Not Subject to Compliance: John Harbaugh
I am endlessly entertained by Jim's lack of use for the NCAA and now John's willingness to go along with it. Anyone have a photo of the compliance guy when they busted out this routine?
. @CoachJim4UM at end of camp "guys, i can't sign autographs, but my brother John can. Be sure to get your autographs from John Harbaugh"
— Sam Webb (@SamWebb77) June 7, 2016
Of course it can happen any time there's interaction between those two parties. But mathematically, the increase of interactions between these parties is going to increase the potential for violations. If Michigan holds a couple on-campus camps where 800 total kids participate, that's naturally less of an opportunity than if Michigan holds 50 camps with 300 kids at each for a total of 15,000 coach-player interactions. Meanwhile, those on-campus visits and $100 handshakes and whatnot are still going to occur.
I'm not saying the camps are bad. I'm simply saying they open you up for more potential violations. I don't think that point can really be argued.
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Magnus, while you keep bringing up this point, and their may be some validity to it, I still feel that the exposure these camps give to the lower rated kids to the non-Power 5 schools is still worth the effort.
And to your point, if the NCAA, and nick saban, were serious about the influence of 3rd parties, should they not be focusing more on the BB/AAU side? You know this better than me, but isn't this literally the Wild, Wild, West of recruiting and undue influence?
And seriously, rather than focusing on how many autographs a coach signs, why doesn't the NCAA really focus on the seedy under-belly of football recruiting, yes and I am talking about the bag men, et. al.
The whole ruckus about satellite camps is just such an inane smoke screen for the NCAA to not focus on the real and more pressing issues.
As for the exposure to lower-rated kids, I don't feel that strongly about it. It's a good thing, but how good? The thing about it is that these scholarships are going to be handed out, regardless. Every team uses 85 scholarships a year. Every team brings in 25-ish freshmen every year. Really, what we're talking about is this with satellite camps and "exposure":
Does Player Z go to to Miami-OH, or does he go to Purdue? Meanwhile, what player who would've gone to Purdue is now bumped down to Miami-OH? Is Player X going to go to an FCS team, or will he end up at Florida Atlantic?
I realize it's a merit-based system, and these camps are rewarding competition and maybe giving kids more chances to earn it. But literally for every kid who gets "exposure" and earns a scholarship, there's another kid who would have earned a scholarship but now gets bumped down to FCS or D-II. There is a finite number of scholarships available.
I can't tell you about AAU. I'm not a basketball coach, and AAU tournaments aren't run by college coaches. I don't know how much you can do if you're the NCAA. They aren't a government entity who controls everything that occurs on U.S. soil. If Joe Blow the mechanic wants to coach a basketball team full of 16- and 17-year-olds that plays at a random high school or YMCA, how much can the National Collegiate Athletic Association do anything about it? What can the NBA do about it?
There's a certain point where every law or governing body reaches its boundary.
I get what you're saying about the bag men, and clearly that's a worse problem. This is akin to a guy getting stopped for an expired registration who says, "Why don't you asshole police officers worry about the robberies and murders?" Well, yeah...but there are still other rules that need to be followed. We're whining and bitching about it because Jim Harbaugh is our coach, damnit, and he's a Michigan Man!
Bag men stay behind closed doors and in dark alleys. They're hard to find. And the NCAA has limited investigative powers. Meanwhile, camps are public and in your face. Anyone can see Jim Harbaugh signing an autograph or taking a picture with a player. It's easier to oversee, and it's easier for other people to see when you're cheating.
well the jerk store called, they're running out of you!
Well.....I had sex with your wife
Maybe look at this way:
I'd concede that Harbaugh is taking some risks with the camps. Stil, I think the options reduce to these:
1. Do nothing controversial and let the SEC continue with its hypocrisy and bagmen. Let them continue to win recruiting and games.
2. Do something. Shine some light on them and the NCAA.
Which would you choose?
It's not faulty logic at all. I didn't say coaches WILL commit more violations due to more player-coach interactions. I said it opens up more opportunities for that to occur.
A point guard handles the ball more than a power forward. It doesn't mean the PG will automatically turn the ball over more than the PF. It means he has more opportunities to do so.
and keep in mind that the recruits to be targeted for "impermissable benefits" are the high 4* and 5* kids. Many of these highly recruited kids don't show up at camps and have/ had significant interaction with coaches before (and after camps).
...except Tony Gray, the one player involved with an alleged violation so far, is a fairly highly rated recruit.
There were also several big-time recruits at the STA satellite camp.
"But mathematically, the increase of interactions between these parties is going to increase the potential for violations."
Assertion not in evidence.
We've gone from "unknown number of in the dark contacts" to "unknown number of in the dark contacts" plus "camp contacts".
We have no way of knowing if the latter is greater than the former.
"I'm simply saying they open you up for more potential violations."
They open you up to getting CAUGHT for more potential violations.
Pescadero, this is why I find your posts to be so...useless. Are you asking anyone to believe that Michigan was discreetly meeting more prospects in dark alleys than the multiple thousands they are meeting in the 50-ish camp sessions this summer? Good grief.
No - I'm saying the sum total of ALL meetings between ALL college coaches and ALL prospects may go up, may go down, or may stay the same in response to camps.
Was Michigan iscreetly meeting more prospects in dark alleys than the multiple thousands they are meeting in the 50-ish camp sessions this summer - no.
Were other coaches/boosters/bagmen meeting those same prospects in dark alleys and are now missing out because the prospect is at one of these camp sessions or the coach is working one of these camp sessions - probably.
What is the sum total of contacts, and how does the ratio of "out in the sunlight" vs. "dark alley" contacts change? We do not know.
*sigh*
I'm confident in saying that it will go up.
Let's not be ridiculous.
There is almost no situation in which a bad outcome is not possible. Saban's argument is weak because we must still engage in potentially risky activities every day of our lives For example, if I drive my car I may get involved in a fatal accident. Yet, I choose to drive to work every day. One may argue that this is a necessary risk and that satellite camps are not a necessary risk and that if therefore they should be banned. However, this point, taken to its logical conclusion, would be to stop all non-essential activities, such as sporting events themselves to avoid risk, such as injury.
Saban is overstating his case because it is virtually his only argument. He is using his influence to rail against something that is after all, a low risk situation or a situation where the risks are not yet known. In an act of hypocrisy, he then approves of his own staffers attending a camp away from Alabama's campus.
Meanwhile, his program had to deprive a coach of his job because of actual, not potential violations. His antipathy towards satellite camps is reaching the nation clearly but he is not being as vocal about Bo Davis, or the situations at Tennessee, Baylor, or Ole Miss, which most would say are much more pressing issues than potential violations, ie. those that have no actually occured but exist right know only in his mind.
No doubt Harbaugh knows what he's doing, but if he keeps tweaking the noses of the N(SE)CAA, expect more harsh treatment and findings of fact against M in the event of minor compliance issues.
25 years into my legal career, I can safely say I love to tweak the noses of opposing counsel and judges, but I save it for when it's really unavoidable, because if I don't, it'll get ugly for my clients too often and I can be overall more effective by taking the high ground.
That's not to say Harbaugh isn't firmly entrenched on the high ground, but the N(SE)CAA is legislator, judge and jury. Throwing stones can be risky.
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Possible minor violations vs. actual more serious violations. Why the attack?
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The issue is that by throwing out stories the possible violations at the camps (which to this point are minor), it distracts the audience from the much more significant issues going on elsewhere, and effectively diminishes the importance of those significant misdeeds.
It is manipulation through the media.
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it's hard to differentiate bagmen from assistant coaches. So, I get where Feldman is going with that.
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YOU SERIOUSLY CANNOT GET BETTER THAN OUR COACH
Nick Saban complains about NFL coaches coming to satellite camps.
At 8:27 am, the NCAA will ban NFL coaches from attending satellite camps.
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and now he's disrupting summer vacation. That's what is really pissing of the powers that be in college football, the SEC commissioner and his minions.
My take on the NCAA is, they take their orders from the schools. The mindless regs that are now in place are always the result of someone trying to get over competitively and then rules are stipulated to control the entire enterprise. Sort of like traffic safety, TSA and Homeland Security.
Supposedly the rules are there to ensure our protection but all they succeed in doing is greatly annoying and frustrating us.
The NCAA is the creation of the schools that are members of it, not some outside regulatory agency. The schools created the entity because they couldn't regulate themselves, so they needed an arbiter to protect them from themselves. And the NCAA used that authority to become this growing out-of-touch institution which oversees the whole lot but takes its politidal direction from those which control its purse strings, the schools and their powerbrokers.
So, when we criticize the NCAA, we are really talking about the schools themselves, because they are in charge of making this beast what it is and rubberstamping its authority. And they always act like its the IRS, which it is, but it's their IRS, because they made it what it is.
I love harbaugh because he keeps all of the focus on him, which in turn keeps the pressure off of our players...
Yeah, this is great. Jim Leyland was the master at this.
I probably yell at my students 10-20 times a year that this shit is chess not checkers!!!
and my two little kids...
I understand the desire to fuck with the NCAA. I can see the need to mess with them. The old man part of me is not sure of the risk/reward of thumbing your nose at the tyrant. Maybe if I had the vigor of a steak eatin man child I could understand. I am not suggesting he stop with the headline grabbing just the us vs the ncaa thing. It has been my experience that the man will get you. Screw a cops resently ex-wife and see how that works. Same deal, he is screwing the NCAA's ex-wife.
Plus, at the end of the day the NCAA has proven one thing beyond a shadow of a doubt: Beyond anything else, they are whores. Money grubbing whores.
Harbaugh brings lots of attention and therefore $$$ to college football. I have no doubt that a playoff game with Harbaugh in it is worth at least a couple of extra rating points, probably a lot more.
In fact, they should reserve a Playoff slot for Harbaugh every year since all they care about is the money anyway.
Suck it, SEC and your boring coaches.
He was certainly controversial at Stanford with his comments on Michigan's academics and targeting USC, but he didn't have the spotlight that Michigan has. He was similarly trying to revive Stanford's football reputation but now because of the location, the quickerr rise to a top 25 team, and the already established celebrity it gets a ton more coverage.
And he certainly wasn't taking on the NCAA the way he is at Michigan. Maybe Harbaugh needs a goliath to take down and after besting USC, Alabama and OSU are't big enough so he needs to take on the entire NCAA.
Yes he was like this. But he was out of the line of fire of the SEC who did not feel threatned by Stanford.
But now he is in their shorts and they are apoplectic about it.
It is the SEC that has gotten their lapdog, the NCAA, all spun up.
Harbaugh is a much bigger star now than then. He's obviously a famous ex-player, but taking Stanford and the 49ers off the trash heaps and turning them into championship teams was a big deal. It is hard to win at different places and at different levels. Parcells, Urban Meyer and Saban all get props because they've won with different organizations, but none of them have won at multiple in college and pro. Bill Walsh and now Pete Carrol are the only guys I can think of who have done it at multiple levels (off hand). And Carrol flamed out in the NFL the first time with the Jets and despite some wins with the Patriots got fired after three progressively worse seasons after taking over Parcell's team.
Keep all of his fucks and does give any away...ever.
No fucks given at all times.