EASTON, Pa. — Jim Harbaugh worked the crowd of mostly 15- through 17-year-old football players, pacing left to right, and started with his signature question.
“Who’s got it better than us?” the Michigan football coach shouted to players scattered around a turf field Sunday afternoon at Lafayette College.
“Nobody!” Harbaugh said as he pumped his fists before yelling his mantra again.
Lately, few college coaches have had it better than Harbaugh, who continues to ruffle the feathers of peers as his “Summer Swarm” tour, complete with nine camps in nine days, bounces from one recruiting hotbed to the next.
Sunday’s stop at Lauren’s First and Goal, a clinic where Harbaugh served as the guest speaker while his assistant coaches helped run positional drills along with 300 other college coaches, was the farthest north on Harbaugh’s tour.
In Penn State football’s backyard and 180 miles from Beaver Stadium, Harbaugh didn’t rip off his T-shirt and run around with players in his signature khakis like he did last week in Prattville, Ala. He also didn’t pick up a verbal commitment from a three-star running back like he did at his first stop last week in Indianapolis.
He addressed the crowd of more than 2,000 campers for about 25 minutes,then the real swarm started.
Autograph seekers and fans waited for a chance to take a picture with Harbaugh or settle for a handshake. Many dressed in maize and blue wanted a glimpse of the man whose open letter to college football coaches, the one where he invited them to Michigan’s satellite camp even though conference rules prohibit Southeastern Conference and ACC coaches from doing so, knows just what buttons to push.
“If Harbaugh was quiet when he got there, then it would’ve been a problem,” said Shannon Watson, whose son Brandon is a defensive back for the Wolverines. Watson took in the camp from the sidelines. “That intensity he’s shown with everybody is holding true with the team’s practices, too.”
Harbaugh’s Pennsylvania stop was short lived, lasting an hour at most, and players weren’t put through combine-specific drills or even weighed in. It wasn’t littered with four-and five-star talents, but instead many rising high school seniors looking for a spot on a team and others who learned from the 300-plus coaches who attended the one-day clinic that raised more than $132,000 for brain tumor research and cancer services.
“I feel like the [satellite] camps are positive for the players; it’s great exposure for them and if you have the ability to do it and your competitors have the ability to do it, then you better be doing it,” said Rutgers coach Kyle Flood. He was the camp’s guest speaker two years ago.
“We try to do them within our recruiting footprint, and this is certainly within our footprint,” he added.
Flood said there will be a “recruiting evaluation aspect” to the clinic, but said he sees the event as more of a fundraiser and show of support to the family of Lauren Loose, the now high school senior whose fight as a pediatric brain tumor survivor is the reason the camp began 12 years ago.
Harbaugh declined all media requests, but chatted with Flood and posed for pictures. Flood said Rutgers will “be in the state of Florida” as they conduct their satellite camps this summer.
“I like what Harbaugh is doing and getting under peoples’ skin a little bit,” said Dwayne Thomas, head coach of Eastern Christian Academy in Elkton, Md. Harbaugh has a verbal commitment from one of Thomas’ players, three-star linebacker Dele Harding, who is a member of Michigan’s 2016 recruiting class.
“He’s going to Florida, Alabama, California and getting a lot of these coaches a little nervous,” Thomas said. “That’s good for the Big Ten.”
Penn State didn’t have coaches on hand Sunday, but James Franklin and his staff will hit the road next week for satellite camps in the greater Chicago area, greater Atlanta area, Charlotte, Virginia Beach and Detroit. It’s another chance for the Nittany Lions to continue expanding their recruiting footprint after serving as guest coaches in Florida and Georgia last summer.
•
NOTE — Penn State announced the Big Ten Council of Presidents and Chancellors opted to give the school its 2014-15 Big Ten bowl revenue. The Nittany Lions will receive approximately $4.5 million, thus ending the revenue sharing ban. From 2012-14, Penn State’s bowl revenue was split among conference teams and used for local child sex abuse organizations.
Audrey Snyder: asnyder@post-gazette.com and Twitter: @audsnyder4.
First Published: June 8, 2015, 4:00 a.m.
