Michigan has not confirmed he has left the program.   He changed his number to 80 this year.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I remember hearing about him early on and it sounded like he had a chance to be a high 4 star recruit. Not sure if changing HS had anything to do with his development but it just never happened.

BTW why do we still have a hard time getting top notch receivers? I can see Treadwell going to Oklahoma, and we have already lost Drake Harris to State in 2014. He's a top 100 guy at a position of need and yet we cant even get a visit... what happened there?

Bob said...

That is a fair question and the best answer is the kids haven't seen Michigan pass the ball a ton for 4 years now.

It seems Big Al is having a hard time selling his vision of a pro style offense to 18 year old kids who haven't seen it yet at Michigan.