Michigan's Harbaugh storms into Sunshine State, IMG Academy
It wasn’t just the football players. There were tennis players and soccer stars, basketball standouts and golfers. They were gathered in a classroom and listening to a laundry list of rules for the week.
The meeting was neither short nor carefree. The tone was serious and the restrictions outlined were, in a word, stringent.
This is the Harbaugh Effect playing out now in Bradenton, Fla., on the IMG Academy campus.
Second-year coach Jim Harbaugh has taken his Michigan Wolverines to IMG – the top talent-producing high school football program in America – for four spring practices this week.
A recruiting ploy? Sure it is. At least, partially.
But any advantage the Big Ten program gains by holding workouts in a hotbed of talent 1,200 miles from its campus will be obtained through a web of red tape.
Regardless of how it’s been portrayed, the Wolverines’ Sunshine State vacation isn’t an unabashed free for all on IMG athletes and prospects throughout South Florida. That much was made clear from the jump. The eyes of four-star offensive lineman Cesar Ruiz widened as he recalled the lecture. He shook his head in awe as he spoke.
“They told us – told the whole school – we can’t have any contact with the staff or players … at all,” said Ruiz, who holds a scholarship offer from the Wolverines. “Even when you see them, you can’t say ‘hi.’ You can’t have communication with anyone. I assumed they were doing this for recruiting, but if they can’t talk to any of us … ”
Whatever the motivation or the result, Michigan is in the midst of holding four practices on IMG’s Florida campus. Only Friday’s workout will be open to the public. While on campus Michigan coaches are allowed to speak to IMG coaches without restraint but can have zero contact with student-athletes due to the NCAA-imposed recruiting quiet period.
Still, that doesn’t necessarily mean the Michigan brand won’t be advanced. The 13 four- and five-star players that help make up IMG’s 2017 class will attend Friday’s workout as part of a team activity. Their underclassmen teammates that will soon populate the Rivals.com rankings will be in the stands as well.
“We’re not really allowed to even promote it,” said Rivals100 offensive lineman Robert Hainsey, an IMG Academy junior. “We’re not allowed to tweet about it or even really talk about it that much, so I can’t even say much right now. I just know I’m going to be at the practice Friday.”
The sound of Michigan’s practice drum is muted outside of the IMG campus. A few Tampa-area players such as highly regarded 2018 wide receiver Jermaine Eskridge plan to attend the workout. The further you get away from the event’s epicenter, however, the more apathy you encounter.
A Florida feeding frenzy this is not.
“Honesty, I haven’t heard one peep about it,” said Shawn Rose, who helps run the Ft. Lauderdale-based South Florida Express, an elite 7-on-7 program that houses Rivals100 talent on a yearly basis.
So what’s the point? Well, it depends who you ask. According to Michigan Chief of Compliance Services Elizabeth Heinrich, the reasons are many, even if they aren’t ones on which she elaborates.
“There were several reasons that they wanted to explore it, but I think the coaches are probably better at discussing those reasons than I am,” Heinrich said.
According to Heinrich, the fact that off-site spring practices are relatively new made the process of getting everything up to code with the NCAA a bit difficult. In essence, the NCAA’s job is to limit the recruiting advantages of such a move and Heinrich’s duty is to make sure the program complies with such rules.
“I think it’s one of those where it’s new and different, so there are things you have to work through,” Heinrich said.
On the surface, the recruiting impact of the weeklong event seems limited. Then, the four Florida-based practices aren’t taking place in a vacuum. The workouts are undeniably part of a larger theme. Michigan signed six players from Florida last cycle and recently hired Devin Bush, a Miami-area high school coach fresh off a state championship, as a defensive analyst.
Michigan’s recruiting efforts in Florida are multifold. And, when they’re viewed as a larger strategy, another uptick in Sunshine State success seems pretty inevitable. A few practices at a high school are a drop in a much larger bucket.
“The staff has made Florida a priority from what I've seen,” said Ft. Lauderdale-based running back Mike Epstein, who holds a Michigan offer. “I feel like they’re attacking this area. It's really smart because this is where the talent is. Just talked to them yesterday, and they’re down here at IMG. They’re establishing relationships down here.”