Harbaugh uses loophole to coach at Alabama, Texas camps

Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh and his staff are taking advantage of a Big Ten rule loophole, as Penn State coach James Franklin did last year. The Michigan program will be featured at satellite football camps this summer at Prattville High School in Alabama and in Grand Prairie, Texas, just outside Dallas.

At Prattville, the four-hour session costs $25 and will be held June 5, according to a camp flier, which also indicated the focus will be on individual skills and technique.

Harbaugh also will be featured at the "Dallas Showtyme Elite Football Camp" on June 9 for players in 10th through 12th grades. The camp is also four hours and costs $50.

Franklin and Penn State worked camps with Georgia State and Stetson last year. The camps give players, most of whom can't travel to camps around the country, the opportunity to be exposed to coaching, and, obviously, it gives the staff a chance to look at players as potential recruits.

Coaches are not permitted by the NCAA to work camps 50 miles outside of their campuses, but the Big Ten allows coaches to work in a guest capacity at camps.

The SEC and ACC don't allow that loophole, which is why, for instance, LSU coach Les Miles could only watch his son participate in last summer's Sound Mind Sound Body camp in Detroit and could not participate as a coach.

This likely will not be the last camp in which Michigan will participate. According to Brandon Brown, a recruiting analyst for TheWolverine.com, expect Michigan to work camps in the Houston and Tampa areas.