NCAA to consider outlawing football satellite camps

One definition of success is when rules are changed based on your actions.

That's what the ACC and SEC are trying to do to combat Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh's satellite camps.

NCAA membership will review 72 legislative proposals in the coming months, and eliminating satellite camps is one of them: "An ACC proposal that would apply to all of Division I if adopted would require a Football Bowl Subdivision school's camp to be held on the school's campus and limit FBS coaches and football personnel to working at only those camps. A similar proposal from the SEC would limit FBS coaches and football personnel to working at camps sponsored by his or her school."

Why do those two conferences care? They have rules restricting their coaches from participating in camps outside a certain radius (50 miles in the SEC) of their campus.

Instead of lifting their own rules, their intent is to prevent other schools from entering their territory, where many of the nation's top prospects live.

Satellite camps -- in which college football coaches can go far from their campus to assist at a high school camp run by someone else -- were few and far between in recent years.

But when Harbaugh took over at Michigan, he wanted to expand it and took his staff on an nine-day barnstorming tour this summer, hitting Indiana, Alabama, Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania and California.

While many SEC and ACC coaches complained that they were restricted by league rules, Georgia coach Mark Richt said that the camp period fell when his staff had time off, and he didn't want them to have to work then.

Harbaugh already has begun to line up next summer's trip, telling those in Prattville, Ala., at a dinner this summer that he planned to return. There also is a plan for one in Virginia.

Contact Mark Snyder at msnyder@freepress.com . Follow him on Twitter at @mark__snyder. Download our new Wolverines Xtra app on iTunesand Android!