College football recruiting is not for the faint of heart — never has been, never will be — and it’s only gotten worse with facilities arm races and the all-or-nothing atmosphere created by the College Football Playoff having consumed the sport.
That’s not even including the unscrupulous manner in which so many programs operate, an issue that gets worse every year and that the NCAA can’t (or won’t) address.
“It’s hard to beat the cheaters,” Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh said in John Bacon’s Overtime: Jim Harbaugh and the Michigan Wolverines at the Crossroads of College Football book a few years back in a shot most believed was aimed at the SEC, but could apply to several other schools, as well.
Harbaugh has made it clear his program won’t be one of them. His players take real classes, and his contract stipulates he receive bonuses for reaching graduation goals, etc.
Say what you want about the on-field disappointments in recent years, but there’s no arguing he’s looking for student-athletes and isn’t interested in turning U-M into a meat market.
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“Name another school that competes with the bluebloods athletically … while competing with the bluebloods academically,” director of recruiting Matt Dudek told Bacon. “Most of the players we recruit are good enough to play for Alabama or Clemson and smart enough to play for Ivy League schools.”
Which, of course, limits the talent pool and makes it even harder to compete.
The conundrum is obvious — the expectation is to win and win big at Michigan, no excuses. Several point to Notre Dame as the recent apples to apples comparison of a program that has, but if we’re being honest, the Fighting Irish wouldn’t have made the CFP the last few years, either, if they’d swapped places with Michigan and played in the Big Ten.
So how, exactly, can Harbaugh compete?
For one, he needed to follow Urban Meyer’s (yes, former Ohio State coach Urban Meyer) advice in pursuing the “Jimmys and Joes” who could make a difference on the field.
“I don’t hire coaches who can’t or won’t recruit,” Meyer has often said (paraphrasing).
Because no matter how good a coach or a staff is, it’s elite talent that makes the difference, never more so than in the current “CFP or bust” climate. And while U-M’s classes have been good to very good over the last five years, there have been some weak links in the recruiting chain.
Harbaugh set out this offseason to fix that. He did it by hiring his “Mikes and Moes” to get those “Jimmys and Joes” in first-year coordinator Mike Macdonald and co-coordinator Maurice “Mo” Linguist, and both seemed to have the energy needed to close the gap with the Buckeyes (because that’s the standard. Period. And Ryan Day and Co. aren’t going away).
Linguist was a huge hire for recruiting purposes. When he left to take the head coaching job at Buffalo (and let's be clear — it was a no-brainer for him to take a head coaching position at that level, not a sign that Harbaugh couldn't keep him), Harbaugh needed another home run recruiter.
Within a week, he hired Steve Clinkscale from Kentucky, the perfect replacement.
“He obviously checks all the boxes Michigan is looking to fill,” CatsIllustrated.com’s Justin Rowland said. “He’s been recruiting that state since 2009 back to well before being at Kentucky, for Cincinnati and others. We didn’t really know what to expect when he was hired because he was the least known of the guys they hired from Cincinnati several years back.
“He turned out to be a rising star in the profession. He landed five-star [DT] Justin Rogers from Michigan [Oak Park], [four-star Marquan] McCall, [receiver] Earnest Sanders, [Detroit tackle] Jeremy Flax … if they needed an instate recruiter, he can certainly do that.”
Rowland describes Clinkscale as personable, laid-back and honest, traits that have helped him on the recruiting trail throughout the years. But he’s also ‘relentless,’ he said, identifying talent early and never giving up on them.
Between him, new safeties coach Ronald Bellamy and running backs coach Mike Hart, there are some go-getters on the staff who will join already elite Sherrone Moore and the others to give U-M as good a group on the recruiting trail as Harbaugh has had in Ann Arbor.
“Ron Bellamy will be an elite recruiter, especially in the Detroit area,” our recruiting analyst EJ Holland said when the former Wolverine was hired, and he couldn’t have been more spot-on. He helped flip four-star defensive tackle Rayshaun Benny from MSU in weeks, and he’s since been mentioned with too many outstanding recruits to count.
Do these moves guarantee on-field success Michigan fans have been craving since Lloyd Carr retired in 2007?
Absolutely not. Harbaugh and staff still have a lot to prove in the 'X' and 'O's category, too.
But it’s a step in the right direction, and the results on the trail are already starting to show positive momentum in getting Michigan football back where it should be ... even if there's a long way to go in what's proven to be a program reset.
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