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Special Guest: Professor Greg Dooley, whose podcast is The Professor & the Pundit.
Featured Musician: Kyle Mack

The Video:

[After THE JUMP: Dooley arrives so we get off-topic.]

Transitioning to transforming transactions. Michigan's annual Grand Traverse weekend was an opportunity to test Harbaugh's new "We're transformational not transactional" motivational poster catch phrase for its approach to NIL. This atop their sluggish start to 2023 recruiting while those they mostly recruit against—namely Notre Dame, Penn State, and Michigan State—are cleaning up has created a sense there's a state of emergency in the recruiting department.

Regarding the current class rankings, yeah man, Rutgers was Top 10 at this point last year. More concerning is (probably) missing out on two in-state 5-star quarterbacks, one a guy who's been working out with Devin Gardner for years, the other Lloyd Carr's grandson. That's probably not all about NIL, but it is true that Michigan's response to the new NIL realities has been, depending on whom you ask, somewhere between tepid and insanely naïve.

The NCAA quickly abandoned the hill of "boosters can't play" and the rest of its guidance has been thoroughly ignored; even I can't believe even Michigan takes that organization seriously. What they do have to take seriously is state law, which goes into effect December 31 this year. Michigan's stated policy complies with that law, and by all accounts their actual policy matches the stated one.

To over-simplify, as I understand it the main the difference between Michigan and their competitors right now is we're paying attention to the "no facilitation" piece, and nobody else on our level is actually doing the same (even if they swear up and down otherwise). The site Opendorse has a map of the current state of legislation as well as a rundown:

The repeals, suspensions and amendments across the SEC all came after the NCAA gave up the ghost, since the whole point was to operate without rules. All laws are not the same; Nebraska's is optional (Nebraska opted out), Arizona's is like "whatever the NCAA says" and Georgia's will sunset before it goes into effect. Illinois freed its schools to be more involved. Ditto Mississippi, Louisiana and Tennessee. Ohio State wrote Ohio's law to mean whatever's best for Ohio State. Texas, due to a controversial state law preventing quick amendments, is the most like Michigan in the structure of their law and unlikelihood that it changes any time soon.

The relevant sticking point is "Schools, Conferences, and Associations cannot compensate a student-athlete for their NIL." That was a bone meant to make things more palatable to the NCAA. Michigan the school has interpreted that as complying with the NCAA's hand-wave policy that schools cannot "facilitate" these deals. Michigan State is ignoring it for now, but will have to comply by next year.

Michigan donors informed me they've been told by the program or Harbaugh himself that Michigan is not going to take their money and pass it along. At Michigan's recent camp I chatted up a few coaches who've chaperoned national recruits through the process. Most are ideologically close to Harbaugh, but even they said most schools (including mid-majors) will get the adult in a room and talk dollar amounts, but you know not to even bring that up at Michigan. Meanwhile Ryan Day himself is imploring Ohio State fans to raise $13 million to keep their roster intact, and most schools have official collectives directing fan efforts.

So what is Michigan doing? Still figuring it out. On the player side, Valiant Management, organized by Johnny Wangler and friends, is representing a good number of players, though many are still striking their own deals. Valiant are the ones who put together those NFTs and the tailgate after the spring game. On the collective side, there are three that seem to have any footing. MGoDAO is a consortium of fans—many of them our readers—creating an NIL collective to pool the fans' money to spend on the players. They'll be at the MGoPatio this fall. Champions Circle, announced a few weeks ago via Angelique, was recently formed by a group of older boosters. Stadium and Main is another collective that formed, though I don't yet have a good handle on what they're focusing on.

Some of this will work itself out—for example Saban will do whatever A&M is doing then call that the "right way"—but there's certainly a danger we're going to end up with a more expensive version of the old situation, plus a few years of Michigan's fumbling in the dark for a new line it won't cross (which it will then cross).

Shout out to Carl in Vienna! Get your Beethoven on!

Things discussed:

• Michigan draft picks: DE production in college translates. Love Dax on the Bengals—fixes a major "you drafted a Buckeye cornerback" mistake. Nice to have the Ravens to snatch up any leftover Michigan players.
• So many Georgia picks: and the best player on that defense slipped to the 3rd round. Why? College football's playoff system had all the players who wanted to play in the playoffs collect in the three or four schools that make the playoffs with regularity. We're seeing a reflection of an unprecedented amount of talent pooling at the top.
• Frankie's transfer: people around him were oversensitive to playing time. He also wasn't very good on ball screens last year—and won't ever be a shooter. Was pretty clear Michigan needed another guard, and one of the reasons was to get some shooting on the floor when Michigan's down. Unfortunate that the state of things are such that a guy like Frankie can even consider going to Arizona State.
• Llewellyn is now a point guard—offense is going to run through Dickinson and be fine, but defense is now an issue, unless Kobe Bufkin takes some huge strides.
• Emoni Bates? Lol. Michigan wasn't interested; seems like Bates was but we already had forwards coming out of our ears. Hot take: he should have gone to MSU.
• NIL and Hunter Dickinson's comments: Glad to see someone at Michigan is finally taking leadership in the conversation. NCAA wants Congress to bail them out. Shouldn't be a Title IX issue if Michigan is facilitating payments, not making the payments themselves.
• Michigan *could* be awesome at this. We have donors who support the program rather than just look for access or ask "What do I get for my money?" and that makes us a more attractive school than a Texas, LSU, or Ole Miss where the donors want you to dance.
• Mel Pearson's contract? We don't know, but Michigan had their opportunity to run away, and we think they probably would have if they didn't have some belief—perhaps a verbal communication about the WilmerHale Report's contents—that they won't have to fire him. Can't discount the possibility that they're sweeping it under the rug, or twiddling their thumbs while they wait for the report to be published.