If you’ve been paying much attention, you would know that Jim Harbaugh, head coach for UM, is attempting to change the game in terms of recruiting. He’s made cakes, he’s made prom/commitment proposals, he’s done new recruiting camps, he’s requested to have some of his team’s spring camp played in Florida at IMG Academy, he’s played shirtless football with recruits, and now he has taken things to a new level of strangeness.
In a recent interview with Scout.com, the nations #1 ranked kicker, and Penn State commit, Quinn Nordin spoke of a recent request Jim Harbaugh had for him. Jim wanted to spend the night with him and spend the whole next day with him the minute the recruiting dead period expired.
“Under the exact rules, he’s going to be at my house at 12:01 he said. That’s when it’s legal for him to be at my house. He said we can watch a movie, see how well we gel and he said he would sleep over after that.” said Nordin. “He told me if I had a 6-foot-3 inch piece of carpet for him to sleep on, that would be enough. I said we have guest rooms, and he said ‘Tell you what, I’ll just sleep on the floor in your room.’ I said ‘Coach, I have Penn State stuff all over my walls.’ He said, ‘Tell you what, I can help you take it down.'”
For a man in his 50’s coming over to hang out, watch a movie with, and sleeping in the same bedroom with a high school senior seems pretty strange. But, then again, it’s not out of character for him.
So, what does this mean for the state of recruiting? Will coaches have to begin to reach to these levels to compete for the blue-chips? Well, since this just recently came out, and the “sleepover” is happening right now, that remains to be seen. Will more coaches do strange things like this? Most likely, yes. Coaches will do anything within the rules to try and get an advantage anywhere on the recruiting trail, and things like this are certainly unique. They’re weird, yes, but if they sign big time recruits, then we’ll have to deal with it.
Do I foresee any Ohio State coaches trying to stay the night at a kid’s house? Heck no. Especially since Urban signed the “Pink Contract” that his daughter, Nicki, made, Urban is a family man. He works extremely hard, but he makes sure to be able to spend time with family. These type of “recruiting pitches” totally take away from that. The limited time you would have with your family; gone. If things like this happen to become the norm, I think some of the CFB coaches would move on, because that consistent level of recruiting would simply be too much.
Again, I don’t think there is any way these type of things could become normal in college football recruiting, but I do expect to continue to see our rivals do weird things. That is their trademark. They do bizarre things that snatch the attention of the media, and more importantly, the recruits.
Overall, though, success on the field will still be at the top of what recruits want when picking schools. That won’t change, so as long as football is still played on the field, Urban Meyer and the Buckeyes will be just fine winning, and letting Jim Harbaugh and the Wolverines continue being weird.
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