{"id":33897,"date":"2016-06-02T08:00:40","date_gmt":"2016-06-02T15:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/alabamas-saban-rips-satellite-camps-harbaugh-fires-back\/"},"modified":"2016-06-02T08:00:40","modified_gmt":"2016-06-02T15:00:40","slug":"alabamas-saban-rips-satellite-camps-harbaugh-fires-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/sports\/alabamas-saban-rips-satellite-camps-harbaugh-fires-back\/","title":{"rendered":"Alabama’s Saban rips satellite camps, Harbaugh fires back"},"content":{"rendered":"

DESTIN, Fla.<\/strong> \u2014 Alabama coach Nick Saban said Tuesday he wasn\u2019t going to talk about satellite camps \u2014 and then he ranted about them.<\/p>\n

And he clearly got Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know how much it benefits anybody because all the people that say this is creating opportunities for kids, this is all about recruiting,\u201d Saban said at the Southeastern Conference\u2019s annual meeting. \u201cThat\u2019s what it\u2019s about. … What\u2019s amazing to me is somebody didn\u2019t stand up and say here\u2019s going to be the unintended consequences of what you all are doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saban\u2019s words didn\u2019t take long to reach Ann Arbor.<\/p>\n

Harbaugh responded on Twitter, saying, \u201c\u2018Amazing\u2019 to me \u2014 Alabama broke NCAA rules & now their HC is lecturing us on the possibility of rules being broken at camps. Truly \u2018amazing.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The SEC was at the forefront of wanting satellite camps banned. Harbaugh has been front and center on using the camps to boost recruiting outside Michigan, even hosting a high-profile one in Florida earlier this year.<\/p>\n

The Division I Council approved a proposal last month requiring Football Bowl Subdivision schools \u201cto conduct camps and clinics at their school\u2019s facilities or at facilities regularly used for practice or competition.\u201d The measure, which was endorsed by the SEC, also said \u201cFBS coaches and non-coaching staff members with responsibilities specific to football may be employed only at their school\u2019s camps or clinics.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the NCAA Division I Board of Directors rescinded that ban in early May. With the ban lifted, SEC coaches reluctantly started taking part in satellite camps.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we do have prospects in those camps and we do see how they do, but that\u2019s not what the camp is for,\u201d Saban said. \u201cNot from our standpoint. So why would we be promoting somebody else\u2019s camp anywhere? Because it\u2019s the same thing I said before: This is the only sport where the high school still mattered. What they did at the high school mattered. All you\u2019re doing is allowing all these other people that we spend all of our time at the NCAA saying, \u2018You can\u2019t recruit through a third party.\u2019 You can\u2019t be involved with third-party people and that\u2019s exactly what you\u2019re doing, creating all these third parties that are going to get involved with the prospects and all that.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd who gets exposed on that? I go to a camp and I\u2019m talking to some guy I don\u2019t know from Adam\u2019s house cat and he\u2019s representing some kid because he put the camp on, and then I\u2019m in trouble for talking to this guy? And who even knows if the guy paid to go to the camp. Is the NCAA going to do that? I mean, we do that at our camp. We have people responsible. They\u2019re called compliance folks. What kind of compliance people do we have at these camps?\u201d<\/p>\n

Saban also said the camps are \u201cbad for college football.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Crimson Tide coach added \u201cthere needs to be somebody that looks out for what\u2019s best for the game, not what\u2019s best for the Big Ten or what\u2019s best for the SEC or what\u2019s best for Jim Harbaugh, but what\u2019s best for the game of college football \u2014 the integrity of the game, the coaches, the players and the people that play it. That\u2019s bigger than all of this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saban said each of the Power Five conferences continue to campaign for what they want, often creating the kind of chaos that surrounded satellite camps earlier this year.<\/p>\n

Saban said someone should be overseeing all of it. Asked who he would want in the role, Saban didn\u2019t have anyone specific in mind.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have a candidate. I\u2019m not in politics,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m just telling you what I think, what needs to be done.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DESTIN, Fla. \u2014 Alabama coach Nick Saban said Tuesday he wasn\u2019t going to talk about satellite camps \u2014 and then he ranted about them. And he clearly got Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh\u2019s attention. \u201cI don\u2019t know how much it benefits anybody because all the people that say this is creating opportunities for kids, this is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":6,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-33897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33897\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33897"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=33897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}