On Monday it was reported that the SEC would not permit its coaches to serve as guest speakers at Michigan’s football camp this June. League-wide edict or not, that was never going to happen.
For the uninitiated, in light of criticism of his action to host satellite camps throughout its recruiting territory, last week Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh invited every coach in America to attend the Wolverines’ football camp in June. He left a special note in the invite for SEC and ACC coaches, saying, “Where college coaches are restricted from working a camp outside of a 50-mile radius of their campus, we cordially invite your head coach to be our keynote speaker.”
It looks like a number of SEC programs have responded to that cordial invitation with a “respectfully declined” RSVP.
Here’s Auburn athletics director Jay Jacobs:Auburn AD Jay Jacobs was asked if he thought any SEC coaches would take up Jim Harbaugh’s camp offer. “Mine’s not.”
— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) April 28, 2015
And Georgia head coach Mark Richt:
Mark Richt on Jim Harbaugh’s camp invitation to all coaches: “I don’t know how many guys wanna go up there and freeze their tail off.”
— Seth Emerson (@SethEmerson) April 28, 2015
SEC and ACC head coaches were never making the trip up to Ann Arbor, but that wasn’t the point. Harbaugh has coaches in the South looking defensive and reacting to him, not the other way around. For a guy who hasn’t even coached a game yet, that might as well be his first victory.