It is almost imperative that Michigan and Alabama meet on the gridiron as soon as possible, if only to see the resulting postgame handshake turn into a cage match between Jim Harbaugh and Nick Saban.
Harbaugh’s satellite camp crusade certainly ruffled a few feathers in the college football world, but Saban has taken particular exception to the Michigan coach’s incursions. Saban subtly struck back at Harbaugh when it was announced Alabama would host a camp of their own, right in the Wolverines’ backyard.
However, that subtlety went out the window Tuesday when Saban laid out how he truly feels about the rise of satellite camps in college football.
“Anybody can have a camp now,” Saban said. “If they have a prospect, they can have a camp and then you’re expected to go to that camp and then they can use you to promote their camp because Ohio State is coming, Alabama is coming, whoever else is coming. Somebody sponsors a camp, they pay them the money. What do they do with the money? And who makes sure the kid paid to go to the camp? I mean, this is the Wild Wild West at its best. There’s been no specific guidelines relative to how we’re managing and controlling this stuff. It’s happening outside our normal evaluation window, which means we’re taking time away from our players.”
“All you’re doing is allowing all these other people that we spend all of our time at the NCAA saying, you can’t recruit through a third party. You can’t be involved with third-party people and that’s exactly what you’re doing, creating all these third parties that are going to get involved with the prospects and all that. And who gets exposed on that? I go to a camp and I’m talking to some guy I don’t know from Adam’s house cat and he’s representing some kid because he put the camp on, and then I’m in trouble for talking to this guy? And who even knows if the guy paid to go to the camp. Is the NCAA going to do that? I mean, we do that at our camp. We have people responsible. They’re called compliance folks. What kind of compliance people do we have at these camps?”
Saban raises some interesting points when viewed under the umbrella of the NCAA’s rules on recruiting. However, not every school is Alabama and not every recruit is a five-star prospect. These camps help connect programs with kids they would otherwise not have a chance to interact with, and they help recruits get spotted by programs that would otherwise be unaware of their existence. It is a mutually beneficial relationship for the overwhelming majority of schools and recruits.
It is pretty clear Saban is worried about slipping from his perch atop college football, and using the guise of NCAA compliance to support his claims.
In any event, Harbaugh was not having it and he fired back Tuesday night.
"Amazing" to me- Alabama broke NCAA rules & now their HC is lecturing us on the possibility of rules being broken at camps. Truly "amazing."
— Coach Harbaugh (@CoachJim4UM) June 1, 2016
Harbaugh usually sticks to the subtweets, but it seems Saban poked the bear — or, in this case, wolverine — one too many times.
Satellite camps is quickly taking the place of conference realignment as the de facto hot-button college football offseason topic, and it’s gaining on Johnny Manziel for the leading irrelevant sports story that refuses to end. However, if it leads to an actual fight between Harbaugh and Saban, I think we can all agree it was worth it.
