Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio, left, and Ohio State coach Urban Meyer talk Friday during the Sound Mind Sound Body camp at Wayne State.
What was Mark Dantonio doing at the Sound Mind Sound Body football camp Friday?
Didn’t Michigan State board up its football program and close up shop, forever condemned to competitive purgatory because there isn’t enough room within the state’s football bubble with Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh and his Summer Satellite Circus consuming all the media oxygen?
“We’re fine,” Dantonio said with a wink of the eye and a devilish smile.
Harbaugh dominates the headlines, perfectly meshing into an evolving communicative culture predicated more on social-media sniping than thought-provoking discourse. But the Michigan coach shared top billing with the Michigan State coach at the summer football camp at Wayne State.
Dantonio was as much of an attraction. There were a number of young players who shouted their congratulations to him while walking past him, praising him for making the playoffs last season.
How often does a coach accept accolades for losing, 38-0?
Then Ohio State coach Urban Meyer walked onto Tom Adams Field. He got there late. It was like Elvis walking onto the stage. Many stopped in their tracks, mesmerized by what they saw.
Several camp participants followed him, hoping for a quick word of encouragement. But Meyer was very careful in his responses, far more low-key than he was at last year’s Sound Mind Sound Body camp.
The NCAA is watching these camps much more closely. Who’s to blame? That’s a matter of preference. Is it Harbaugh’s fault for calling out the NCAA for ignoring the needs of young people? Is it the SEC’s fault for questioning Harbaugh’s motives? Or it is simply a sport that has grown into a ravenous monster feasting on its own hypocrisies?
U-M’s Jim Harbaugh steals show at Wayne State’s Sound Mind Sound Body
Sound Mind Sound Body does a tremendous job. The camp creates access, opening doors once closed.
But big-name coaches such as Meyer, Dantonio and Harbaugh are not interested in camps like these because they offer a chance for a young man to get a scholarship to Eastern Michigan or Bowling Green. They care only about how these camps help them. And that’s why the NCAA should take a more serious look at these camps.
Meyer wouldn’t take questions when approached Friday. He told the Free Press that the NCAA told him he couldn’t pose for pictures, sign autographs or talk to the media. When told that Dantonio and Harbaugh spoke with reporters earlier, Meyer shrugged his shoulders.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I normally would love to answer a couple of questions, but I’m going to follow what I’ve been told.”
Those looking for more back-biting Friday between Harbaugh and everybody else were disappointed.
“I can’t turn a show on, a talk show now, whether it’s political or sports, and it looks to be a template,” Harbaugh said. “OK, what’s going to be the topic? What side are you taking? OK, you talk about it being positive and you talk about it being negative. They banter back and forth, and then they’ve filled up 10 minutes of airtime. … It seems that these days every last single topic has fallen into that TV show, radio show template.”
But hasn’t Harbaugh willingly contributed to that perception?
“I’m stating the truth as I know it and believe it,” he said. “We’re going to stand our ground on that. You can play the devil’s advocate. That’s what we’re doing here.”
Harbaugh is a breath of fresh air who knows, in the absence of winning many big games so far, to deliver some big talk. But his closest competitors don’t seem terribly worried that he has dominated college football’s spring and summer.
Since the actual games are played in the fall.
Contact Drew Sharp: dsharp@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @drewsharp. To read his recent columns, go to freep.com/sports/drew-sharp/.