College football recruiting is built on hope. Every winter, every signing day, every five-star reveal comes with the same promise: this one’s different. For Michigan football, though, the modern era has delivered its share of letdowns - names that once looked like program-changers and ended up as cautionary tales instead.
Looking back at the recruiting rankings from around the turn of the century, these are the five biggest busts Michigan has had over the past 26 years.
Kelley Baraka tops the list for a simple reason: he never played a snap for the Wolverines. Signed in the 2001 class, he was supposed to be the next great Michigan running back.
Instead, off-the-field issues cut everything short. Lloyd Carr kicked him off the team after Baraka was arrested for marijuana, and the 12th-ranked player in his class never got the chance to turn that high school reputation into college production.
He remains one of the most celebrated prep players in Michigan history, but his college story never got off the ground.
Marques Slocum came into Ann Arbor with the kind of size that should have made him impossible to miss. The 6-foot-5, 335-pound nose tackle was viewed as a major win for Lloyd Carr in the 2005 class, and he was ranked 33rd overall.
But the production never matched the profile. In four seasons, Slocum finished with just one tackle.
For a player who was supposed to clog up the middle and become a force, that’s a brutal return.
Kevin Grady was another 2005 class headline grabber, and this one stings because the expectations were so loud. He arrived as the No. 1 running back in the class and a consensus five-star recruit, with visions of becoming the next great thing after Mike Hart.
He flashed early, rushing for 483 yards on 121 carries as a freshman while adding five touchdowns and 114 receiving yards. But the breakout never came.
Grady eventually moved to fullback, and his Michigan career ended with 783 rushing yards and 150 receiving yards. The burst that made him such a prized recruit just never showed up at the college level.
Derrick Green was supposed to be one of Brady Hoke’s signature recruiting wins, but his Michigan career never really took off. Ranked 27th overall in the 2013 class, the Texas running back arrived with a stellar high school resume and plenty of hype.
He did finish with 898 rushing yards on 212 carries for Michigan, and there was a hint of promise as a sophomore when he ran for 471 yards at 5.7 yards per attempt. But injuries and other factors kept him from becoming the feature back Michigan hoped for.
He later transferred to TCU and finished with just over 1,000 rushing yards in his career.
Aubrey Solomon rounds out the list. He spent two seasons in Ann Arbor and made only a minimal impact before getting away in the transfer portal.
Solomon was more productive at Tennessee, but not enough to make Michigan fans feel any better about how things played out. He also didn’t make it to the NFL, which only reinforces the label here: for Michigan, he was a bust.
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