Michigan’s top-ranked overall player in the 2025 class has just switched his commitment to Auburn. Here’s what supposedly happened with top-50 four-star defensive lineman Nate Marshall:
The Michigan Wolverines lost their top-ranked athlete in the 2025 class when four-star defensive lineman Nate Marshall switched his commitment from Michigan to Auburn.
Late Thursday night, On3’s Steve Wiltfong ($) reported that Michigan was still fighting to keep Marshall in the class, but Auburn “has moved back to the forefront.” Finally, he made a flip prediction for Auburn and was shortly joined by insiders from several networks.
According to Allen Trieu ($), Midwest Recruiting Analyst at 247Sports, Michigan will continue to recruit Marshall while also evaluating other defensive linemen in the future. Furthermore, Trieu stated that “NIL is a factor” in Marshall’s switch — you don’t say?! — but he also mentioned that Auburn’s defensive tackles coach, Vontrell King-Williams, is a Chicago native and that “the area connection certainly helped as a starting point.”
Marshall committed to defensive line coach Lou Esposito and the Wolverines in April, which came as a surprise given Esposito’s brief tenure. Despite his commitment, Marshall paid an official visit to Auburn earlier this summer and nearly returned for the BBQ event in July before deciding to visit Ann Arbor instead.
At the end of the day, this is a crushing defeat for Sherrone Moore and company. Marshall was Michigan’s highest-ranked player (No. 46 overall) on 247Sports’ composite, and he was an important part of the defense’s future. Even worse, the Wolverines have swung and missed on other key defensive line targets this summer, with four-star edge Marco Jones and four-star defensive tackle DJ Sanders committing to Texas A&M, while four-star defensive tackle Maxwell Roy chose Ohio State (after Michigan led for him and had predictions at one point) and four-star edge Mariyon Dye choosing Tennessee.
Fortunately, Marshall was not the only committed defensive lineman; Michigan still has verbals from four-stars Julius Holly (edge), Jaylen Williams (flex), and three-star Bobby Kanka (interior).
We’ll see how the Wolverines recover from this and whether they can continue to effectively recruit Marshall in the future, but there’s no denying how devastating it is to lose a top-50 overall player to an inferior college football team.
