#5 signing in Michigan’s class of 2024 is Cincinnati defenseman St. Xavier Ted Hammond. The burly lineman pulled the trigger for the Wolverines after arriving at a recruiting event last weekend. Check out how he fits into UM as a player, a member of the Class of 2024 and a future part of Michigan’s roster.
The player
Hammond currently checks in at 6-5, 258 pounds and looks like a well-rounded defender. Obviously 258 pounds isn’t huge, but he’s only a junior and will certainly be massaging some more before he gets to Ann Arbor. In high school, he played nose tackle, defensive end, and sometimes even charged the passer from a two-point stance. He’s doing a little bit of everything now, including tight end, so it’ll be interesting to see how he develops over the next year and a half.
Hammond is showing some signs of being a plus athlete, but he wins mostly because of his motor skills, his ability to use leverage and angles. He’s obviously good, not elite, but that allows him to play with a level of pace that a strong centre-back would struggle to match. Hammond finished his junior season with 41 tackles, including seven for losses, and four sacks.
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The class
Hammond is the second defenseman in Michigan’s Class of 2024 as he joins Wallingford (Conn.) Choate Rosemary Hall’s Manuel Beigel, who is originally from Germany. Beigel, a 6-5, 282-pounder, is now preparing in the States while he continues to acclimatize to American football. Like Hammond, Beigel has some versatility across positions and obviously still has a lot of development work to do as a foreign-born player is still learning the game.
Michigan has more than 30 bids for defensemen in the 2024 class and isn’t anywhere near done in any of the forward positions. Hevin Brown-Shuler of Atlanta Pace Academy, Brandon Davis-Swain of West Bloomfield (Mich.) High and Eddie Tuerk of La Grange, Illinois of Lyons Township have all been on UM’s radar for a while and have been in recent ones visited for a month or two. They will be closely monitored in the future.
The team
Michigan is pretty stacked along the defensive line with some young, talented players. A 2024 prospect, Hammond has a full year of high school left after this year, giving him plenty of time to develop and giving Michigan’s roster plenty of time to evolve.
Barring transfers, centre-backs Rayshaun Benny, Mason Graham, Kenneth Grant, Ike Iwunnah and Dominick Guidice will remain on the list. As for the versatile Interior/EDGE combo types, Derrick Moore is currently the only one on the list who will still be around when Hammond arrives in Ann Arbor.
It’s difficult for centre-backs to play a lot as true rookies, but we saw that with Mason Graham in 2022. A lot would be expected from Hammond, who will be behind Graham, Grant and probably Benny from day one, but you never know. Graham himself surprised everyone in the first year, but by the fall of 2024 Graham and Grant will be true juniors with loads of experience and Benny will be a senior in the same boat.
