Harbaugh Recruiting Tactics
Mods feel free to delete since this is hearsay, but I've seen a lot of "disappointment" in Harbaugh's recruiting tactics the past few days on the blog. So I figured I would post this.
My former teammate's cousin is (probably was at this point) a Michigan commit. I will leave his name out for privacy reasons. I talked to my buddy last weekend, and he told me that his cousin would probably be playing at a different school.
However, he had nothing but good things to say about Harbaugh and his staff. He said the coaches meticulously laid out who his competition would be, and explained to him that they weren't done recruiting the position yet. Harbaugh also told him that his scholarship to one of the best academic institutes was absolutely still available to him, but he would need to work his ass off to see any playing time. Said recruit has decided that while academics are important, playing football is his true passion and wants to see the field sooner than later. He would rather fine tune his game on the field and get better.
He also said he was ecstatic with the Michigan offer, because not a lot of schools were looking at him before. Now he has quite a few offers.
Again feel free to delete. This is only one recruit; I have no idea about any of the others. I was having a hard time believing that the coaching staff was simply ignoring recruits (nothing about Harbaugh's personality suggests that type of passive-aggressive behavior). There is always two sides to every story. A true leader has to make tough decisions. Not everything can be unicorns and rainbows.
*Queue brother's sister's cousin twice removed comments.
January 19th, 2016 at 11:48 PM ^
Won't ask you to name names but does your teammate's cousin's name rhyme with penis?
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January 20th, 2016 at 12:05 AM ^
"Tom Harmon's Lasting Anti-Porn Lessons".
January 20th, 2016 at 2:28 AM ^
This has me crying. Perfectly played.
January 20th, 2016 at 9:49 AM ^
DELORES!!!!
January 20th, 2016 at 11:49 AM ^
Logged in just to say, bravo, sir.
One of the funniest posts in a long time!
January 19th, 2016 at 11:49 PM ^
Weaver.
January 20th, 2016 at 12:51 AM ^
Is that really his? If so, badass
January 20th, 2016 at 8:16 AM ^
It's a weave obviously.
January 20th, 2016 at 8:49 AM ^
deWeaver?
January 20th, 2016 at 10:00 AM ^
I'd love nothing more than for Harbaugh to absolved of any shady practices. But in life, not just on Michigan message boards, be very careful about people that tell you EXACTLY what you want to hear.
No offense meant to the OP in specific, but his post is custom tailored to assuage our concerns about the large number of commits that seem to be out on their asses. Would he have the motive to lie? Absolutely. He's a Michigan fan. Maybe he wants to mitigate the damage to the school's reputation. Can we verify his honesty or his story in any way? Nope.
I'm not necessarily saying that he is lying, but I certainly wouldn't try to say he's being truthful either.
That said, booting commits is not a Dahmer level offense. It's a little unseemly, and it probably ruffles some feathers. I'm not a fan of the practice. But the kids will recover. They'll play at another school. They may not be big fans of Harbaugh at that point though, unless you're willing to fully buy into the OP.
January 20th, 2016 at 10:14 AM ^
Thank you, this is exactly where I fall on it. College recruiting, as long as there is forced amateurism and probably after the NCAA flies into the sun and explodes in a burst of player-destined greenbacks, is going to continue to be shady. That Harbaugh does not fly above like an angel of virtue may disappoint me as a serious but decidedly "outsider" fan (i.e. I have never had any connection to major D1 athletics). But it does not make me cringe with embarrassment or regret.
The D1 money-making sports are dirty. We are all obsessed with a major D1 program. A bit of dirt comes with the territory.
January 20th, 2016 at 11:52 AM ^
Sam Webb commented this morning that this is not something that should happen again and that Swensen and his dad will probably come out with some negative comments. This is a blackeye event for us, no mattter how many sycophants around here will try to excuse it. This definitely puts a huge damper in my enjoyment for this recruiting season.
<P>This is not Michigan and I am very very disappointed in Harbaugh.
January 19th, 2016 at 11:49 PM ^
sounds good
PS - Jim Harbaugh was my father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate.
January 20th, 2016 at 1:33 AM ^
be with you
January 20th, 2016 at 2:43 AM ^
That sounds pretty serious
January 20th, 2016 at 4:36 AM ^
You're Harbaugh's former roommate! Your father's brother is your uncle. His nephew, assuming they had at least a 3rd sibling, is your cousin. So your father's brother's nephew's cousin is you.
Isn't that special.
January 20th, 2016 at 7:25 AM ^
Or it could be his sibling or cousin (assuming of course that the uncle mentioned has kids or there is more brothers of his dad out there with kids)
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January 20th, 2016 at 9:20 AM ^
The doctor is ...
his mother!
(The riddle obviously plays on latent sexist stereotypes.)
January 20th, 2016 at 12:01 AM ^
I love it when I see an article about Harbough doing something outside of the norm in recruiting. It's unique and the recruits seem to really like him. On the flip side. I am curious to see how the Swenson situation will play out. The rumors don't seem like something that the staff would do.
January 20th, 2016 at 12:03 AM ^
How dare you spell his name wrong.
That's almost as bad as spelling Schembechler wrong.
/s
(sort of)
January 20th, 2016 at 12:07 AM ^
iPhone, thanks for the catch
January 20th, 2016 at 12:09 AM ^
I hit save on the edit by accident. It won't let me fix it **Harbaugh
January 20th, 2016 at 5:22 AM ^
You mean your phone doesn't predict Harbaugh after you type "h-a-r-b"??
/not a true fan
/s
January 20th, 2016 at 6:33 AM ^
I'm pretty sure Swype automatically recognized Harbaugh. I didn't even have to add it to my dictionary. #householdname
January 20th, 2016 at 8:48 AM ^
When I type "h-a" it auto-predicts "HARBAUGH"
Honestly, it's annoying now.
January 20th, 2016 at 9:55 AM ^
Mine does the same and I am definitely ok with that
January 20th, 2016 at 12:20 PM ^
autocorrects with an enthusiasm unknown to mankind?
Classic!
January 20th, 2016 at 3:34 PM ^
I knew I was going to catch all kinds of hell for this! Hah
January 20th, 2016 at 12:08 AM ^
Can you please run this all by your mom's sister's aunt? (In the form of an email, of course.)
January 20th, 2016 at 7:12 AM ^
Wouldn't that make her in middle school?
January 20th, 2016 at 9:44 AM ^
Football factory is football factory. SEC, Michigan, Big Ten, Florida State, UCLA, Southern Cal, whatever. Sure, Michigan has top-drawer academics. But it is also a football factory. Most of the athletes are put into the easier majors and ease through. Harbaugh even said this himself when he was at Stanford, and he would know.
Coaching staffs end contact with recruits all the time, or pull their offers late. Kids also get new late offers, too (Gentry last year?). Recruiting will always be back-and-forth right up until the rubber meets the road, especially when the life blood of a multi-million dollar revenue stream (coaches and players) are operating on nothing better than handshakes for a year up to maybe 4 or 5 years or more.
January 19th, 2016 at 11:51 PM ^
I thought we screwed over Swenson?
January 19th, 2016 at 11:54 PM ^
I'm not going to name any names, but BlueBlood2991's cousins friends uncles former college roommates dog sitter told me that there's rumors that said recruit (who is actually my brothers mailmans dentists son) might, In fact, have a name that's rhymes with penis. Who knows, all just rumors at this point
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January 20th, 2016 at 12:00 AM ^
Can Wiltfong and Webb vouch for this?
January 20th, 2016 at 1:03 AM ^
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_whispers
Said recruit has a penis, OK?
January 19th, 2016 at 11:55 PM ^
Definitely good to hear something positive.
January 19th, 2016 at 11:55 PM ^
I hope this is an accurate reflection of the staff's behavior. I don't mean to say that I distrust you, OP, more than anyone else, but we are just strangers on a board.
January 20th, 2016 at 12:27 AM ^
This. It's too easy to make stuff up on the internet. Until I hear something like this from a recruit I'm not paying it much faith.
January 20th, 2016 at 12:33 AM ^
That's why I put the disclaimer that it was hearsay.
But seriously, in the Twitter-age a 17 year old could've came out and bashed Harbaugh on his "shady" tactics and it would be national news. The media runs with anything Harbaugh related good or bad, even if it's based on a single tweet.
To my knowledge, nothing like this has happened yet.
January 20th, 2016 at 1:32 AM ^
Kain Colter, Ondre Pipkins and Matt Falcon?
January 20th, 2016 at 1:44 AM ^
I don't know, those names sure sound fake to me.
/s ..for the benefit of the board morons and those lobotomized.
January 20th, 2016 at 7:28 AM ^
....you mean for all the ....
January 20th, 2016 at 1:50 AM ^
...A bunch of guys who had or currently have severe injuries and took their disagreements public, which is fine but you'll only ever hear one side of that story.
Pipkins had a load of injuries and was offered medical scholarship. Time will tell whether or not he can physically play at the high level he believes he can, or any level for that matter. Same story for Falcon. Colter had a severe, career threatening injury in high school, which, again, we are never gonna hear about what was offered or not. All Colter said was that the staff cooled on him.
For the record, I'm gonna come out and say that I'm not one of those people who would bash Urban and Saban over these kinds of things, either, since we may never hear their side of the story.
January 20th, 2016 at 7:39 AM ^
The Pipkens thing was strange. It's hard to see a former 5 star guy who had some success on the field being pushed out. That said, in the age of Antwaan Randell El wishing he'd played baseball instead of the NFL because he can't walk down stairs without going sideways, you have to respect Harbaugh and the doctor's opinion that he shouldn't be playing football. Harbaugh has to know a lot of guys that are quasi-crippled/disabled from playing football.
January 20th, 2016 at 9:51 AM ^
over a three year period, he medical'd the same number of players as the rest of the SEC, COMBINED! So I feel safe in bashing him.
January 20th, 2016 at 10:30 AM ^
hear his side of the story?
January 20th, 2016 at 3:50 PM ^
Res ipsa loquitor
January 20th, 2016 at 9:49 PM ^
I mean, I agree that that kind of practice looks extremely shady, so I will grant you that.
That said, with everything currently going on with Michigan, recruiting, roster managements tactics, and all of the various rules preventing schools and school employees from commenting much on these situations, it's hard for me to leap to a solid judgement when the other half of the story is legally forbidden to say... well, anything at all, really.