Forbes article on Michigan's recruiting cleanliness
“Look,” Dudek says in the book, “we know there are people who don’t operate on the same moral ground that not only Michigan expects, but that coach Harbaugh demands. So, the last thing I’m doing is going down that rabbit hole – probably the fastest way to get fired around here.
“The good news is we so rarely go so far down a path with a guy whose character we’re not sure about that we get to a point where a kid or his family asks for a bag of money. I’ve never had anyone directly for anything. If they’re going to do that, they probably don’t consider us very long.”
While Harbaugh and Dudek stop short of making direct allegations on how specific programs in the national spotlight go about their recruiting business, neither is afraid to speak to the sullied nature that that the business of big-time college football has become. Bacon, the author, details the covertly clever tactics programs use in paying players.
In Overtime, Bacon examines the NCAA’s allowance for universities to provide players with a full cost of attendance, which provides schools to factor in expenses such as travel, food and laundry – along with other costs not covered by the cost of tuition. At Michigan, Bacon reports that figure comes in at $2,400 for out-of-state players per term both before and after the NCAA made allowances for the full attendance costs. That number only becomes more magnified when compared to SEC programs, which according to the book, totals $5,386 per term at Alabama, $5,586 at Auburn and $5,666 at Tennessee – which represents a 34 percent bump from the previous rate.
Harbaugh, who has made plenty of enemies south of the Mason-Dixon line since taking over at Michigan, has poked the cages of SEC coaches repeatedly and in the book, speaks to the disparity in spending by simply telling Bacon, “(It’s) hard to beat the cheaters.”
Yet, despite the unleveled nature of the playing field as he sees it, Harbaugh continues to sell the program in his own way without crossing the line he insinuates is repeatedly crossed by other programs. Harbaugh’s own experiences as a Michigan player have direct ties to the ways he handles his coaching duties now.
Although he acknowledges that balancing football and academics is far from a perfect science – especially for a player who himself was steered to a less difficult major after wanting to major in history – that a student-athlete’s academic load must factor into the formula.
But as with Schembechler, Harbaugh makes two things perfectly clear from the start of his recruiting: No shortcuts will be taken and at the end of the day, Michigan isn’t for everyone.
Source: Forbes, 8/19/2019, Author: Jeff Arnold
August 19th, 2019 at 10:24 AM ^
This is a football program that we can all be proud of. Now let’s go win some big games!
August 19th, 2019 at 11:37 AM ^
Tough to do both those things.
August 19th, 2019 at 10:26 AM ^
i mentioned last week in that gary/$300K thread that the SEC is dirty. long-time friend with a son that played at UGA when richt was coaching confirmed the same - it is a cash driven arms race down south.
if the rules ever change, we need to get one of these:
August 19th, 2019 at 11:20 AM ^
Oh, don't misunderstand; we've got one hell of a money cannon. As big and powerful as any in the country. It's just aimed at buildings, facilities, administrators and profs.
August 19th, 2019 at 12:06 PM ^
Mostly buildings tho. The amount of construction on campus right now is crazy and as a student, it’s annoying and the campus is gonna look completely different when I come back in a few years
August 19th, 2019 at 1:33 PM ^
Think of the time warp for a 1983 grad.
August 19th, 2019 at 12:19 PM ^
zero misunderstanding. we have the finest money cannon in the galaxy relative to colleges, only a handful of schools could compete with us if we ever took the safety off.
August 19th, 2019 at 2:39 PM ^
There was a recent article (can't remember where I saw it) that showed that Michigan's AD is #4 in the nation for revenues at about $195 million per year, behind tWSE, TAMU, and UT-Austin. Michigan spent about $183 million, so net balance of $12 million. tWSE, on the other hand, made about $205 million and spent about $203 million.
August 19th, 2019 at 3:38 PM ^
'tWSE'? western state empire? wall street employer?
too dim to figure this out without help.
August 19th, 2019 at 5:15 PM ^
Took me at leasg five minutes of very hard thinking. The t is lower case, therefore “the Worst State Ever.”
August 19th, 2019 at 7:51 PM ^
Thanks, I’m in the same boat...
what about TAMU The Alabama Money University?
August 19th, 2019 at 8:27 PM ^
Texas A&M. Lots of oil money/big boosters. But "The Alabama Money University" is much better imo
August 20th, 2019 at 2:58 PM ^
That's it. I was being too clever for my own good.
August 19th, 2019 at 10:28 AM ^
In Overtime, Bacon examines the NCAA’s allowance for universities to provide players with a full cost of attendance, which provides schools to factor in expenses such as travel, food and laundry – along with other costs not covered by the cost of tuition. At Michigan, Bacon reports that figure comes in at $2,400 for out-of-state players per term both before and after the NCAA made allowances for the full attendance costs. That number only becomes more magnified when compared to SEC programs, which according to the book, totals $5,386 per term at Alabama, $5,586 at Auburn and $5,666 at Tennessee – which represents a 34 percent bump from the previous rate.
If those are 100% legit above the board monetary transfers, then Michigan should absolutely be maxing them out. There's no reason to both not cheat AND not maximize all allowable benefits.
August 19th, 2019 at 10:46 AM ^
Yeah, any SEC complaints about that just seem cheap
August 19th, 2019 at 10:52 AM ^
I think some of that isn't up to Michigan. For example, one factor is the cost of getting to and from campus. At Michigan, you're about 40 minutes away from a major airport, and the cost of flights from most places to Detroit is pretty cheap. I know Penn State can offer more than UM in that regard because it's in the middle of nowhere and hard to get to. I assume SEC schools look at factors like that and then pad them with the highest possible / highest plausible assumed cost to get to and from their campuses. Michigan cares about having a number that's realistic, and most schools look for any opportunity to inflate the number so long as they have plausible deniability about just using it as an excuse to give more than another school can give.
August 19th, 2019 at 10:52 AM ^
I agree, but I assume you need to provide backup information on the actual costs. Michigan may be unwilling to fluff those numbers up to effectively pay the players a little more.
August 19th, 2019 at 10:54 AM ^
Aren't these figures from the estimates for cost of attendance for the general student population? So inflating them means inflating the numbers you're telling all students. I'm assuming this would have a number of implications...scholarships, financial aid, loans, sticker shock, etc. Seeing as Michigan is already an expensive school, I could see how we would be unwilling to inflate the numbers to put some extra money in the pockets of athletes.
August 19th, 2019 at 11:29 AM ^
The cost is determined by the University, not the athletic department. See https://finaid.umich.edu/cost-of-attendance/ and https://financialaid.ua.edu/cost/
August 19th, 2019 at 1:42 PM ^
It's interesting that the number for in-state and out of state students is the exact same. Seems like the OOS number should be higher to account for flight costs.
August 19th, 2019 at 10:29 AM ^
I'm glad and proud how we Now recruit,
but
Better review the Yost podcast on this site.
Before we think this is how it always was.
August 19th, 2019 at 10:31 AM ^
The Team, 1925
August 19th, 2019 at 10:41 AM ^
I don't get the NCAA allowance part, sounds like Michigan isn't taking advantage of a legal way to get players some money?
August 19th, 2019 at 10:55 AM ^
You would think there would be some type of formula based on where you are going to school, like the military and some businesses do. I would think living in Ann Arbor is more expensive than anyplace down south except for maybe Atlanta and Miami.
August 19th, 2019 at 11:18 AM ^
The only difference might be airfare. I flew “into” clemson and it’s a pretty small airport about an hour away from campus. Flights were super expensive.
August 19th, 2019 at 1:39 PM ^
but it ain't $3k per semester more expensive.
August 19th, 2019 at 12:11 PM ^
It's not like a cost of living thing. Its, how much extra does it cost to get there and live there reasonably. Travel would be a big thing, and as others have mentioned, its easier to get to AA then bumfudge town SEC
August 19th, 2019 at 2:55 PM ^
How much it costs to get there "and live there reasonably."
Isn't that the very definiton of cost of living? Transportation, housing, food, etc?
Yeah, the rural SEC schools are expensive to travel to, but presumably kids only to to/from the school once per semester. Plus, do the out of state kids actually get a bigger stipend than the in-state kids? What if the out of state kid lives by O'Hare Airport whereas an in-state kid lives up in a rural area of the Upper Penninsula?
Meanwhile, in my experience, rural towns usually have much cheaper housing & day to day living costs compared to swanky suburban or urban college town settings. I mean, the housing costs for off-campus housing in Ann Arbor are OUTRAGEOUS for student-slum houses that are falling apart. Townhomes & condos regularly sell for $1M+ in Ann Arbor.
And yes, maybe *technically* this metric is calculated by the university itself rather than the Athletic Department or football team. But it seems to me that legitimate competitive improvements should be something that the university should be willing to assist the AD/football team with. You know damned well Saban & Dabo have the university president on speed-dial....
Bottom line is this: Even if this "living expenses" thing is totaly out of the hands of the football team/AD, and even if it's totally impractical/shady to juice the numbers to get closer to the SEC stipends, Michigan is still essentially fighting with one hand tied behind its back in the "big picture." So, whenever we find a legitimate competitve advantage (i.e. above-board money cannon), we need to 100% MAX THAT OUT. If we aren't going to cut corners, then we need to be as insanely efficient and effective as possible in using the tools that ARE available to us.
August 19th, 2019 at 10:51 AM ^
"It's hard to beat the cheaters." I love this. I love that our coach (and Bacon) are putting it out there.
The trouble is, the handful of southerners that I know; are fully aware that they cheat. And they don't care.. . .at all.
The cooler shitters in Ohio, the only thing I hear from them is "everybody does it."
I'll be interested to see where this goes.
August 19th, 2019 at 11:02 AM ^
In this context, it sounds a bit "excuse-y" to me. I think that "we don't cheat and we beat the big bad cheaters" makes for a good narrative. I don't think "we don't cheat and we continuously talk about how we should be a championship program despite knowing we cannot win titles because of the cheaters" has quite the same ring to it.
So, as a fan, I am not sure how I feel about this angle or how to reconcile it with wanting to win. I am certainly happy we have a clean program, I am not entirely sure what to feel when OSU hands us our ass all the time. Ya know?
August 19th, 2019 at 11:36 AM ^
I hear you. We are sitting on a high horse and calling out cheating but the OSU's, Clemsons and the majority of the SEC are probably thinking of it as competitive college football in 2019. The NCAA is apparently not willing to do a damn thing about it. I will stop short of saying Michigan needs to be like those other schools. Sucks...
August 19th, 2019 at 12:49 PM ^
Yeah, but sitting on our high horse > winning national championships. Just ask our fans.
August 19th, 2019 at 11:42 AM ^
Programs that don't cheat are at a significant disadvantage to those that do. We will win less than we would if we cheated. You can either say nothing and live with it, or you can live with it and occasionally remind the world that the programs they heap praise on have an edge, not that anyone will listen to you.
Side note: Lots of fans would rather cheat more and win more. Some are OK with winning less, just hoping for the occasional unicorn season like Beilein had in 2013 and 2017. It's not inconceivable that we could have one of those, but they are rare. (Didn't the NCAA say they were going to announce penalties this summer on some of the hoops programs caught up in the FBI wire tap scandal?)
August 19th, 2019 at 11:59 AM ^
It's funny that you call those occasional unicorn seasons for Beilein. In the last 7 seasons, he had his team in 2 national championship games. In the scheme of things, that's not occasional. That means only 12 other teams could have made it within that time period. And I think, if he'd stayed at Michigan, we could have expected more of the same.
It doesn't sound occasional to me. It sounds like you can win without cheating.
August 19th, 2019 at 2:45 PM ^
Except that winning in basketball is INFINITELY easier than winning in football. Winning in football requires almost total perfection...winning in basketball requires being just good enough to make the tourney than hope for the easiest path to the title game. Plenty of room for mistakes in basketball. Not so in football.
None of that is to discredit Beilein and his accomplishments, but for the sake of this discussion it needs be mentioned. It’s apples to oranges.
August 19th, 2019 at 12:09 PM ^
Beilien did not have unicorn seasons. He just beat the cheaters.
August 19th, 2019 at 2:44 PM ^
It's also much easier to do that in college BB than it is in CFB for at least 2 reasons:
- The roster is only what--12 or 14 kids? If you are excellent at finding that extra 2-3 diamonds in the rough, it has a HUGE impact in on-court performance. In CFB, there is an 85 man roster and 22 person 2-deep. Finding those extra 2-3 diamonds in the rough don't boost the on-field performance as an overall % compared to a men's BB team.
- Men's BB set-up is incredibly forgiving & allows a team to get hot at the end of the year and win conference championships & win the NC. For a team focused on development like a JB team, this means they can derp it up the first 2 months of the season, then make a strong run at the tournament. In CFB, if you lose more than one game, you're probably DONE. And if you're in the Big Ten East like we are, there is an incredibly tight bottleneck that doesn't even allow a team to compete for the conference title if they lose more than 1 in-conference game.
August 19th, 2019 at 8:43 PM ^
To your point, I would add that attrition is much more abundant with basketball programs like Duke, UNC, Kentucky, and the like. This opens the door for the cinderella teams, who have developed their players for 3-4 years. That is a big reason the NCAA tourney has so much parity. Compare that to CFB, where players still have to be two years removed from highschool to enter the draft. Most NFL entrants who leave early just finished their Junior year of college.
August 19th, 2019 at 11:04 AM ^
I agree Gustave - I have a lot of friends who are SEC alum/fans and they openly joke about bag-men and money and cheating and view me as naive for insisting that not every program does that.
August 19th, 2019 at 11:37 AM ^
Well...if Harbaugh really is adamant that we don't cheat, then I'm afraid it'll follow the same script. He'll get tired of it eventually and go to the pros where at least the player compensation part of the game is a level playing field
August 19th, 2019 at 12:41 PM ^
The trouble is, the handful of southerners that I know; are fully aware that they cheat. And they don't care.. . .at all.
This. It's the time we live in in America sadly.
August 21st, 2019 at 4:01 PM ^
the illusion of the right thing, is like the salt on the rim of your margarita, its there, its occasionally good, but serves no purpose except window dressing. I personally dont care how we get it, I just would like to see some great talent on the field and compete for championships, not saying we need to be tim tebow florida but I dont see anything wrong with being uga or clemson or alabama if it can get the school on the map and in this decade, we are a long ways from 1997, and Im tired of it
August 19th, 2019 at 10:54 AM ^
I swear it is like Michigan wants to make things as difficult as possible. If they can give more money for full cost of attendance then they should do it. If the NCAA is fine with Bama giving that much then Michigan needs to match it. Don’t make things more difficult.
August 19th, 2019 at 11:19 AM ^
Paging Fat Guy Touchdown, who will tell us everyone cheats and that the SEC succeeds because its coaches (including Hugh Freeze) are just better than the Big Ten's.
Oh, and that he knows of a MAC school who was ready to pay a guy one MILLION dollars.
OK, exaggerating a bit there ... but not much.
August 19th, 2019 at 11:32 AM ^
Pretty sure he said Billions :)
August 19th, 2019 at 11:39 AM ^
Gotta love the 18 year old dumb enough to post that, and the 40-something year old fan who tries to interact with players on social media. A classic combo
August 19th, 2019 at 11:46 AM ^
putting money in the mouth. gross.
August 19th, 2019 at 11:50 AM ^
they're probably big enough bills to not have been in a strippers ass crack, so at least there's that.