ANN ARBOR — Think like an 18-year-old recruit.
What do you see? What can you tweet? What looks cool? Is there anything cooler than Tom Brady, Derek Jeter and Jim Harbaugh on the same couch talking about you on one couch while Lou Holtz, Mike Shanahan and Todd McShay are breaking down your high school highlights across the stage in front of a full auditorium of adoring fans before you’ve even taken a snap for that school?
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That’s the visual Harbaugh created at the Signing of the Stars at Hill Auditorium on National Signing Day on Wednesday, a two-hour program that served as another game-changer in the always competitive can-you-top-this-at-all-costs world of recruiting.
Did it go too far? How much is too much?
“People will do something similar or they’ll criticize it,” Harbaugh said. “It worked for us.”
Bet on the former because this did work for Michigan, which reeled in a top-10 class heading into Harbaugh’s second season. Harbaugh spun an event dedicated to the memory of Chad Carr, the 5-year-old grandson of former Michigan coach Lloyd Carr who passed away in November.
The two-hour telethon rolled “The View,” “SportsCenter,” “The Oscars” and “Days of Our Lives” into a reality TV show, with former Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz serving as comic relief. A former Irish coach who once tormented Schembechler is now a recruiting tool for Harbaugh.
Think like an 18-year-old recruit. Michigan’s Kingston Davis sat on the couch after Brady introduced him. Heisman Trophy winners Desmond Howard and Charles Woodson introduced other recruits. Jim Leyland dabbed with Migos. Ric Flair let a roomful of “Woos” that he was “All Blue, baby.” The endless procession filled two hours with no commercial breaks. Harbaugh pulled out all the stops, while actor Randy Sklar kept the punchlines — even a few uncomfortable ones — rolling.
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“This is the whole deal,” new recruit Devin Bush said. “Michigan has so many connections and so many ties. A lot of great people. You have no choice but to meet them sometimes.”
Harbaugh used every one of those connections to start that next Signing Day trend, one that might be impossible to top. Harbaugh meshed Michigan’s tradition with enough ESPN and NFL connections to make any 18-year-old kid’s head spin. How do you top Brady, Jeter and Ric Flair?
“We take pride in setting standards and being leaders and best at Michigan,” Howard said afterward. “Did I foresee what (Harbaugh) was going to do? I don’t know recruiting and what you can and can’t do, I don’t know what the parameters are. This is thinking outside the box. This is what Michigan is about.”
It’s what Michigan is about now. A school that used to be too stuck in its own tradition for its own good has become the lead innovator in the always-viral, sometimes-superficial, always-important recruiting mechanism that feeds the nation’s best programs. A school that was on “Good Morning America” during the Shane Morris debacle in 2013 is now reeling in one-day PR of the best kind.
Harbaugh is competing with Clemson’s Dabo Swinney for coolest coach on the block and won’t be far from competing with Alabama’s Nick Saban and Ohio State’s Urban Meyer for best college coach on the block. Signing of the Stars walked the line of absurd, but Harbaugh’s out-of-box recruiting theories pushed the envelope just right. Former NFL GM Bill Polian introduced Bush. Ravens coach John Harbaugh joined the party. It’s different. It’s not a violation. Is it?
“Having been through this myself, you pull a fax out of a fax machine and a coach stands up and talks about it and usually says kind of the same thing,” Harbaugh said. “How do we do you something different; something awesome? I was really pleased with it, I think it was awesome with a capital A.”
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Think like an 18-year-old recruit. Howard said there’s a “synergy” around a program that is coming off a 10-3 season. The endless procession of alumni and celebrities is window dressing for what’s behind that curtain. Michigan has its best recruiting class in years, and Harbaugh already has plans for spring practice in Florida. The copycats are coming, too. All those powerhouses were watching.
What can we do to top that? Harbaugh already beat everybody else to satellite camps and sleepovers. And Signing of the Stars proved the ultimate party. Harbaugh says it’s time to get back to work, and chances are he’s thinking of the next big thing. Is the message behind it sound?
“What he did was keep it real with me the whole time,” Bush said of Harbaugh’s recruiting pitch. “He never promised me anything. His whole main message to me was this is your opportunity.”
Shortly before the end of Wednesday’s program, Harbaugh let everybody know “he heard some good news backstage.” Harbaugh couldn’t say yet, but Rashan Gary, the No. 1 recruit in the country, had just committed to Michigan. The Wolverines are assured a top-five class, one that will be measured by Wednesday’s party.
Is this the class that took the recruiting circus to a never-before-seen level? Or did recruiting just jump the shark?
It’s probably the former.
It doesn’t matter what the middle-aged critics are thinking. Think like an 18-year-old recruit. That’s what Harbaugh is doing, and he’s doing it bigger better than everybody else right now.
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