Michigan’s defensive coordinator isn’t pretending every recruiting battle ends in a win. Jay Hill addressed the media on August 5 after the Wolverines’ first summer training session, and he didn’t dance around why some of the program’s biggest targets ended up choosing someone else.

“You can’t be the top bidder on every single recruit,” Hill said. “The one thing I do believe we have is we have a phenomenal institution to recruit to, the University of Michigan; it’s not hard to recruit to this place. We have phenomenal coaches at recruiting. I think one thing that gets frustrating in recruiting is you can do the best job recruiting, and then someone can outbid you, and that kid goes to the other place” (via Brice Marich).

He didn’t stop there either.

“You have to pick and choose your battles,” Hill continued. “Sometimes it gets frustrating for fans and media, as, ‘Oh, why did they lose this guy?’ Sometimes you let guys go because you get in these bidding wars, and it gets to the point where you are going to put your money? And I think that’s what recruiting is right now. How can you build the best roster for your budget? But I think we have a phenomenal staff in place to do that.”

That kind of blunt admission from a coordinator, even at a program with Michigan’s resources, says something about how far NIL has reshaped recruiting into something closer to roster-building under a salary cap. Every program has a financial ceiling on its collective pool, and getting pulled into a bidding war for one player can drain the budget needed to build depth everywhere else.

Michigan’s recent recruiting cycles show exactly what Hill is describing. Five-star, in-state receiver Dakota Guerrant, from Harper Woods, just an hour from Ann Arbor, committed to Oregon before Michigan’s biggest recruiting weekend of the summer even happened, a surprising loss given the local ties. After that setback, Michigan turned its attention to three-star receiver Damani Warren out of Las Vegas, a former five-star whose stock dropped after an injury-shortened season. Warren visited Ann Arbor and appeared to be trending toward the Wolverines, but ultimately chose Texas A&M over Michigan, Oregon, and Auburn.

The losses weren’t limited to the receiver position either. Five-star defensive lineman Marcus Fakatou visited Ann Arbor three times, twice under the previous coaching staff and once under Whittingham, and Michigan appeared to be in real contention for a stretch. When Fakatou released his top-five schools, Michigan wasn’t on the list. Four-star safety Marcus Jones followed a similar pattern: he took his official visit to Ann Arbor during Victors Weekend and had a good visit, but ultimately chose Tennessee over Michigan, Ohio State, and Ole Miss.

For all those near-misses, Hill’s budget-first philosophy hasn’t left Michigan’s board empty. Here’s who the Wolverines actually landed while sticking to it.

Current commits in Michigan’s from 2026/2027 classes 

The headline of Michigan’s 2026 class is a pair of five-stars who committed before this latest round of misses even happened. Carter Meadows, a 6-foot-6, 225-pound edge rusher out of Washington, D.C.’s Gonzaga High School, is ranked as a top-10 edge rusher nationally and gave the class real early momentum. Savion Hiter, the top-ranked running back in the entire 2026 class, chose Michigan over Tennessee, Georgia, and Ohio State, and put up 1,698 yards and 26 touchdowns on just 156 carries as a junior, a résumé that made him the class’s most coveted overall commitment.

Quarterback Brady Smigiel rounds out the group as another key piece, giving Michigan a second highly regarded arm in the pipeline behind 2025 five-star signee Bryce Underwood. Between Meadows, Hiter, and Smigiel, Michigan’s class carries enough star power that the misses on Guerrant, Warren, Fakatou, and Jones haven’t derailed the cycle, even if each one stung on its own.

That’s the balance Hill’s comments were really describing: real losses in some bidding wars, offset by wins in others where Michigan chose to spend. Two of those battles have already resolved since, with cornerback Monsanna Torbert choosing Michigan and defensive lineman Seth Tillman committing to Clemson instead, the same trade-off Hill described playing out again in real time. The next real test comes when the rest of the 2027 class starts finalizing decisions ahead of the early signing period in December.