[this is obviously not from the presser but is obviously the photo I was going to use]

[Fuller/MGoBlog]

[I missed the question but it’s something about the goals of the event]

“That was the main objective, to celebrate these youngsters and all their hard work. Their parents made so many sacrifices; I had a chance to see it up close. So many sacrifices: their money, their energy. This needs to be celebrated, need to have some fun. We’ll go back to work at 2:30 but great to have some fun. ”

Is this everything you hoped it would be?

“It was. Mainly it was inspired by Chad Carr, the ChadTough Foundation, their family, the entire family. Got to see it for an entire year. Got to see the love, a family that loves this youngster and a community that loves Chad and to see all him loved back, it brings you closer to God. Or at least for me it does. And also the sanctity for life. Have been very inspired by Chad Carr

[something about the recruiting class]

“We are so excited about all of our signees. We are tremendously- I’m standing here with you, so…yeah. But from top to bottom, this recruiting class is youngsters that have a real heart for competing and heart for football. They’ve got football faces. Competitive in the classroom. As we said before, they’ve worked so hard to put themselves in a position to be here and they love ball. I have a real appreciation for the families that trust us to coach their sons, to teach them, because when you’re a family it doesn’t matter what you have monetarily or what you don’t have, your most prized possession is your son or your daughter. When you trust somebody to develop them, I take that very seriously. Just happy that they respect us and that they trust us.”

Where did you get the idea for today and how long has it been in the works?

“I guess just how could we do something fun and a celebration. I’ve been watching this process for years and experienced it myself; you pull a fax out of a fax machine and a coach stands up and talks about them and usually says kind of the same thing, so wanted to do something different. Wanted to do something awesome, and was really pleased. Thought today did that.”

On paper this is a great class. Can you talk about the expectations moving forward for this class?

“Yeah, I mean, it’s a process. I love that word, and talk about it especially going from high school to college. That’s…it’s uncharted waters. It’s the unknown. If you have sons and daughters of your own you know that step and what it takes, [and] it’ll be a process. It’s gonna be a team effort to it. Everybody here at the University of Michigan, the love that you surround the youngsters with, and also a team effort with parents and families. Really appreciate the trust there and with that we can do great things and expect great things. I think that’ll happen, especially with the group we have. All these youngsters all come from great families. They have great places to go and get advice from their parents or from their family, and I think they’re going to make the transition very well.”

What’s the cap number on the class? How high can it go?

“Well, there’s going to be some coming. There’s going to be another announcement later today. Youngsters that are going to be preferred walk-ons that we’ve been recruiting for a long time, they’re going to sign as well. It’s gonna be a good, big number.”

Do you know what the number of scholarships you can give out in this class is?

“Uh, yeah, in terms of scholarships I think it’s going to come in somewhere around 29.”

Did you guys use any grayshirts?

“No.”

Did you guys backdate the early kids?

“Uh, yes.”

[After THE JUMP: sleepovers, honesty with early commits, non-apologies]

All of them, all seven?

“Yes. We had a pretty small recruiting class last year of 14 so yes. We have seven enrolled right now that can be backdated to the 2014 class.”

Did you know what a big moment this would be to have Ric Flair to be part of?

“I did, I did! I was in Nate Johnson's house in Tennessee and I was just telling them about it, I was telling them what this event was going to be like, talking about some of the people that were going to be here and one of the family members said 'Tom Brady! Tom Brady's gonna be there! The greatest quarterback of all time, four Super Bowl trophies' and they said 'We're a wrestling family. You're gonna have Ric Flair there! It doesn't get any better than that, coach' and she's right."

With this event being so big and so new for you guys- no one's ever seen anything like it- to the people out there who might think it's too extravagant or too big, what do you say to them?

"I think people would do something similar or they'll criticize it. What do I think of that? Don't think much of it. It worked for us. It was wonderful for us and, you know, why not? As I said, we'll be back to work at 2:30, but why not have some fun? Why not celebrate all wins, and these are huge wins for the families. These are huge wins for the youngsters that are signing not just here but anywhere. You move on to higher education and you're doing something that, in my opinion, there's only one guarantee of having a successful future and that's education. So whether it's being as a scholarship athlete or musician or going to a four-year college or a two-year college or a trade school or the military, that should be celebrated."

Do you already have ideas for next year?

“Yeah, we’ll, uh…we did our best this year and we’ll have our goal of being better next year. Better next year than this year, better this year than last year.”

Did you know Flair was recruited here before?

“He told me that. He told me that Bump Elliott signed him to a national letter of intent in ‘68 so that was a great backstory. Owen Wilson had a backstory. Ric Flair had a backstory.”

There’s been so much written and said about your recruiting and some of your unorthodox things. Can you separate some of the reality from the myth? Like sleepovers, those happened, right?

“They sure did, yeah.”

How many?

“Uh, four or five.”

Really?

“Yeah, yeah. Just having fun. You know, if people criticize that then so be it, but we’re enjoying the heck out of it.”

The supposedly pulling those scholarships or backing off on scholarships—does that go back to what you said about meritocracy or what is the strategy there? You got some blowback on that.

“The way I look at it, I want to get out there. I want to be all out there in the timeframe that you have to go visit youngsters and their families, the more time that you can spend with them, whether it’s waking up, sleeping at their house and waking up, having breakfast, going to school, meeting the teachers, meeting the counselors, being immersed in the family, it’s so invaluable because when the youngsters come here then I’m so much more comfortable calling family members. They’re so much more comfortable calling me. You know them, you know the youngsters so much better. We’ve said it. We’re out looking for nuggets of gold. Want to bring the best and brightest to the University of Michigan, and that will remain our objective.”

When you do have a situation where you’ve got to move on from a kid, did you feel like you gave those guys enough time or enough notice that you were going in a different direction?

“Yeah, I mean, that’s the process. We discussed the early commitments and what the entails. It entails to keep getting better, to perform in the classroom, to perform on the field, perform as a good citizen, and also part of that process is to let them know that you need to pick your grade point up, you need to retake a test, you need to play better on the field. Certainly never includes somebody that’s injured; that’s something that’s out of their control, but we will continue to do a good job of letting them know where they’re at and being honest.”

Is that something you talk about right away? Like, understand that this could change whenever we decide it needs to change?

“Uh, yes. That’s what we do, that’s what we have done, that’s what we’ll continue to do.”

First full year of recruiting in a while now. Did you learn anything you’d want to do differently the second year around, whether it’s communicating things or your approach to the way you handle different recruiting situations?

“Yeah. Like in anything, we want to be better today than we were yesterday, better tomorrow than we were today. I can say this: we did our best. There were mistakes made. I take full accountability for them, but I don’t apologize and we’ll keep forging on.”

What mistakes are you talking about?

/silence

What are your thoughts on an early signing period? Is that something you’d be open to?

“It is, definitely. I’d be very—you know, been adamant and said on record saying I’d be for an early signing period. You know, you look at it’s an outdated system. The system has been in place for thirty-some years and the process has changed. I would vote that you could sign a national letter of intent at any time. I think that would be a good thing.”

Which star were you most excited about?

“All of ‘em. I was excited about all our guys. Every single youngster that’s in the class.”

I was talking about your guests, like Ric Flair.

“Oh, I was talking about the youngsters that were-”

Yeah, I was talking about-

“Well, let me talk about what I want to talk about.”

I’ll ask the questions, sir.

“Okay, I’ll move to somebody else. Who else has a question? But I was really excited about every single one of our youngsters. As far as the--you called them celebrities, I just call them people that perform at the highest level—I’m talking Tom Brady, Ric Flair, Derek Jeter, John Harbaugh, Desmond Howard, Lou Holtz, Todd McShay, Mike Shanahan. Just to rub elbows with them, watch and be around them and show respect to them for what they’ve done and for our team. You know, we had a lot of members of our team that were here today. Great to be exposed and be able to connect to people that have done it at the highest level.”

Every move you make has a spotlight on it. How self-aware of that are you?

“Not everything.”

It seems like it.

“No, it’s not.”

What are your plans for spring football? Do you intend to do spring in Florida for a week?

“Yeah. Spring football, going to go to Florida our first week while the university here is on spring break. We’ll go to Florida and we’ll start practicing. We’re going to have four practices down there. We’ll work hard, and we’ll have fun doing it. We have some good plans for swim meets. We’re gonna have putt putt golf. We’re gonna have football meetings. We’re gonna have practice.

I think it gives a chance to win on a lot of different levels. One is that everybody’s going to get a spring break. There’s no youngster that can’t afford to fly somewhere won’t be able to enjoy his spring break. What better way to be doing that than to be playing football. The other thing it’s going to allow us to do by practicing during our spring break is both weeks of finals, winter finals, are going to be no football. They’ll be discretionary weeks so guys can concentrate and focus on the finals. We’ll be outside, we’ll be in Florida, go to the beach. It’ll be a good time for our team to connect and be together, so that’s a lot of levels right there to win on so very much looking forward to it.”

You guys are doing it at IMG?

“Yes.”

Why has New Jersey become such fertile ground for your recruiting class? The talent level seems to be very high there.

“It’s always been a good tradition of great football players coming out of that state, the Garden State. As I said, we’re looking for nuggets of gold anywhere. There’s good, there’s better, there’s best. That’s—guys with a heart for football. There’s a football face that I see sometimes, and all the time and our guys got that. You know, Michigan’s a great football state. You’ve got a half dozen or more players from the state of Michigan that are gonna be on this team. Indiana, well represented. Alabama, Florida, California; historically some of the best states for football in terms of players going on to have great college careers and a lot of those avenues have been opened up to the University of Michigan. Why wouldn’t we be recruiting heavily in California as well? California has the most applications of students going to the University of Michigan, so that’s something that excites us as well. Wisconsin, Maryland, a lot of states, Georgia. So it’s a recruiting class that there’s a lot of diversity. There’s a lot of diversity from what parts of the country, some in cities, some in towns, some in rural areas, but the common thread that they have is they all want a great education and they all love football.”

Going forward, do you want to have more of a footprint in Michigan in recruiting? You have one kid in this class--

[other media members yell out two and then three]

“It’s a really good footprint and you’ll see we’re adding All-Staters that will also be added as we go forward but there are some darn good football players from the state of Michigan. Anywhere that the youngster has proven to be highly competitive in the classroom, on the football field, and a good citizen we’re going to want to take a look at them. And then they’ve got to want to come, you know. But absolutely. You’re allowed to cross state borders in my America. And bring them to here! To bring them to one of the finest institutions in the world is an exciting thing to do. It’s something that we can easily go out and talk about and feel very excited about.”