Remember last May when James Franklin took his staff down to Florida and Georgia to work high school football camps, exposing an NCAA loophole in an effort to expand their recruiting footprint to the fertile southern states known for churning out top notch college football players?
Well Jim Harbaugh is following suit, taking his Michigan staff down to Alabama for a day camp at Prattville HS, followed five days later with a camp just outside of Dallas at Grand Prairie HS.
As you can see, Prattville HS has already tabbed the event as the biggest event in the school's history, so that should give you an idea of the turnout of talent that's expected.
In case you've forgotten, NCAA rules restrict schools from hosting football camps more than 50 miles outside of their campus. Therefore, instead of hosting a camp of their own outside that 50 mile radius, coaches are heading outside that umbrella and assisting at a handful of high school camps. Franklin and his staff were the first (at least that I'm aware of) to take advantage of the loophole, and Brian Kelly and the Notre Dame staff followed shortly after, choosing to expand their footprint out in Los Angeles.
This move is bound to rub a handful of coaches the wrong way (namely those in SEC and Big 12 country), but the numbers show the top players in college football come from the South, so it's only logical that coaches like Harbaugh and Franklin use every available opportunity to raid the talent-rich southern states in any way possible.
The reward of expanding your program's brand and recruiting footprint far outweigh the negatives of ruffling a few feathers here and there, so expect to see this trend continue as long as the loophole remains open.
(H/T MLive)