Michigan Football: Wolverines land 4-stars A.J. Dillon, J’Marick Woods

Coming off of strong visits to, four-star recruits A.J. Dillon and J’Marick Woods committed to the Michigan Wolverines.

Michigan football continues its streak of landing top-tier talent as four-star athlete A.J. Dillon (Mass.) and four-star safety J’Marick Woods (Ala.) announced their commitments to play for the Michigan football team via Twitter shortly after taking visits to Ann Arbor.

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Dillon is ranked as the top player in the state of Massachusetts, the No. 248 best prospect in the country and the No. 19 running back per the 247Sports Composite Rankings.

Woods, who attends Florence High School in Alabama is ranked as the No. 22 safety and No. 278 overall, according to Scout.

Michigan, who was the first to offer Woods, was viewed as the favorite for his services since the offer was originally given. Since then Woods had received a decent amount of SEC interest and even was on the radar of schools like Notre Dame. Woods, who visited Michigan this past week along with another top Wolverine target in Jaylen Kelly-Powell, loved his visit and the staff, referring to them as family.

Several questions arose about whether Woods would be a take for the Michigan staff as they were high on many other players at his position and those players were high on the Wolverines.

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It now seems clear that Woods was likely in a top-three position on Michigan’s safety board and thus became an immediate take for the staff. Michigan is still sitting pretty with fellow safeties Jaylen Kelly-Powell and AJ Harris.

In regard to Dillon, his recruitment was seen as a fierce battle between two of the best-known schools in collegiate athletics, Michigan and Notre Dame. Both schools seemed to be in great positions to land the talented athlete. Dillon, whose grandfather played for the Fighting Irish was seen as a Notre Dame lean for the longest time.

“My grandfather had a great legacy at Notre Dame and has established his name in the program,” Dillon told The Wolverine Daily. I’ve heard all about Notre Dame growing up, it’s a very easy thing to assume that I will end up at Notre Dame, but at the end of the day I’m going to make the best choice for my family and the rest of my life.”

Dillon did just that as the Wolverines were able to beat out the Irish. Dillon’s commitment gave Michigan arguably one of the nation’s best athletes.

From the looks of it, the visit to Michigan may have been what set it all in stone. “I really enjoyed my time at Michigan, I had a great time,” Dillon said about his visit. “I met with the head guy (Jim Harbaugh) and had a nice conversation. I also got to talk to running backs coach Tyrone Wheatley and we talked about how I fit in Michigan’s system. Toured the campus, got a feel for Ann Arbor and was really impressed by the school after seeing the academic studies. Ann Arbor seems like a great town. And the facilities were amazing.”

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With the additions of Dillon and Woods the Wolverines now have the No. 8 recruiting class, according to the 247Sports Team Rankings and that number is likely to get better as the year progresses.