{"id":672825,"date":"2026-05-29T20:38:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T20:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/672825\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T20:38:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T20:38:10","slug":"lb-brayden-watson-was-a-priority-for-michigan-and-he-has-committed-to-the-wolverines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/672825\/","title":{"rendered":"LB Brayden Watson was a priority for Michigan and he has committed to the Wolverines"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michigan<\/a> made Brayden Watson<\/a> feel like a priority from day one. The Wolverines offered Watson near the end of January, and from that point forward, they pushed hard.<\/p>\n

And it paid off.<\/p>\n

The athletic 6-foot-2, 190-pound linebacker out of Buford<\/a> (Ga.) gave Duke<\/a>, Pittsburgh<\/a> and Vanderbilt<\/a> a lot of consideration, but Michigan landed his commitment. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey really made me feel like a priority,\u201d Watson told Rivals. \u201cThe relationships, the attention to detail and the experience in Ann Arbor separated Michigan from the rest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Linebackers coach Alex Whittingham led the way, but he wasn\u2019t alone.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe defensive coordinator, the head coach, the linebacker coach \u2014 everybody was reaching out. Even coaches I really had no business talking to were talking to me. The coaches at Michigan showed me that I was important to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whittingham\u2019s approach stood out immediately.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of schools will come to your school and offer a bunch of players,\u201d Watson said. \u201cBut Coach Whittingham called me personally and offered me. He made it different. Then the way he recruited after offering me stood out.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe left the Kansas City Chiefs to coach for his dad at Michigan. He won multiple Super Bowls, so that showed me a lot. I really like what Coach Whittingham is about.\u201d<\/p>\n

That connection, along with the visit to Ann Arbor in April, put the Wolverines in a great position. <\/p>\n

Watson spent multiple days on campus, watched practice at the Big House, toured the facilities, sat in meetings and got a full look at the program. Michigan also packed the visit with activities, meals and time around the staff and players.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey showed me a lot more of their program than other schools did,\u201d Watson said. \u201cThat visit was much different. After that trip, I did not visit any other schools.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw a lot that I liked at Michigan. It is a top program with history, and the coaching staff is great. I left thinking I was going to end up there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michigan has everything Watson is looking for<\/p>\n

Not long after returning home, Watson quietly committed to the Wolverines internally before making the decision public later in the process.<\/p>\n

\u201cMichigan exceeded every expectation I had,\u201d he said. \u201cI heard a lot of hype around Ann Arbor, and it definitely lived up to it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen the facilities, atmosphere and overall feel around the program all reinforced my decision. The staff and the facilities \u2014 all of it was top tier. <\/p>\n

\u201cThose things, then that personal connection made it different with Michigan. It didn\u2019t feel like it was just business with them.\u201d <\/p>\n

Watson comes from one of the premier high school football programs in the country at Buford, and he said Michigan\u2019s history matched what he wanted at the next level.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re the winningest program in NCAA history,\u201d Watson said. \u201cIt feels great going from Buford to a program like Michigan.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michigan made Brayden Watson feel like a priority from day one. The Wolverines offered Watson near the end…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":672826,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[293515,211077,399,5282,398,396,397,99],"class_list":["post-672825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-brayden-watson-27-buford","tag-buford-wolves-buford","tag-football","tag-ga","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=672825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/672826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}