As soon as Jim Harbaugh became the Michigan football coach, he planned an invasion.

His mission was to infiltrate the South and pilfer some of the region’s best players. It was a bold strategy that riled up the denizens of SEC country who viewed Harbaugh’s campaign as an act of northern aggression.

But for a time, it was successful.

Less than six weeks after arriving in Ann Arbor, Harbaugh landed a defensive back, Keith Washington, who grew up just outside Montgomery, Alabama. The following year, Harbaugh reeled in players from four Southern states. In the ensuing cycle, he continued to make headway below the Mason-Dixon line – pulling in multiple signees who played high school football in Georgia, Florida and Alabama.

But as a new decade approached, the flow of prospects from the South to Michigan began to slow.

As the finishing touches were put on the 2020 class Wednesday, the Wolverines’ next crop of prospects included just one player raised in the backyard of the SEC – four-star defensive end Jaylen Harrell of Tampa (Florida) Berkeley Prep.

It’s the latest indication that Michigan and Harbaugh have retreated from the sport’s heartland.

“I don’t see them being as visible as they once were,” said former Prattville (Alabama) High School coach Chad Anderson.

Not too long ago, Anderson would have found that hard to believe.

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'Saban isn’t real happy about this'

Five years ago, Harbaugh stormed back into the world of college football and zeroed in on Alabama, where the Crimson Tide and Auburn Tigers won seven of nine national championships from 2009-2017.

In the central part of Dixie, Harbaugh aimed to disrupt the natural order of things. An invitation to speak at the Autauga Education Foundation’s A-Plus banquet dinner in Prattville, Alabama, provided him the opportunity. As a chance to secure his commitment, Harbaugh was offered a round at a local course on the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail.

“I don’t really play golf,” Harbaugh said, according to Anderson. “I coach football.”

So that’s what he did. A satellite camp was arranged in Prattville, a Montgomery suburb that sits almost equidistant between Tuscaloosa and Auburn.

On a June day, Harbaugh ran around a field for four hours, offering instruction while wearing his trademark khaki pants – removing his shirt at one point as he kept his blue cap with the maize block M affixed to his head.

“It was a great event,” Anderson said.

But it was also controversial, sparking an outcry from SEC coaches peeved by Harbaugh’s encroachment. Kirby Smart, Alabama’s defensive coordinator at the time, went as far as to express his frustration to Anderson while relaying a message from his boss, Nick Saban.

“He said, ‘Man, what’s going on down there?’” Anderson said, recalling the conversation. "'Coach Saban isn’t real happy about this.' I said, ‘Well, it’s good for our kids. I am not going to deny our kids a good experience.’”

Harbaugh didn’t seem to mind the blowback.

It created buzz around his program that Harbaugh planned to harness in his sales pitch to prospects. He then doubled down on his crusade to create inroads along the Southern corridor of the recruiting trail. He added Prattville assistant coach Antonio (Bam) Richards to his staff as an offensive analyst in 2016. That same year, he held a segment of spring practice at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida. He staged even more camps in Pearl, Mississippi, and Mobile, Alabama, showing up to one in the jersey of Atlanta Falcons star Julio Jones, who went to Alabama.

All of a sudden, Michigan resonated in a crowded landscape dotted with competitive football programs.

“Harbaugh, he's just very interactive,” said Wolverines receiver Nico Collins.

War of attrition

Collins was raised in a suburb of Birmingham that is about a 90-minute drive from Tuscaloosa. His family cheered for Alabama, and the Crimson Tide began to chase the tall wideout as he became an emerging talent. But by May 2016, roughly 17 months into Harbaugh’s tenure, Michigan was already on Collins’ radar. He then made repeated visits to Ann Arbor before signing the following winter.

“People who grow up in Alabama, you go to Alabama,” said Collins, a former four-star prospect who led the Wolverines in touchdown receptions in 2019. “I saw this mainly as an opportunity to be different. And I feel like that's what I did. I chose Michigan, I did what was best for me.”

Collins was among four scholarship players from Alabama to enroll at Michigan during Harbaugh’s first three years at Michigan, yet he’s the only one who didn’t leave the school before his eligibility expired.

A similar hit rate was seen on Harbaugh’s signees from Georgia. Of the six players who came from there to Ann Arbor in Harbaugh's first four recruiting cycles, two are still members of the team – running back Christian Turner and linebacker Michael Barrett.

The attrition, while remarkable, comes as no surprise to Anderson.

He points to the case of Kingston Davis, a Prattville product who left Michigan after his freshman season and then took a meandering journey back to his home state before running into trouble.

“It doesn’t work out for some of them,” Anderson said. “It may have been the distance of it or they’re a little homesick. I don’t know. I would imagine it’s pretty difficult to come from out of town and recruit this area because your Alabamas and Auburns and Georgias and all those schools have such ties into the kids there and the love, too.”

'Kind of difficult to break in'

For a program outside the region, recruiting the South is indeed a huge undertaking. It involves relentless legwork and consistent outreach. Yet the Wolverines’ efforts to maintain a connection there have been impeded by staff turnover. Richards left the program after only a year. Around the same time, running backs coach Tyrone Wheatley had moved on to the NFL. The former Michigan great had kept an open line of communication with Anderson, checking in on any emerging prospects in the area.

Once Wheatley was gone, Anderson said, “We really never heard from them.”

Was that by circumstance or design? Had Michigan and Harbaugh given up on their ambitious mission to make the Wolverines a presence in SEC country?

It’s hard to say.

“Michigan is recruiting to win a national championship,” said Steve Wiltfong, an insider with 247Sports. “Most of the guys that ... you’re going to say this is a guy that is going to help us win a title are also being recruited by Alabama, Auburn and LSU. That’s just a tough area to recruit for any school that is not in the SEC.”

For a while, Harbaugh tried, realizing mixed results that could make anyone question whether it was worth the effort and resources to wage a battle in a foreign land that was unwinnable.

Whether he’ll try again is uncertain.

But as Anderson said of the South, “It’s kind of difficult to break in.”

Contact Rainer Sabin at rsabin@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @RainerSabin.