Harbaugh Comments on Erik Swenson Recruitment of Last Year

I wonder if any of the coaches informed the

parents, " Hey, your kid needs to show us

he can play in person before we give him

a full ride scholly or no dice".

 

Him pussing out both times ( if that's

what he did ) would have made anybody

apprehensive to assume he had the

skill level to compete at D1 level.

Had forgotten all about this. People always talk about how programs are going to take a PR hit that brings lasting consequences from these controversies but they never do.

Imagine you have a job offer at a prestigious firm (say law, banking, consulting) and a few weeks before your start date, you get a call saying the buy who hired you and his team have been fired and replaced with a new team.

Then your new future boss calls you and asks you to come in to re-interview. It may be a formality, but they want to extend offers to people they personally spoke to. You say nope, my resume is good enough and look, I have the 3rd best GPA in my class. I don't need to re-interview.

What do you expect would happen? What would you say to your friends?

and I appreciate Harbaugh giving his side and even admitting there were probably somethings he needed to do different to help the coach and kid understand. We all make mistakes and hopefully learn from them.

My memory of this recruitment is pretty much what Harbaugh said and Swenson just kind of coasted once he had the scholie. Can't do that and need to work. He should understand Harbaugh and his staff had never seen him and he should've attended a camp and worked hard his Senior year, if that is how he wanted to be evaluated. Heck even his coach said he was only average that year, so what did they expect?

While the ego/entitlement needed to be knocked down a few notches, if he ends up a solid D1 player, it's a miss for us - especially given our O-line recruiting issues right now.

I have no problem with Harbaugh handling it his way - he has his principles and needed to set a precedent for what is expected of recruits and commits - but I just hope we don't end up regretting this if the kid develops into an all conference player.

was Simmon's mom hating on Harbaugh because of it, and probably why he was looking to go to any of our rivals (OSU, ND, MSU)

 

other than that, I think Smart is using is for negative recruiting, but then a RB just left his program after his EE spot wasn't available so he may quiet down some on it

A new staff comes in to town, specifically requests on multiple occasions that the player should come camp to be evaluated in person, and the kid declines, while at the same time references that he has been to AA on about 20 occasions. That to me says that Swenson knew he wasn't good enough and was trying to do what he could to keep his spot. I could be wrong, there could have been two very unfortunate scheduling conflicts, but in my opinion, if you are going to rely on a staff to let you be a part of their elite class, you need to be able to provide them with something other than a sub-par tape. It's naive to think otherwise.

From Swensons side, it seems like the article is saying he didn't play that well Senior year because it was the year after surgery for a labrum (shoulder) injury and he was carrying bad weight which he has trimmed since going to Oklahoma.  It mentions that after being on the Scout team last year, he would compete for a backup spot at tackle.

1st year recruiting bumps for Harbaugh. There were no evil intentions by anyone just a lot of crossed signals and maybe the coaching staff wasn't clear cut in their explanations. Lack of communication is what it comes down to. I think Harbaugh and the staff learned quite a bit from that first recruiting cycle and it's been smooth sailing since.

OP you should really put a Teddy Greenstein warning in your post

Of all three accounts, the high school coach's seems the strangest, particularly his recounting of his conversation with Harbaugh, which honestly makes little to no sense. I get that the situation was not ideal for all involved, but there seems to be absolutely zero self-reflection coming from Molinari. Even Harbaugh admitted that he could have handled it better. Kids getting pushed out in the transition between coaches isn't all that uncommon, and it sucks that things went down the way they did, but this guy seems to be making shit up to slam Harbaugh and save his own ass. 

Also, am I the only one that finds it funny that Greenstein, as an example of how completely unprecedented Harbaugh's actions were, brings up the example of Paul Finebaum clutching his pearls over Randy Edsall's recruiting? Talk about glass houses...

 

Seems like this is a classic case of miscommunication...lot was lost in translation. Harbaugh admitted he could've done better. Swenson is happy where he is, let's all move on.

Hope this Swenson kid doesn't talk like that to NFL executives or coaches if they are interested in him. If he really did make the comment about being a four star and not having to come to a camp, then he is in the wrong obviously. I remember playing with and against little brats back in the day who were entitled and special. Knocked most of them on their asses more than once. Oklahoma kissed his ass I'm guessing because they needed to fill a lineman spot desperately. It is a business just like the NFL. We'll see how far he gets there with his attitude.

New coaches who have never seen you play and you're coming off an injury? Oh they're holding some camps where they could see you in person?

            "Nah -- how 'bout you watch my tape"

Yeah - I wouldn't sign him either.

that we need help on the OL, and the fact that the kid was a life long UM fan (and now isn't after this experience).  Too bad for all concerned, but something like this was inevitable when Harbaugh showed up and raised the standards for literally everything and everyone.

Clicked on the link before I realized it was greenstein - read it anyway. Teddy sounds quite full of himself in it.

Sounds like the kid had the wrong people in his ear and tried to hide the injury.

Takes a lot of bad advice and ego to go against what your future college coach is asking you to do.

The section from Swenson's high school coach was a bit harsh. And I wonder which college coaches called him and said, "That's why we hate Michigan. Or Harbaugh." Such BS. Anyway, I'm glad it all worked out for Erik. Hopefully, Michigan can avoid this type of recruiting drama in the future. 

I read the article THEN realized Teddy "Bawl Game" wrote the piece.  Now I hate myself.  Just another whiney ass writer with no skin in the game who gets to pass judgement on someone without truly knowing both sides. When deadlines become more important than truth you get #alternativefacts

 

This is all I'll say, when Harbaugh tells you to come to camp by god you go to that camp. This sounds like a new hire telling his new boss he's going to do things his way.

Butthurt is still strong for him to root hard for FSU. What a tool

Based on just the article, if anyone dropped the ball here it was the HS coach.  He should have given better, frank, advice to Swenson instead of just supporting Swenson's choices.  Harbaugh's mistake was assuming this HS coach could take a hint about what was happening, that the kid needed to show the new staff more, and that backfired on JH--to which he's readily admitting.  I would further argue that if this HS coach had prior experience with big-time recruiting, as the article says he does, then he damn-well should have known what was going on and told the kid to get to camp or play better because his scholarship depends on it.   He did the kid a disservice and now he's blaming JH.

I still have mixed feeling about this whole situation. My opinion or feelings don't matter so it is what it is. I just know for a fact this is a similar thing that has happened to 1-2 recruits I know personally and we're kinda told one thing and not the other. But anyway let's just hope that we Michigan don not end up like OSU, FSU AND Bama in terms of cutting players or making them looks elsewhere when we may have softened on a player.

Ironically we could really currently use a backup tackle who redshirted last year with potential to start this year vs praying for 1-2 freshman saviors.

In light of the injury it will be interesting to see if that was part of his downfall of his senior year play or lack of motivation as he thought he had a spot secured, etc.

Will be interesting to see how his career unfolds at Oklahoma.  Hopefully it is not David Reese 2.0 where we freeze out a guy who has ppositive impact elsewhere at a position of need.

For improving the process. He will make sure this happens. Also TG will never give us a fair assessment. One of the snarkiest reporters in the business.

Harbaugh holding himself accountable. Could've handled the communication process better. But by god, when your future coach asks you to come to a camp for an evaluation, it's probably in your best interest to go.

Telling your coach (who is essentially your future boss) that you're not coming, and that he ought to just evaluate you on your tape, is not going to do you any favors. He didn't recruit you, so he has every right to ask you to show up. And to some, that could come off as arrogance.

There are certainly sides of this where Harbaugh could've handled the situation better. But it's a two way street. Either way, I'm happy there are no hard feelings and that Swenson got what he ultimately wanted.