Dantonio Moonwalks Away From Satellite Camp "Abuse - Control" Comment

If I could only superimpose MDs face...

Harbaugh is winning this story with his silence.

Tempted to just throw this up on Reddit and let the nerds who don't watch sports just go to town.

Dousche > coward

Sankey needs us! Know what I'm sayin'? Ain't nothin' gonna stop us!

Mark Dantonio is a handsome man.

At the risk of being neg-banged all the way to Bolivia, Mork's original comment, as we understood it before he made his "clarification," was not totally crazy.  Before I go on, a couple of points: (1) Dantonio is the biggest classless jerk in the NCAA who personifies the term "sore winner."  His participation in the UM-MSU rivalry has coarsened the relationship, endangered both sides' players needlessly, and injected bitterness for its own sake.  (2) The NCAA's decision on this subject is indefensible at many different levels.

That said perhaps Jim Harbaugh's aggressiveness in pursuing satellite camps was not the best decision.  As many have pointed out, the camps are very important to many high school athletes who would like to play D1 ball.  Under the pre-decision rules, the SEC did not participate in them, but it was a small item, and the SEC and ACC were willing to live with the infrequent camps that did not seem to significantly disadvantage them.  Win for the high school players.

Along comes Jim Harbaugh, and he ups the stakes in every way: more camps, more camps in SEC land, and especially using them to generate publicity.  It wasn't just that Harbaugh was looking for the under the radar 3-star guys Bama and LSU would not want.  Harbaugh was tweaking the SEC in an area where they had imposed limitations on themselves in an attempt to look better to 5-star recruits the SEC did want.  Before I go on, more caveats: (1) the SEC's arrogance and entitlement is grating and indefensible ("We're the only ones who get to have systemic advantages.")  (2) Ditto their enablers in the media and the NCAA.

However, we could have (and did) predict the SEC would react in this way.  A lion is a predator, but having the Michigan Marching Band play the M Fanfare outside his den has predictable consequences.  So who has lost?  Not us in any meaningful way.  As many have pointed out, by forcing the SEC, ACC and NCAA to act in a transparently arbitrary and self-serving way, we've made our point.  (Pro tip: when the mother of one of your key targets starts an online petition based on one of your talking points, you've won.)  The people who are hurt are the high schoolers trying to fund their education, and the non-Power 5 schools who really are after the under the radar 3-stars Bama and LSU don't want.

Moreover, Michigan didn't need to crash someone else's party to get the same benefits.  Harboaugh is a maestro of media buzz.  He can think of 5 different ways to get under the SEC's skin while taking his morning shower.  We'd didn't have to poke the SEC in a way that blew up in a lot of other people's faces.  Like I said, Dantonio had an arguable point, not saying he's totally right, or that he said it for any reason other than pure spite (just like everything else he does related to U of M).

There, feel free to voice your disagreement or displeasure.  This crowd certainly won't hesitate.

that was not previously viewed as a threat now be viewed as a recruiting threat if the SEC itself imposed a restriction on camps because it recognized that those camps didn't attract the players it necessarily wanted for its programs but understood they were important for other schools and coferences. They didn't mind when other schools coaches from out of state attended camps in Alabama, Georgia and Texas because the restrictions in place were sufficient to ensure that their own competition for players was controlled and that their conference wouldn't be severely impacted by any leakage of players to surrounding states and schools.

For sometime now, the Sunbelt states have been increasingly drawing more residents from the Midwest and elsewhere, and this economic fueled population migration combined with technology and more advanced coaching at the youth and high school levels combined with greater access and keener interest in specialized football training for kids regarded as college prospects has given the SEC and to an extent certain ACC schools a recruiting advantage over many other Power 5 conferences. They've enjoyed this without any competitive  constraint  while seemingly ignoring other restraints of trade.

As a conference, the SEC has ignored scheduling standards that apply to most other conferences while almost never as a group agreeing to play many schools outside of their own region during the non-conference season. And they have used the argument that their league offers a greater challenge than others face as the primary excuse, which, again, is how their recruiting edge factors in both historically and otherwise. And this scheduling allowance applies to both the regular and post season, which,  as a consequence, means they are never forced to travel like schools throughout the rest of the country. Their only travel issues were conference-created to expand their reach and solidify their hold on their recruiting territory.

However,  now that one celebrity coach because of his school's tradition and national brand was willing to put in the time and effort to invade this fertile recruiting ground to re-establish his program as a national contender, the SEC and ACC feel suddenly threatened. They see Pandora's box opening.

And the question you have to ask yourself is why? If, the SEC and ACC weren't concerned with satellite camps before, didn't see them as a problem for theiir own recruiting, why was it necessary to rush through legislation seeking to stop one coach and school from from bursting their bubble? Because it would lead to a groundswell of change in the way camps are set up and used for recruiting purposes based on the Harbaugh example and actually force the SEC and thier coaching staffs to do some extra work. And they don't want to do that.

The NCAA does nothing to eliminate the sleaze element of bagmen from the game because NCAA membership really doesn't want to expose and deal with that problem. But it's largely a regional one. The NCAA membership doesm't want to deal with the SEC's scheduling allowances and NCAA leadership through its conference commissioners and top administrators agreed on a simple vote to ban satellite camps without taking into account how that action would impact those most affected by them. Not even Jim Delany seemed to care about that, because aside from voting to permit the camps, he saw the fight with the SEC and ACC as a battle not worth fighting, a stupidly thought-out position. And you knew he didn't care just as Mark Dantonio didn't seem upset by the issue, by their immediate comment on the camp ban. Oh well, Delany opined, the coaches can pick up recruiting. And Dantonio added, "abuse" leads to control. What abuse? You mean, Miichigan, right coach? No, he corrected himself days later after a tidal wave of negative reaction to the throughtless action. What Dantonio really meant by that comment, he said, was that it could lead to a torrent of abuse that would need correction.

The only correction that needs to be taken now is for NCAA members to start putting the SEC in its place and quit backing down to its failure to want to go along with the NCA football program as the rest of the country practices and plays the game.