Belleville’s Elijah Dotson gives speech after signing with Michigan
On national signing day, Belleville’s Elijah Dotson speaks to an excited crowd after signing with Michigan football.
Michigan football’s 2025 recruiting class, ranked 6th nationally, has officially enrolled.Notable enrollees include QB Chase Herbstreit, several four-star recruits, and transfers from other universities.
The 2025 Michigan football class has officially enrolled at the university, putting a bow on Sherrone Moore’s first full official recruiting class as coach of the program.
Among the most interesting of the nine recruits who did not enroll early last spring is quarterback Chase Herbstreit, son of ex-Ohio State quarterback Kirk Herbstreit (1989-93), who is now one of the faces of college football.
A 6-foot-2, 185-pound prospect from Cincinnati (St. Xavier), Herbstreit started 33 games in his high school career where he threw for 3,983 yards and 32 touchdowns compared to 14 interceptions while also running for 657 yards and nine touchdowns.
He is not expected to factor into this year’s competition which is seemingly down to three candidates: five-star freshman Bryce Underwood, graduate transfer Mikey Keene (Fresno State) and sophomore Jadyn Davis.
Outside the quarterback room, there are some who could crack the field in other capacities ,such as four-star offensive lineman and top-40 overall recruit in the class Ty Haywood (Ryan, Texas), four-star defensive lineman Nathaniel Marshall out of Oak Park, Illinois (Fenwick) who is also a top-50 recruit in the 2025 class, four-star DB Kainoa Winston out of Washington D.C. (Gonzaga) who also moved into the top-100 recruits in the country at No. 96 per 247Sports’ rankings or Underwood’s high school teammate at Belleville in top-150 four-star defensive back Elijah Dotson.
Michigan also got reinforcements in the form of four-star top-300 Texas defensive back Jayden Sanders (Kilgore) and four-star defensive lineman Benny Patterson from Indiana (Castle), as well as four-stars from Archbishop Shaw in Marrero, Louisiana, the alma mater of wide receivers coach Ron Bellamy: top-200 wide receiver Jacob Washington and top-300 running back Jasper Parker.
In total, Michigan football signed the No. 6 rated freshman class in America per the site’s composite rankings, up 10 spots from its 16th ranked class in 2024 and the first time it finished in the top-10 since its 2022 class which was highlighted by Will Johnson, Colston Loveland, Mason Graham and Kenneth Grant.
Transfers almost complete
Of the six transfers who had pledged to Michigan but not yet made it on campus, four have now enrolled.
This includes running back John Volker (Princeton), offensive lineman Lawrence Hattar (Ferris State), wide receiver Anthony Simpson (UMass), and defensive back Caleb Anderson (Louisiana). The names of Simpson’s former (and likely future) teammate running back CJ Hester (UMass) as well as kicker/punter Luke Bauer (Missouri) − who Michigan brought on to increase competition with Hudson Hollenbeck − do not yet appear in the database.
These are the final two players expected to join the Wolverines ahead of the season-opening kickoff on Aug. 30 vs. New Mexico (7:30 p.m., ABC).
Tony Garcia is the Michigan Wolverines beat writer for the Detroit Free Press. Email him at apgarcia@freepress.com and follow him on X at @RealTonyGarcia.
