Atlanta Satellite Camp Round Up

This won't win any recruitments outright but these camps do an amazing job of getting Michigan's foot in the door for a lot of recruitments they might have been left out of before.  Tons of possitive press, Michigan constantly in the news cycle, and the other coaches who show up had better keep up or they look bad in comparison.

You can't buy (legally) that kind of favorable attention for your program.  And in the heart of SEC country no less, where they hold the freaking SEC championship.

Awesome summaries, OA.  That was pure joy reading through them and seeing how much pub the South is giving Harbaugh.  And for those who say these camps won't have a direct impact on recruits, here's some delicious icing on your DawgNation schadenfreude cake...

Two of Smith’s Cedar Grove players are Georgia commitments and participating in the camp — offensive linemen Netori Johnson and Justin Shaffer. Pittman, who would be their position coach at UGA, was always close by if not coaching them directly. But the strong Michigan presence definitely had an effect on these prospects. “It was better than I thought it was going to be and there were a lot of people here,” said Johnson, a 6-4, 348-pound, 4-star tackle. “Michigan came down here and they swarmed everything. All you see is yellow and blue everywhere. Even though its the state of Georgia, we were engulfed.” Asked if it all had some level of influence on him, Johnson smiled and said, “I have a scholarship offer from the University of Michigan. It was great having them here, beautiful. Coach Pittman was coaching me up, too. But it did change my opinion of Michigan. I’m going to have to get up there and look around.”

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"My football soul is very happy here"                (at the Atlanta camp).

Who even talks like that?

The man is on a completely different plane.

Jim Harbaugh: Football Whisperer.

He looked pudgy and pathetic. He really did.  

And his intro speech was just going through the motions, like he was just trying to get it over with. Not impressed.

He should have stayed home, or just sent an assistant.

Don't get on the field with Harbaugh unless you are ready to suit up and play.

The Georgia fans are freaking out about the "Michigan-yellow" helicopter Smart flew in on, and how Michigan coaches took over the camp while the Georgia coaches basically just stood around and watched.

All they could do was fall back on their old lazy standby "It's winter 7 months a year up there" comments while Harbaugh ate their snow cones.

All in all, a piss-poor showing for Dawg Nation.

Might be tough since he keeps his coattails tucked in, just like his baseball jerseys.

If I were another coach, I'd try to learn from and collegially compete with JH at these camps. I know Narduzzi was at MSU, but I do think that stuff can all go out the door if you have mutual respect for coaching talent/work ethic. If Pat Fitzgerald was hired by OSU, I think Harbaugh would still respect him and have a collegial relationship with him.

Smart: “I wasn’t doing it for show or anything like that,” Smart told DawgNation. “I just needed (the helicopter) to get from one place to another. I wish I could have stayed longer because there are a lot of good prospects here. But I can’t be in two places at once.”

What a revealing, cynical comment that shows Smart's true character.

While Harbaugh is talking about the love of the game and self improvement to each and every kid that showed up, Smart is viewing the whole event as just a drive-by (fly-by) meat market.

This is dead on.  People forget that Franklin had been doing camps in the south for Penn State a year before Harbaugh did, and nobody even noticed.

The stature of Michigan in the south today, compared with just a year ago, is truly amazing.  A year ago we were another Penn State that nobody noticed, pecking around the south for leftovers.

Today we show up for a satellite camp a few miles from where they play the SEC championship game, and every TV station in town shows up to cover it.

There will be an army of local and national media at evey single camp that Harbaugh puts on this summer.  

You can't buy that kind of impactful publicity.

Agreed.  You just can't fake it for 40 camps over two months.  Watch the video above, Kirby Smart can barely fake it for a 30 second introduction speech.

You start every camp knowing that it is extremely unlikely to produce a viable recruit.  You need to want to be there for some other reason.

Re-building the UM image/brand/legacy such as to improve the attractiveness of UM to recruits is the #1 purpose of these camps. There is no doubt to me these camps are to help Michigan with recruiting, both directly (meeting recruits) and indirectly (media attention, building respect for UM, gaining fans in the South).

The reason it is working so well, though, is because Harbaugh does truly love football and is just as happy coaching a middle school kid as a D-1 prospect. His love for the sport and for development of youth is unparallelled.

I do think it is a bit naive for us to say "maybe this helps recruiting somewhat". Jim, as much as he loves football, wouldn't be doing these camps at the magnitude he is if it weren't improving UM and the UM football team first and foremost. 

I'm just glad his football soul is happy.