Michigan Fans Still Hope for Pryor
But Landing a Star Recruit is no Guarantee in College Sports
Michigan fans are right to hope Terrelle Pryor plays for the Wolverines next year, but shouldn't put too much emphasis on his decision, no matter where he goes.
Oventually (it seems safe to assume) Terrelle Pryor will announce where he'd like to play football next year.
Trusting the scouting reports that almost unanimously call Pryor the best high school player in the universe, Michigan fans are right to hope he winds up wearing Maize and Blue next season. But anything more than that is putting too much hope on one player, the way much of the sporting world puts too much hype around this National Signing Day. This is not the NCAA equivalent of the NFL Draft, no matter how hard people try to make it so.
If new Wolverines coach Rich Rodriguez lands his top recruit to lead the spread offense in Ann Arbor this fall, here's what U-M fans get: an athlete who was a great quarterback in high school and who has the potential to be great in college and beyond.
Of course, it wasn't so long ago that Michigan recruited an athlete who was a great high school quarterback and who had the potential to be great in college when they landed hometown boy Drew Henson. Henson's career at Michigan never blossomed before he left campus to pursue a baseball career.
There are no sure things in sports, particularly when dealing with 18-year-old kids. Sure, there's a chance Pryor, wherever he lands, will grow into the MVP role that many people envision. He may, as has been implied, follow in the tracks of former Texas quarterback Vince Young, leading his team to a national championship before resuming a career in the NFL.
On the other hand, he may struggle to learn a particular offense, get homesick, and head back to Pennsylvania before the end of the semester.
The point is, fans in Michigan don't know what to expect, not even the two or three who ever actually saw Pryor play. Sure, college football teams make it a point to recruit the best players they can find, and with that fans should trust coaches like Rodriguez to assess talent. Since Rodriguez is clearly impressed with Pryor's talent, Michigan fans are right to hope that Pryor chooses the Wolverines. If nothing else, Rodriguez could use a bit of good news these days, and any win over Ohio State, which Pryor is also considering, is good news in Ann Arbor.
But Michigan football - and any other winning program - has never been about one player, especially an unproven one.
Michigan fans have been fairly warned that things were to change with the arrival of Rodriguez, but have they really changed this much, to the point that signing or not signing one player will make or break a season?
