Jay Harbaugh: Recruiting Insight
Article is from 247, Jay covers Loveland and some other recruiting hits. I like many others am amazed at the level of players and talent Michigan has had under Harbaugh the last 3 years and the overall comradely of the locker room and this article spells it out. Sure we aren’t firing money canons of NIL cash to top recruits, but like Jay points out that doesn’t matter as much as a kid’s character, and his desire to win and develop and sacrifice will drive him more than money. I’ve voiced my concerns and frustration over recruiting, but reading that reminds me the staff has their priorities in finding recruits.
September 28th, 2023 at 2:25 PM ^
The great equalizer in college football is always to have an elite quarterback. Clemson, for example, won their championships off of 2 different elite quarterbacks. Sure, you need other talent on the field as well but as long as you develop talent, having an elite quarterback will take you a long way.
September 28th, 2023 at 2:27 PM ^
I agree with this. a solid team full of 4 stars with an elite generational QB is way easier to recruit than how georgia did it with a team full of elite 5 stars and a walk on QB to win it all.
September 28th, 2023 at 4:27 PM ^
UGA didn't really have a walk on QB. Bennett was a full scholarship player after he went to JUCO and UGA brought him back, and he was a fricking pretty high level college QB. Made plays with arm and legs. Put up gaudy numbers. Came in and relief of much higher rated guys on the team and didn't give them a chance to win the job back. Baller who deserved to be a Heisman finalist. Yes, a ton of talent around him, but not like he was a game manager. Roster of 5 stars + a high level QB.
Edit: agree with your general sentiment, just don't think UGA is best example. Bennett IMO is one of the more under appreciated players in recent memory.
September 28th, 2023 at 5:07 PM ^
I would also add those Georgia teams were loaded with NFL talent beyond normal talent levels. I think the entire Philadelphia Eagles front 7 is from that Georgia team (okay maybe not all 7). So Bennett, while not a “generational” QB had a lot of runway and less pressure to carry his team.
September 28th, 2023 at 5:17 PM ^
Sure, no arguments there. Just a comment that "walk on" hardly characterizes how good that guy was for two years at UGA, in my opinion. That reputation has followed him, and I'm not sure why, given how he performed.
September 28th, 2023 at 8:24 PM ^
Well, UGA would have had 5* Justin Fields, except that there's too much racism in the football program (weird how no one else has validated Justin's story).
September 29th, 2023 at 5:56 AM ^
I know you are being sarcastic but it was the baseball program where the alleged incident occurred.
September 28th, 2023 at 2:33 PM ^
Luckily we have an elite QB now and it appears we have another one committed now
September 28th, 2023 at 3:19 PM ^
Ohio State is screwed this year just based off this point, but also for many other reason. But whatever you do, do not question their toughness.
September 28th, 2023 at 4:10 PM ^
You used the T word, aren't you skeered of them?
September 29th, 2023 at 7:58 AM ^
It is Ohio Against Ten and it will always be Ohio Against Ten!
September 28th, 2023 at 4:50 PM ^
Yeah, aside from 2021/22 Georgia and the previous Alabama teams (which just had 5 star talent top to bottom, esp DL), I feel like most teams, to get a national championships, need at least one player capable of transcendental performances. Usually QB like Clemson, Vince Young, Cam Newton but also Woodson.
While WR/TE is more limited impact than QB, my "vague vibes" would be much more optimistic about getting to the Natl Championship if we had a Marvin Harrison Jr or even Bowers. Maybe Corum or JJ will be that player but they seem more like "great" players rather than having a potential transcendental game in them, but we'll see!
September 28th, 2023 at 7:15 PM ^
Elite QB and elite DTs
September 28th, 2023 at 8:34 PM ^
100% nailed it.
1a) Elite QB
1b) Elite DTs
1c) Great O-line development
2) Edge rushers
September 29th, 2023 at 10:13 AM ^
Same is true in the NFL. Go back 20 years. There are only 2 Super Bowl winning QBs that won't be HoF'ers on the list.
September 28th, 2023 at 2:31 PM ^
Given the self-imposed limitations Michigan places on recruiting (and the portal) I think the job Harbaugh and his staff have done is nothing short of amazing.
The question for me is why do insist on making things hard for our team to attract the top talent in the country? I can only imagine the roster these coaches could assemble if they had the school helping (like OSU does) instead of hurting their efforts.
September 28th, 2023 at 2:35 PM ^
I think it’s easier to manage low profile humble dudes long term than 5 stars possibly. Finding them is hard but once they are here, they create a good locker room presence and brotherhood. I remember the 2017-2018 teams having tons of talent but guys being busts, heavy transfers and beefs with coaches and players, and a lack of cohesion it felt. Since 2021 the teams felt close and United. Just my two cents: find guys who fit and the coaches will utilize and coach them to perform to compete against others. As discussed a talented QB makes life easy and makes up for deficiencies elsewhere, same with Edge on defense.
September 28th, 2023 at 2:54 PM ^
I dont disagree with anything you said but remember, there are "low, profile humble" five stars out there - we have one at QB right now.
It's just our NIL program (or lack thereof) and our academic transfer policies makes it nearly impossible for the staff to attract them in bulk.
September 28th, 2023 at 4:56 PM ^
Not wrong. I think the program struggled in the early years in finding the best players who also fit the profile. An awful lot of them were one or the other, but not both. A 3 star good soldier who isn't even a threat to contribute and a 5 star who doesn't give a shit about anything but the NFL both became issues.
September 28th, 2023 at 6:13 PM ^
Agree on the emphasis being on good fits. Also remember we had a "leader" type 4 star QB and he turned out to be a negative in the locker room. Or at least the QB room. A lot depends on chemistry and unfortunately there aren't any sure thing formulae.
September 28th, 2023 at 8:26 PM ^
Especially when everyone is paying them now instead of just a handful of schools. It didn't take long for NIL to sink Nick Saban. Level playing field is not what Nick is about.
September 28th, 2023 at 2:50 PM ^
This line of questioning/reasoning is quickly becoming invalid. Even OSU doesn't want to deal with it anymore.
Gene Smith: "A practice of asking a school for a fee to simply visit campus has emerged; asking for $5,000 just to visit has become common..."
And so he's asking for federal legislation to establish:
- A national NIL standard
- NIL agent registration
- Standard NIL contracts
- Prohibition of inducements
- An NIL public registry
- Maintain the amateur model of athletics
- Strong enforcement measures
Does that still sound like "school helping"? Because it sounds to me like UM is ahead of curve at this point.
September 28th, 2023 at 2:58 PM ^
He is not completely honest. He is trying to set up a moat against any upstart school and booster to be able to do this going forward. Anyone who is already doing it will continue to do so. But new regulations will make anyone new start doing it.
September 28th, 2023 at 3:34 PM ^
As nice as those things would be to have to help make a level playing field with NIL, I think it'll be a long, LONG time before it ever gains any serious traction.
You have schools in, say, Michigan that would love to have federal regulations in place. But a school in, say, Texas or Alabama? States that are very, VERY NIL-friendly these days, have introduced and passed legislation allowing these NIL-friendly policies, on top of allowing student-athletes to sue the NCAA if the NCAA tries to instill policies that would require said student-athlete to break state law?
Why are these states going to want to give up that advantage that they have over other states? A lot of these state governments are made up of alums of their instate schools, and their fandom will influence a lot of these decisions in how they cast their votes.
Maybe I am oversimplifying the situation, but I just don't see federal legislation (serious legislation, anyway) being passed anytime soon. The only thing that I think would get Congress involved at this juncture is if you started seeing foreign investment coming into NIL. Foreign investment from countries that have, shall we say, questionable relationships with the United States. Not to get political, but I think that is the only thing right now that would get serious consideration for federal legislation to be passed.
September 28th, 2023 at 8:28 PM ^
I think SCOTUS would be pretty skeptical of federal regulations. How does any law have the right to stop these young men from commanding a wage for their work? College football is an enormous business now. It's the players' rights to be part of that business. That's what courts have held.
September 28th, 2023 at 4:12 PM ^
Funny that tsio and Alabama are the schools complaining. Level the playing field and look what happens. I know there are numerous other factors but there is no way it's coincidence.
September 28th, 2023 at 2:50 PM ^
Because football is barbaric and sports are just entertainment for the lower classes. Have you seen the bumper stickers on the cars on a game day? Not really the sort of people we want on our campus.
September 28th, 2023 at 3:20 PM ^
I don't disagree that UM makes it harder in the portal but I think people assume any time UM doesn't pull in a 5* it's because they have an unsustainable NIL program. But hell, Georgia lost a kid to USC apparently because of their NIL program, and clearly nobody believes Georgia doesn't throw cash around.
I am also starting to question the overall relevance of recruiting rankings when it applies to roster construction. Consider OSU - they've got 8 kids ranked in the top-100 to 247...and 3 of them are WRs and two more are a QB and a RB. They have 2 guys on the defensive line and a cornerback, and one OL lineman in the top 247. Michigan's only got 1 guy in the top-100 (Davis) but they've got an OT at 106, two TEs in the top-150 who could conceivably moved to tackle with some seasoning, and a smattering of other OTs and guys who could fill in gaps. It's a different approach for each team and matches with their outlook, but I'm sold OSU's class is "better" than UM's just because of how they're ranked.
September 28th, 2023 at 4:09 PM ^
For the last few years, OSU's recruiting team rankings have been massively weighted upwards by taking redundant skill position players. Is it good to take 3-5 top 100 WR's every year? It certainly ensures you will have an awesome WR room. It also likely means 3-5 dudes are transferring out or never see the field because you can't put 11 WR's on the field. Go look at some of their rosters over the last few years - littered with top 100 WR's that literally never even saw the field. Even getting a 5 star QB every year is overrating the class as a whole because three years in a row of that almost guarantees 1 isn't going to stay.
There are massively diminishing returns loading up on skill guys instead of guys in the trenches that make the class look good on paper, but produce sawft ass teams that run end arounds on 4th and 1 on the field. A Hassan Haskins level player becomes as effective as a 5 star when you put him behind 5 good to great OL and 2 good to great blocking TE's.
September 28th, 2023 at 2:32 PM ^
thanks for sharing!
September 28th, 2023 at 2:35 PM ^
The first canon of any good team is to have great comradely in the locker room.
September 28th, 2023 at 2:43 PM ^
No offense, but I think it’s spelled “comladely.”
September 28th, 2023 at 2:52 PM ^
Found Mel’s burner account.
September 28th, 2023 at 2:37 PM ^
for a team with back to back BIG10 titles and trips to the playoffs I don't think its being unreasonable to wonder why UM can't have both highly "rated" kids and kids with "character, and his desire to win and develop and sacrifice". These are not mutually exclusive.
September 28th, 2023 at 2:42 PM ^
Exactly. Case in point: Blake Corum, JJ, The Don, and Will Johnson, key pieces on our team, are both.
September 28th, 2023 at 3:24 PM ^
Will was in our back yard and the rest were initially recruited and came in before NIL really took off. We aren’t going to offer up front cash, but rather a “prove yourself” model, and that isn’t gonna cut it for many of the top players. The scary part is we can’t just pick who we want out of the portal due to academic and entrance requirements. Our development will continue to be the key to our success. I’m really curious to see how this season turns out with most of the elite recruiting teams breaking in new quarterbacks when we have ours back.
September 28th, 2023 at 2:42 PM ^
I agree. I think the article highlights the importance of reading deeper than highlights of recruited: their reputation, their ethic, their whole tape, and handling adversity and humility. Most of our breakout players or gems were multi sport players who didn’t pop off highlights or attend elite camps. We’ve had 5 star talent who were busts from mental aspect or left for somewhere else (see like all 2017 class). Basically there’s more than highlights on Huddle, and that’s what the staff prioritizes more than the star studded flash and plays.
September 28th, 2023 at 2:59 PM ^
Would those "busts" work well with the current coaching staff? Maybe it was the staff Harbaugh had then?
September 28th, 2023 at 7:06 PM ^
This is my thinking. Especially with Don Brown and recruiting DTs. The Mo Hursts could do work, but they don't grow on trees.
September 28th, 2023 at 5:12 PM ^
It's still the wild wild west right now. There's nobody in charge to regulate nor enforce barred recruiting activities:
- inducements
- pay to visit
- pay to commit
- pay to transfer
- tampering
Stories about players being verbally offered 6 figure+ sums and never receiving more than a fraction of it...
I wouldn't worry too much about Michigan's NIL until we reach more of a steady state in the "industry" as a whole.
It will take time for recruits and recruiting schools to fully figure everything out. Holding all things equal we're recruiting just about where we always have.
That gets us into contention once or twice a decade and that's above average.
We are in the 2nd biggest conference. We're still a top 4 brand. We're gonna be fine.
September 28th, 2023 at 2:42 PM ^
I have said this before and will continue to say it; I like Michigan's NIL play, however; it can be too "vanilla" and could improve a bit to challenge most other programs in bringing in elite talent. This could also prevent top commits from flipping. Character and desire for 3 star athletes with the greatest level of development can only get you so far, you still need elite talent to compete for the playoffs each and every year. I know people like to look at the lower ranked players on the roster from the 2021 and 2022 teams, but most of the key players on those two teams were higher ranked players coming out of high school.
BTW: I think Jay Harbaugh is going to be one hell of a coach some day. This guy can recruit, develop and prepare for games as we saw against UNLV in the first half. I get it was UNLV, but it was his first coaching experience as well.
September 28th, 2023 at 4:14 PM ^
Don't look now, but UNLV is 3-1 and favored by 11 points this weekend against Hawaii. Definitely looking like last year's UConn that we thought would be possibly the worst team on the schedule but looking very likely to get bowl eligibility.
September 28th, 2023 at 2:47 PM ^
Camaraderie*
September 28th, 2023 at 3:21 PM ^
I'm with you, brother.
September 28th, 2023 at 3:40 PM ^
The real, McCoy!
September 28th, 2023 at 5:18 PM ^
I was hoping for a Hotel Putin joke in there somewhere with the "comradely" misspelling.
That said, I recently corrected someone's spelling of "comradery" to be "camaraderie."
Turns out that "comradery" is an actual accepted North American spelling of the word. I've never seen it like that and think it's ridiculous, but apparently, it was spelled like that at some point in the late 1800s in the US somewhere and stuck.
September 28th, 2023 at 2:50 PM ^
Bill Belichick has been prioritizing less flashy hard working athletes for 20 years now.
September 28th, 2023 at 2:58 PM ^
And how's that been working for him since Mr. Brady went to Tampa Bay?
As many have pointed out in this thread - when you've got elite QB talent it covers up a LOT of gaps elsewhere.
September 28th, 2023 at 4:32 PM ^
Well they made the playoffs more than the lions have in that span.
and it didn’t work with Michigan until they had a good QB.
September 28th, 2023 at 2:59 PM ^
It helped that he had the GOAT goading everyone. How have they done lately?