NCAA Football

After an exciting first year in 2011 under head coach Brady Hoke, Michigan had a down year in 2012.

The future looks bright for the Wolverines, though, as they quickly put together one of the top recruiting classes in the country once again.

The kids are buying what Hoke is selling, as the maize and blue continue to be the colors of choice for several of the nation's top recruits.

Here are a few of the prospects who will make an early impact on a Michigan team that looks to rebound from a five-loss season.

Derrick Green, RB

The No. 5 running back in the country according to ESPN is sure to make an immediate difference in the Wolverines' running game.

Michigan averaged 184 yards per game on the ground last season, but a majority of those yards came from quarterback Denard Robinson, who has already entered the NFL draft.

Running back Fitzgerald Touissant had a down year in 2012 after rushing for over 1,000 yards the year before. Injuries sidelined Touissant throughout the season, and it's unsure how effective he'll be once he returns.

That is why Green's arrival is so vital to this team.

Taco Charlton, DE

What can be said that hasn't already been said about a guy named Taco?

The Ohio native committed to Michigan back in February of 2012, and the Wolverines will be getting a 6'6, 249-pound defensive end to rush the versatile quarterbacks in the Big Ten.

Rivals.com gave Charlton a four-out-of-five star rating when they scouted the defensive end, and his eagerness is sure to translate on the field once he dons the maize and blue next season.

Ross Douglas, CB

To say that Michigan was bitten by the injury bug last season is nothing short of an understatement.

Cornerback Blake Countess was done for the season after he tore his ACL in the team's opening day blowout to Alabama.

Ross Douglas will help out the Wolverines' secondary with his range, as well as his speed.

He ran a 4.4 in the 40-yard dash, which helps make up for his undersized 5'10, 180-pound frame.

Head coach Brady Hoke praised sophomore Raymon Taylor last season for improving his game as he was forced to take the reigns in the secondary.

J.T. Floyd is gone and Countess is coming off major knee surgery. Douglas could see action sooner than anticipated once the Wolverines open the season.

Chris Fox, OT

The Wolverines were able to land the top offensive lineman from the state of Colorado when Chris Fox committed to Michigan last February.

Fox is listed as the 11th-best offensive tackle in the country according to rivals.com, and the Wolverines will need him to help set up running lanes for fellow freshman Derrick Green.

Fox also received offers from Colorado, Iowa, Ohio State, Purdue and Tennessee, but Michigan was the only school he visited.

The Wolverines also recruited Patrick Kugler from Pennsylvania to help build one of the best offensive lines in the country.

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After a discouraging 7-6 finish in 2012, Dana Holgorsen and the West Virginia football coaching staff is feeling the heat. The backlash from Mountaineer Nation has made the events of this recruiting season magnified even further.

The outside pressure, coupled with the immense losses on the offensive side of the ball, has made the primary goal obvious for the WVU staff this offseason: Find players who can make an immediate impact.

Holgorsen has already done a decent job of bringing in recruits who are poised to do just that once they arrive in Morgantown. On signing day, that process must continue.

Luckily, Holgorsen may have some help in the works from one of his new coaching hires—safeties coach Tony Gibson.

Gibson, a transplant from the staff of former WVU head coach, Rich Rodriguez, at Arizona, may be able to bring a pair of prized recruits with him on his move back to the Mountain State.

Mario Alford, a 4-star athlete (via 247sports.com), and Brandon Golson, a 3-star outside linebacker (via 247sports.com), both visited WVU on Jan. 25.

If they end up at WVU, it will be thanks to Gibson, who has been working to flip them both to the gold and blue. Chris Anderson of 247sports.com tweeted that Alford has been in direct contact Gibson during the process.

Alford and Golson are teammates at Georgia Military College, so they would seem to be a package deal.

The draw of bringing in Golson is obvious. The WVU defense that struggled last season could use all the help it can find. Additionally, the Mountaineers lost two linebackers from the 2012 group, including Josh Francis on the outside.

Golson is listed by 247sports.com as the No. 4 JUCO OLB, right behind current WVU commit D'Vante Henry.

As much as West Virginia would like to add Golson, Alford would be an even bigger draw.

Alford is a versatile back that could really thrive under Holgorsen's system. Especially given how Tavon Austin blossomed while in the backfield.

Alford isn't quite as shifty and elusive as Austin (Who is?), but Alford has more straight-line speed.

Think of a smaller C.J. Spiller.

He's excellent catching balls out of the backfield, and can use speed and quickness to lose tacklers and make it around the edge.

In addition to being lined up next in the backfield, Alford could also be utilized out of the slot.

WVU will have 95 percent of its production at receiver to replace and about 55 percent of its production on the ground.

The last line on Alford's ESPN scouting report reads, "With the right team, he could be an immediate impact player for the BCS level."

With the many offensive minds in Morgantown, West Virginia could certainly be that right team.

It's no secret that WVU is keen to running screens, sweeps and reads, which plays right into Alford's skill set.

If he ends up at West Virginia, there's little doubt that he could see the field and figure into the attack immediately.

Now, Gibson just needs to close the deal on signing day.

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Looking at 247Sports.com's list of composite team recruiting rankings for 2013, near the bottom of the list is Iowa at 10th out of 12. No 4-star recruits dot the list; S Delano Hill de-committed for Michigan and DE David Kenney backed out to commit to Indiana, while LB Trevon Young, a recent commit and the top prospect in Iowa, had his offer pulled after multiple brushes with the law over the past year.

That's a pretty bleak recruiting landscape for the Hawkeyes, and while ranking recruits is not an exact science on the micro level, it's certainly instructive on a macro level, and the inescapable conclusion is that this is a relatively weak class as a whole.

So how did Iowa, with its four 10-win seasons over the last decade and highly-paid head coach in Kirk Ferentz, get to this level?

First of all, there's the obvious point: Iowa was not a good football team in 2012. The Hawkeyes finished off the year with six straight losses and a 4-8 record, the worst under Kirk Ferentz since his first two rebuilding years on campus. The offense was a horror show under first-year coordinator Greg Davis, ranking a catastrophic 114th in the nation in total yards and 111th in scoring. That is a fantastic way to scare off a recruit who's looking for a little excitement in his football.

Second, according to this nice (if a little overzealously marked-up) breakdown from a poster on HawkeyeNation.com, Iowa is historically a borderline top 40 recruiting program, nationally—and rarely breaks into the top 25. This is due to, among several other things, a generally light level of talent in the state of Iowa on a year-to-year basis. Nick Saban himself couldn't pick up enough talent from the state of Iowa to put a consistently competitive team on the field. And Iowa's not even the only BCS-conference team calling the state home.

Still, Iowa's not exactly aggressive when it comes to offering top-level talent. Per 247Sports.com's list of Iowa offers, the Hawkeyes offered 45 prospects that were a 4-star or better on either 247Sports.com's service or its composite scores (which average in Rivals, Scout, and ESPN ratings for the same players). Forty-five sounds decent on its own, but then consider that Nebraska offered 129 such players. Ohio State offered 115 of them. Heck, Illinois offered 91. 

It also doesn't help that the uncertainty surrounding the Iowa staff's makeup is affecting recruiting. Despite no official word of their departures from the athletic department—always a great sign, that—WR coach Erik Campbell is evidently gone from Iowa, per The Gazette. If Iowa has a successor in mind, recruits aren't aware. Here's this from Monday on HawkCentral.com:

Brian Lemelle made a verbal commitment to Connecticut on Monday, according to the Hartford Courant. His commitment came less than 24 hours after Lemelle returned from a recruiting visit to the University of Iowa.

Lemelle spoke highly about his visit to Iowa City to Hawkeye Report.com, but he also said he was concerned about Iowa not having a receivers coach at the present time.

Erik Campbell has reportedly resigned as the Iowa receivers coach, although, it hasn’t been confirmed other than Campbell acknowledging well-wishers on Twitter a few weeks ago.

Obviously, something needs to change here. If recruiting is a priority at Iowa, it's certainly not evident in the way the Hawkeyes have gone about putting this class together. Yes, the only thing that matters is the record and that happens Saturdays in the fall, but the guys who'll be playing on those Saturdays have to get wooed during the offseason, and on that front Iowa's just not competing.

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They say "it starts up front" in football, meaning a team's success starts with the play of its offensive line. The big uglies up front are crucial, because they affect the team's offense and ability to score points. If the offensive line can't open up holes for the running game or protect the quarterback, not only does the offense have major problems, but so does the entire team.

This is why you see many programs (cough-Alabama-cough) invest heavily in their offensive line. Programs scour the trail looking for great offensive trench men to bring to campus. The Crimson Tide had one of the best OL units in recent history last year, and if you think Johnny Manziel's success wasn't helped by great OL play, then you're wrong.

For the following piece, I'm going to look at the top 10 programs who are most likely to build the next dominant OL unit. 

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Just when it seemed like national signing day was going to be a chance for the Buckeyes to add one or two more pieces, next Wednesday may have OSU fans worried, as commit Ezekiel Elliott may be wavering.

Elliott, who had been a verbal to the Buckeyes since April 1, 2012 (per Scout.com), took a visit to Missouri last weekend (per ElevenWarriors.com) that now has fans concerned that he may no longer come to OSU.

Even more concerning is that Elliott is not talking anymore and won't do so until he signs his national letter of intent (per Elliott's Twitter account).

According to a tweet by The Ozone.net's Brandon Castel, part of the concern on Elliott's end is that OSU is after Oregon commit Dontre Wilson, who is also a running back.

The likelier reason for Elliott's visit to Mizzou is that both of his parents went to school there and maybe he was just giving a courtesy visit.

The reason for so much concern is the fact is that anything can happen at this stage of the game in recruiting—more so than in previous years because of how many early verbals and subsequent decommits there have been.

Either Elliott knows where he's still going and is playing the recruiting game, which dozens of youngsters play this time of year, or he is truly torn. We probably won't know until next Wednesday.

Even more confusing—if he was truly considering Mizzou—than the in-home visit he had with OSU RB coach Stan Drayton and offensive coordinator Tom Herman were the Twitter shoutouts he gave to several other OSU verbals.

He gave none to any Mizzou verbals, so feel free to take that for what it's worth.

In a way, however, it seems OSU may be okay. If he was truly about to commit to Missouri, odds are he would have probably done that by now.

That all can change depending on what happens with Wilson and WR James Clark, who are each considering the Buckeyes (per 247sports).

The fact remains that Elliott is just too good of a player to not succeed wherever he goes, whether he remains a Buckeye or goes where both of his parents went and plays for the Tigers.

In the end, we probably have no idea where he will go. Maybe that's because he doesn't know either, which is probably true of others who will make their commits official on national signing day.

Odds are that Elliott will stick with the Buckeyes and just make it official on NSD. It would be a little stunning if he went to Missouri, especially if OSU strikes out on Wilson as well.

But barring any unforeseen changes in the next week, look for Elliott to sign with the Buckeyes.

Follow me on Twitter @bielik_tim for the latest college football news and updates.

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It's safe to say that Vanderbilt head coach James Franklin has been mighty impressive in his first two seasons at Vanderbilt.

The Commodores have reached bowl games in each of his first two seasons, posted a nine-win season in 2012 and has completely turned around the perception of the Vanderbilt program.

He's clearly ready to coach with the big boys, and he's making that known in the offseason.

Speaking at Macon, Ga.'s Central High School fall banquet, Franklin called out Alabama head coach Nick Saban (courtesy: WMAZ-13).

"There's this guy down at Alabama, I think his name is Nicky Satan," Franklin said at the banquet. "You guys have probably heard of him before. I'm going to outwork him."

As the Bob Stoops would say in that AT&T commercial, "hello."

Talk about poking the bear.

With three national titles in four seasons, Saban has established himself as the best college football coach of this generation and one of the best in college football history. 

Franklin has done a lot of good at Vanderbilt, and you have to admire his confidence. But calling out Nick Saban like that, even if he's joking, may not be the best thing in the world to do.

Luckily for Franklin, Alabama isn't on Vanderbilt's regular-season schedule in 2013.

Franklin later apologized to Saban according to The Tennessean. But you have to love the confidence of Franklin though.

Follow @BarrettSallee

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