Jim Harbaugh Gives Michigan Scholarship Offer to 7th-Grade QB Isaiah Marshall

Many college football teams get the majority of their recruiting done early, well before national signing day on February 6. The Michigan Wolverines are taking that approach to the extreme.

Seventh-grader Isaiah Marshall, who attends MacArthur Academy in Southfield, Michigan, tweeted Tuesday that he's already received a scholarship offer from Jim Harbaugh and the Maize and Blue:

"It happened this morning when Coach Harbaugh came to Southfield (A&T), and he reviewed a lot of his tape, broke it down and critiqued it and made the offer," his father, Brian Marshall, told David Goricki of the Detroit News.

As Goricki noted, players like Dwan Mathis (now with Georgia), Sam Johnson (now with Boston College) and Damon Payne (still in high school) received college offers in years past as eighth-graders. But recruiting seventh-graders seems to be a bit extreme, though Marshall's father—who played at Northwestern—noted that it's becoming more of a common practice:

"It was different when we came up since we didn't have social media and all of these exposure camps and different things going on. It was surprising three or four years ago and now it's starting to be, I won't say norm yet, but it's starting to become a norm because coaches are getting in early and starting to identify these kids a lot earlier.

"I was fortunate enough where I've been through the process and I was a high recruit as far as an All-American and was able to understand most of it, but the social media aspect of it is new. I have a lot of friends that are coaches at the college level so I understand the things that they are dealing with as well. It's kind of surprising, but not as surprising as it would be three or four years ago."

The elder Marshall noted that he has kept his son off social media, and that having two parents who played college sports and understand that world—his mother, Yolanda, played basketball at DePaul—has kept the seventh-grader grounded and focused, though he's still "just your average kid who just wants to hang out with his friends."

As for the Wolverines, it would appear they are getting an early start on the class of 2024.