Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh and his staff have quite a busy June on tap with nine stops as guests at nine different football camps. Harbaugh’s group will be making appearances at camps in California, Florida, Texas, and Alabama in addition to various stops within the Big Ten’s traditional footprint. Harbaugh has also extended an open invitation to coaches around the country to come be a part of Michigan’s football camp. Harbaugh’s national summer tour of football camps has been one of the storylines this offseason as he and his staff have taken advantage of NCAA rules to work at camps, and he is not about to apologize for it.
“Our staff has been invited to help work at the camp(s) and it’s a great way for us to spread football, you know -- the joy and love of football,” Harbaugh said on the “Jim Rome Show” on Friday. “There’s also a recruiting element. You get to meet folks in different areas of the country. So I think it’s all good.”
Per NCAA rules, coaches at a school are restricted to running camps on campus, within its state boundaries or within a 50-mile radius of its campus if out-of-state. However, NCAA rules also allow coaches to work at any other camp -- dubbed satellite camps -- so long as they do not take part in organizing the camp or advertising their appearance at the specific camp. The school hosting the camp may advertise their appearance though.
The NCAA may allow this practice, but the ACC and SEC each have conference-specific rules prohibiting their coaches from taking advantage of the same freedom, and each conference has made a push to some degree to have the NCAA clamp down on the practice. The SEC even prohibited its coaches from attending Michigan’s camp.
Harbaugh, of course, is not alone in the act of working at satellite camps. Penn State’s James Franklin generated buzz last year by working camps in Georgia and Florida and Penn State’s coaches are once again going on the road to work camps this summer. Ohio State is getting in on the act. So is Nebraska and Notre Dame and more.
As for Michigan’s football camp, Harbaugh says the reception to the open invite has been well-received.
“I love it that Ivy League coaches are coming to our camp and Big Ten coaches are coming to our camp,” Harbaugh said. “South Florida is coming. We’ve got about 70 schools that are coming to our camp.”
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