Hackett and Harbaugh address recruiting, a "Meritocracy"
http://www.mlive.com/wolverines/index.ssf/2016/01/jim_harbaugh_we_dont_…
Looks like we didn't have to wait until NSD to hear some of the other side of the story.
Hackett:
"the stuff I've been reading, I would tell you, is not accurate."
"Michigan, Jim Harbaugh, Jim Hackett, Warde Manuel operate with total integrity and total transparency."
"The NCAA and the Big Ten are thinking about changing signing periods because part of what you have here is the observation that commitments are real and then we have people that don't show up for their scholarships,"
"I'm not speaking about any specific case here, but we may find out that we have (commits) who can't get into Michigan -- they haven't finished their boards or senior grades.....(Another factor) is they didn't perform. Recruiting has started so much earlier with sophomores and juniors. The nature of our program and competition is such that you've got to continue to earn your position on the team. If -- again not a specific case -- if there's somebody where that's declined, there's lots of conversations with them."
Harbagh:
"We're very much out there, we don't hide how we operate and with what we do,"
"It's a meritocracy. In everything we do in our program.
"It's going to continue to be that."
"They've got to continue to perform when there's early commitments. Both in the classroom, on the field and as a citizen in the community. That's how we're going about it."
"I don't hide from that at all and I won't. That's what we demand."
January 29th, 2016 at 6:44 PM ^
January 29th, 2016 at 8:43 PM ^
So the coaching staff says something along the lines of "if you want a commitable offer, you must do x." The player doesn't do x (or drags it out until he's going to get around to attempting x in mid January). I'm having trouble understanding how you or Swenson, or anybody else can be confused by this.
January 30th, 2016 at 3:02 AM ^
January 30th, 2016 at 3:26 AM ^
January 30th, 2016 at 10:49 AM ^
January 30th, 2016 at 10:11 AM ^
January 31st, 2016 at 2:08 PM ^
now be debating whether it was ethical for the staff to just yank an offer from him back in September or October rather than giving him whatever opportunities to step up they may have provided.
It seems clear to that the message up until now has increasingly been "we are not sure about you based on your performance this season, there is a big ? next to your place in this class, you should act accordingly."
They can only be as explicit as they are sure, they may have been considering taking him up until last week......so why pull the offer and remove that option?
January 29th, 2016 at 3:37 PM ^
January 29th, 2016 at 3:58 PM ^
we don't exactly know that they just hinted.
For all we know, they were telling him that he has to pick it up or lose his offer and that perhaps if he doesn't that he should be looking elsewhere.
Without proper insight, we just don't know enough to judge and thus it falls to who you choose to give the benefit of the doubt.
Personally, my extremely uneducated and uninformed opinion from looking at all the tea leaves and smoke signals around this is somewhere in the middle. For now.
Enough recruits, with or without an axe to grind, have reported a cease in communication and hints to look elsewhere to believe that this wasn't modus operandi for the staff. Right or wrong.
Methinks Harbaugh came in late on a a recruiting cycle and had to get some warm bodies in the fold early to get some momentum and be sure he would not be left holding the bag come signing day. I say late in the cycle because these kids have been recruited by other programs for 2-3 years. Harbaugh could not foretell on field success in 2015 and did what needed to be done at that time. That dynamic was exacerbated by the camp circuit and the offers that went out that might have been partly motivated by a need to generate buzz/excitement and motivate players to turn up. Also fine by me. For now.
I do not not believe this will be as much of an issue in the future. For three reasons:
1. Harbaugh has demonstrated on field success and now is in on a full (or almost full anyway, if they are 2-3 years on average) recruiting cycle which means he will have more time to better assess what players he extends offers to and thus there will be fewer "space fillers" and more players likely to survive culling by meritocracy.
2. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this was not a pattern for Harbaugh at Stanford (I don't tink his other coaching gigs apply with regard to recruiting at thist level). I doubt he just invented this approach at M and is going to run with it no matter what.
3. Right or wrong, justified or not, the current PR kerfluffle is damaging, to some extent. I would think they would in some way amend their approach/tactics to minimize/avoid it in the future, otherwise they provide continued ammunition for negative recruiting. Not to mention he has the Prez on record as saying we operate with integrity and I would also guess that there was some discission of "maybe just not talking with them isn't the best idea moving forward" type of thing.
That's about $0.03 worth.....
January 29th, 2016 at 2:23 PM ^
January 29th, 2016 at 2:23 PM ^
January 29th, 2016 at 2:26 PM ^
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January 29th, 2016 at 4:16 PM ^
because you said the exact thing that ALL schools are doing. A couple of minor nitpicks.
It's not an arbitrary point in time. It's a point in time up to the point where the player and the school can actually sign an agreement with each other under NCAA rules. They are operating under the rules the NCAA laid out - Not only do they not break them, but they CAN'T commit (in the english meaning of that word) to a player, nor can the player commit (english, not NCAA) to them until that last month or so before NSD when EE can sign an actual letter.
I will also restate from the student/player POV:
I will visit whomever I want unofficially, take officials up to 5 with who I want, talk to whomever I want, and at an arbitrary point in time "commit" (NCAA meaning) to a school or uncommit from a school whenever I wish, up until the point in time the NCAA has mandated I may sign a binding letter of intent with a school.
Nothing shocking here. It's recruiting.
Are there better and worse ways to conduct yourself under this umbrella? Yes, clearly. Until I know something closer to facts about what has happened with these players, I choose to withhold judgment about whether Harbaugh and Michigan have conducted themselves well.
That said, I have absolutely no problem with the statement they've made, at any level.
Personally, I hope that the NCAA changes the rules to make recruiting and it's official language reflect reality more, and offer options to schools and players to commit (English) at an earlier time, with that transaction meaning FAR more than the current verbal (aka, it means anything at all).
I haven't said anything new, I know, but I believe my snowflake is unique. :)
Rob
January 29th, 2016 at 6:44 PM ^
just use basic common sense, every single college in the US offers more student athletes than they are allowed to sign, so what! Some players get cut even after accepting the offer before NSD, why is this a problem? I know they coaches communicate to those players in time so they can accept other offers, I have no problem watching the best possible UM team that Harbaugh can legally put together every year.
January 29th, 2016 at 9:53 PM ^
If prior to today, you asked all 127 non-Michigan FBS coaches if they ran their program as a "meritocracy", you would have received 127 affirmative answers. Seriously, who would answer no?!?!? "Meritocracy" is a word with a positive connotation!
However, Harbaugh is going to recruit in a different way vs. many of those other 127 coaches. As is his right, as long as he is not breaking NCAA rules.
It is what it is: JH's "meritocracy" will be a "bit of a different meritocracy" vs those run by others.
January 29th, 2016 at 1:33 PM ^
"It's a meritocracy. In everything we do in our program." - Jim Harbaugh
Order me one.
January 29th, 2016 at 1:42 PM ^
January 29th, 2016 at 1:36 PM ^
January 29th, 2016 at 1:37 PM ^
Thank you for posting this. It is great to get this out during all the bad press, as well as our faithful questioning our recruiting ethics.
January 29th, 2016 at 3:12 PM ^
This is the first time I have ever heard the word Meritocracy. I am assuming that it has something to do with "this is a merit based program"? Anyways, for those who also didn't know what it was when they saw it, know that there is at least one other.
January 29th, 2016 at 1:40 PM ^
I want it to be more like an "autocracy" but whatever.
January 29th, 2016 at 1:41 PM ^
I like this approach. If a regular student totally fucks up their senior year of HS the university will deny them admission. This sounds like the same thing.
January 29th, 2016 at 2:25 PM ^
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January 29th, 2016 at 2:33 PM ^
(1) UM also doesn't have a 85 person cap on smart kids. (2) If all of the approximately 14,000 accepted kids wanted to and actually could attend UM, UM wouldn't have the space to accomodate them.
January 29th, 2016 at 6:43 PM ^
January 29th, 2016 at 2:48 PM ^
Many people are uncomfortable with extreme competition. It doesn't mean it is unethical. (Not saying you were making this point)
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January 29th, 2016 at 3:03 PM ^
January 29th, 2016 at 1:44 PM ^
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January 29th, 2016 at 1:46 PM ^
Offer 'em all and let Harbaugh sort 'em out
January 29th, 2016 at 1:48 PM ^
January 29th, 2016 at 1:52 PM ^
Works for me.
January 29th, 2016 at 1:56 PM ^
Jim Hackett should really carry around a briefcase full of microphones, because he ROUTINELY says things that give him the occasion to take one out, drop it and walk off.
January 29th, 2016 at 1:59 PM ^
I'm comparing this to my son's experience playing travel and high school baseball. He's expected to work during the off season, and it's his responsibility to find the work through outside coaching, etc....This is implied by the team - they don't outwardly ask him to do this, but my son knows that he's competing with other players every season at tryouts. If two guys are equal, and the coaches know one is working during the off season on his own, they'll likely pick him. Some parents feel they shouldn't have to provide coaching for their kids outside of the realm of the high school, but that's just how it goes. It's all a competition and you just can't let up.
As long as Harbaugh is clear on this point with recruits, there's nothing wrong with it.
January 29th, 2016 at 2:02 PM ^
I'm eager for all those on this board that were outwardly questioning tactics, stating that Michigan is better than that, etc. I'd love to hear from you.
January 29th, 2016 at 2:33 PM ^
Since you ask, I will respond, as I am one of those who believed - and continues to believe - that Michigan is "bettern than that" with respect to slimy recruiting.
Did you actually reach what Harbaugh and Hacket (and Schlissel) said? There is NOTHING slimy about what is going on because we are being very upfront and open with recruits in explaining that if you commit far in advance, you are still expected to do everything expected of you from an academic and athletic standpoint, as well as from a community standpoint. Just as a kid can be denied admission for failing to make grades during his/her senior year, a football recruit can be denied a scholarship if he fails to meet all of his markers.
January 29th, 2016 at 2:45 PM ^
And I hope you would say...I'm good with that. Nothing slimy or beneath Michigan to expect excellence at offer through acceptance into admissions. My intent was for those who questioned the integrity of the coaching staff to eat a bit of crow.....served spicy hot.
January 29th, 2016 at 2:49 PM ^
commit can still be excellent and get dropped. There seems to be an intense need here to turn this into just more "excellence" by the staff and the University. Come on guys, this is a very high quality spin job but we are not eating it up like this, are we?
OK, maybe we are. Fine, I'm in.
January 29th, 2016 at 3:38 PM ^
@ijohnb - do you personally know the recruits that were dropped and can you confirm they were excellent? Sounds like a few of these guys didn't do what the coaching staff asked them to do and so they were dropped. The lower ranked guys were told from the beginning what the deal was and they were smart enough to use the Michigan commit status to raise their own profile.
Is that such a big deal?
January 29th, 2016 at 4:05 PM ^
Harbaugh isn't asking for mere excellence. He's asking recruits to meet his expectations of what it takes to earn a scholarship and play for Michigan. He offered them believing they would meet those expectations. Problem is, the way recruiting works, you have to offer a sophomore in hs just to keep up. If the kid doesn't put the work in to meet Harbaugh's expectations, even if he is otherwise "excellent," should Harbaugh be lenient? You set the bar at the very vague "excellent." Harbaugh specifically lays out what that looks like to the recruits, and some don't cut it. So while you see an excellent recruit, Harbaugh sees someone who failed to meet expectations and is therefore no longer worthy of a scholarship.
January 29th, 2016 at 4:26 PM ^
around and targeting, it's just you keep saying interesting things I semi-disagree with.
FWIW - I think it's possible that you are right, and some of the guys in the grey area were excellent, and were dropped anyway. If this is so, then I agree, this statement is not as convincing since it appears the markers they are expected to hit are constantly in motion based on who the staff has an opportunity to get.
However, I don't have those facts, and it makes it very hard to decide that I believe that otherwise impressive people like Harbaugh and Hackett are simply lying to me.
Also, referring back to my last post - The problem here is that the reality is that pre-signing "commits" are just not that. They don't actually mean that anyone is actually committed to anything. Given that reality, it's very hard to treat them seriously from an ethical standpoint, or to be upset with players or schools that don't treat them as "commitments" because they are well, not commitments. FWIW, I've never been upset with this stuff at OSU/Alabama, etc, because it's stuff that happens outside the actual signing. Stuff that happens after that has always pissed me off.
Rob
January 29th, 2016 at 2:04 PM ^
Wow what a MONSTER right guys
January 29th, 2016 at 2:14 PM ^
January 29th, 2016 at 2:35 PM ^
If Swenson was told to take all of his visits as a hint - and not expressely explicitly told that his offer was no longer commitable by the end of his senior football season... then that is an ethical lapse on the part of the coaching staff and is unaccpetable.
"From what was said at the press conference, I believe the players are being fully informed."
I don't.
Fully informed is "Your scholarship offer is no longer committable".
Saying "You should really take all of your official visits" is not "fully informing" the athlete.
January 29th, 2016 at 2:44 PM ^
but you dont have a clue on what was really said, because you werent a part of it. why would you assume one way or another when you dont know?
January 29th, 2016 at 4:44 PM ^
Ummm... the word IF has a meaning...
"If Swenson was told to take all of his visits as a hint - and not expressely explicitly told that his offer was no longer commitable"
If the coaches expressly told him by the end of his senior season - good for the coaches, no ethical lapse.
If the coaches didn't expressly told him by the end of his senior season - bad on the coaches, ethical lapse.
January 29th, 2016 at 5:44 PM ^
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January 29th, 2016 at 5:51 PM ^
Not exactly. I said I didn't "believe"
...and I don't believe. I also don't disbelieve.
I just lack belief.
I don't trust the players, and I don't trust Harbaugh.
Players are self-serving teenagers, and Harbaugh has plenty of smoke indicating fire when it comes to "ghosting" players.
Realistically - Harbaugh probably feels like he "told" the players in question through his hints, and most of the players probably understood(although were in denial) about the hints.
...but it still isn't acceptable to be anything other than 100% forthright with the players. Hinting, even if it works, is not acceptable.
January 29th, 2016 at 9:16 PM ^
you are either a hater or just willing to believe anything you hear or read. unless you have had one on one conversations or direct contact with harbaugh how can you make those statements?
February 1st, 2016 at 12:09 PM ^
When multiple players, over numerous years, at two different universities say it happens.... chances are it happens.
Kain Colter
Joe McNamara
Daunte Carr
Evan Palelei
Zachary Swanson
Swenson
Weaver