How Michigan football's national championship dreams eroded with its 2017 recruiting class

Life is good, Ja’Raymond Hall insists. He’s finishing his degree at Central Michigan, contemplating graduate school and eyeing a career as a sports agent. His focus is on the future, but at times he ruminates about the past, about his former life as a football player, about that time not long ago when he was a hot-shot recruit and a member of the 2017 recruiting class that some trumpeted as the best in Michigan football history.

“It’s just crazy to think back on,” said Hall, whose playing career ended this year after he was medically disqualified. “There was a lot of talent, a lot of talent in that group that could have went to other schools and been like superstars.”

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Thirty players descended on Ann Arbor three years ago, ready to take the Big Ten by storm. Their arrival was celebrated at the “Signing of the Stars,” a spectacle that sizzled with the same electricity that had galvanized Michigan since Jim Harbaugh returned to his alma mater as head coach in December 2014. On stage, under the klieg lights at the Crisler Center with his new crop of players beside him, Harbaugh reveled in his offseason victory and told his audience that his program had been “mining for gold.”

Nearby, defensive back J’Marick Woods marveled at his good fortune and eagerly awaited the opportunity to restore the Wolverines as a title contender. Only four other teams had a better signing class than Michigan, and Woods felt privileged to be part of such an elite "brotherhood," as he called it.

“It just felt surreal as a 17-year-old,” he said earlier this month. “It was just a great vibe overall. We just wanted to come in and prove to ourselves and everybody else that Michigan could be back on top. It was just something very special that we all wanted to be a part of…We definitely expected to win a national championship.”

Woods’ peers came from 14 states and one Canadian province. They included the nation’s top wide receiver prospect, Donovan Peoples-Jones, the second-best high school defensive tackle in the country, Aubrey Solomon, and the No. 1 center in the land, Cesar Ruiz. Nineteen four-star recruits were on board, creating optimism among a fan base that had just watched Michigan come within inches of defeating rival Ohio State and earning a potential berth in the College Football Playoff. Taking inventory of the class he just joined, Donovan Jeter crowed about Michigan’s new-found riches.

“We got everything,” he cooed. “We got five-star receivers, big-time quarterbacks, all of our defensive linemen. … We can’t go wrong.”

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But as time has passed, the stockpile of talent the Wolverines accumulated three years ago has dwindled to the point that roughly a third of the original group is still on the roster. The exodus has been gradual, thinning the ranks over the years. Many players have transferred. Others opted out to focus on a pro career or are currently forging a path in the NFL. Some have left for parts unknown. One was dismissed from the program. And another was forced into retirement because of medical reasons.

In total, four of the 21 players rated four stars or above remain on the team and among the 11 members left from the 2017 class only five are projected starters — defensive end Kwity Paye, linebacker Josh Ross, safety Brad Hawkins and two interior offensive linemen, Andrew Stueber and Chuck Filiaga.

“That’s just the way it is,” defensive coordinator Don Brown said. “In this day and age. Coach Harbaugh has done a good job of making sure that we are preparing for departures.”

In so many words, Brown chalked up the attrition of the 2017 class as a byproduct of the natural order in the ephemeral world of college football.

“People have guys who don’t pan out. People have guys that transfer. People have guys that get hurt,” said Steve Wiltfong, a national analyst for 247Sports. “I think that’s everywhere. You’re recruiting a big group and you know you’re not going to hit on 100% . You’re just trying to make sure you don’t have any holes in your roster on Saturdays and you have depth and you have difference-makers at the key positions.”

But with Michigan, the story of the 2017 class spotlights a troubling trend.

As the patina covering the Wolverines has oxidized following the breathless beginning to the Harbaugh era, the program’s warts are now exposed. Repeated failures in consequential games, marked by a 2-12 record in AP top-10 teams, have stripped away enthusiasm about Michigan’s progress. So, too, has the stream of defections that have impinged roster depth.

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Player retention has become a problem for the Wolverines as Harbaugh enters the sixth year of his tenure. Since the advent of the NCAA transfer portal in October 2018, Michigan has seen 38 members of its team go through the door — 14 more than rival Ohio State during the same period. In the last 12 months, 11 scholarship players at Michigan have left to pursue moves to other schools. Four of them, including Woods and highly touted receiver Tarik Black, came to Michigan in 2017. Woods is now a starter at Duke and Black is a regular contributor at Texas.

“I don’t think anybody came in expecting to leave Michigan,” Woods said. “But everybody has to do what’s best for them at the end of the day. I got hurt and injured, and I wasn’t playing as much.”

Woods said up until the day he decided to transfer he never imagined handing in his winged helmet to go somewhere else.

But Hall knew from the beginning that he wouldn’t last in Ann Arbor because he sensed he really didn’t belong in the first place. Having been raised by a family of rabid Michigan fans, the Oak Park product had tried to convince himself during the recruiting process that the state’s most tradition-rich program was the right fit for him. After committing to the Wolverines in December 2015, the affable Hall even attempted to persuade other prospects to join him while doing the bidding of the Michigan coaching staff.

“The plan was to be together for three to four years,” he said.

But once he enrolled early in January 2017, he suspected he had made a mistake. Soon after he arrived on campus, his primary recruiter, Tyrone Wheatley, skipped off to the NFL to become the running backs coach for the Jacksonville Jaguars. With Wheatley the first of six assistants who would leave the program after the assembly of the 2017 class, his departure stung Hall. He went to Harbaugh’s office, where he expressed his reservations and inquired about a transfer. Harbaugh told him to give it a year and see how he felt then.

About 11 months later, Hall finalized his move to Central Michigan, bidding adieu to his freshman classmates who still hoped they’d fulfill their promise in the coming seasons.

“It was a group that could have been very special,” he said. “I looked at this group as a national championship group.”

But these days Hall watches many of his former Michigan teammates play at other schools. He brings up James Hudson, the former four-star tackle who is Cincinnati’s top blindside protector.

“He’s balling,” Hall said.

Then he mentions Benjamin St-Juste, who was once one of the top high school players in Canada and now is a starting cornerback at Minnesota.

“Balling,” he said.

“That’s a lot of talent that that they could use at Michigan today,” he continued.

Instead, the Wolverines are in a transitional phase, trying to fill gaps at certain positions. They’re installing a new quarterback, replacing four-fifths of their offensive line, reconfiguring their receiving corps and overhauling their secondary.

Among the 19 players from the 2017 class who have left, the departures of receiver Nico Collins, defensive back Ambry Thomas, St-Juste, Black and Hudson resonate right now. Even the absence of quarterback Dylan McCaffrey is felt after years of training were invested in his development only to see little in return.

“Things just don’t work out like you think it would work out,” Paye said.

In Paye’s case, he outperformed his perceived potential.

Once a three-star recruit from the football outpost of Rhode Island and overshadowed by the other prospects in his class, he’s now an integral piece in Michigan’s defense who is projected as an early round NFL draft pick. When he initially committed to the Wolverines, people told him he had made a mistake and he’d never play.

Now, all these years later, he’s one of the last men standing from a collection of high school talent that never matched the hype preceding it.

Hall readily acknowledges the disappointment attached to Michigan's 2017 signees, but he still wonders what could have been if everyone stayed together, if everything went according to plan, if the hope then equaled the reality now.

Sometimes those idle thoughts pop up when he talks with his family.

They did the other day, he volunteered.

“Who knows?” Hall said. “We could have gotten a national championship.”

Contact Rainer Sabin at rsabin@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @RainerSabin. Read more on the Michigan Wolverines, Michigan State Spartans and sign up for our Big Ten newsletter.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: How Michigan football's championship dreams eroded with its 2017 class