Football world comes to FAU

Kiffin hosts satellite camp for prospects

BOCA RATON — On a rain-soaked Monday afternoon, Florida Atlantic’s campus served as a main attraction to the college football world, welcoming elite national programs to participate in a satellite camp with hundreds of high school prospects.

Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh and Oregon coach Willie Taggart each made the trip to Boca Raton, along with coaches from Tennessee, USC, Illinois, Vanderbilt, Arkansas, Auburn and Keiser University.

Florida Atlantic coach Lane Kiffin said he allowed any school that wanted to attend the camp to come, including two of his former employers. Kiffin coached Tennessee in 2009 and USC from 2010 to 2013.

“This is about affording kids opportunities to go places,” Kiffin said. “Leaving a school years ago — I’ve got great respect for their staff at Tennessee. I’ve always had great things to say about our time there at Tennessee. There was no reason to not let them come.

“You guys are thinking that I let these schools come in here because it’s helping us get better players to our camp. I never look at it that way. I think that the guys that we’re recruiting that we want were coming.”

More than 300 players attended the camp held on the fields behind the Oxley Center on FAU’s campus.

Camps have become an important part of recruiting in college football in recent years. They allow local prospects to receive instruction and perform for coaches they otherwise might not have contacted. They give

coaches another evaluation tool in the recruiting process and extend their reach into different geographical areas.

Over the past few years, coaches at larger SEC schools (like Nick Saban at Alabama) have vehemently opposed satellite camps, since they infringed on southern recruiting territory. But Kiffin, Alabama’s offensive coordinator the past three seasons, said he always supported them.

“I would be for them no matter what conference I was in,” Kiffin said.

Harbaugh has been perhaps the most prominent backer of satellite camps, hosting concurrent camps last year at St. Thomas Aquinas and University School. A NCAA rule change mandated that camps must now take place on college campuses and schools only have 10 days to work at camps.

“It’s very beneficial for us to be here,” Harbaugh said.

Kiffin lauded Michigan’s heavy camp schedule, with coaches working multiple camps a day, but acknowledged that the Big Ten power is working in a different sphere than FAU is.

“We aspire to be like Jim Harbaugh,” Kiffin joked. “No, he does a great job and he gets everywhere. They have the resources there to do that, too. Private planes do a lot to get all that done. We’ve tried to do as much as we can. We don’t nationally recruit as much as they do.”

Harbaugh and Kiffin are two of the most polarizing figures in college football. Harbaugh draws eyes for his team trips to Italy and recruiting tactics that once included sleeping at a recruit’s house. Kiffin garners attention with his deadpan sarcasm, noticeable Twitter presence and scholarship offers to middle schoolers.

The two crossed paths as head coaches on the West Coast, when Kiffin was USC’s coach and Harbaugh led Stanford.

“I like him because he doesn’t care what you guys think — or what anybody thinks,” Kiffin said of Harbaugh. “He’s just always done what’s in the best interest of his program, which, to me, is what you’re hired to do. You can’t worry about what everybody writes and what they think about you.”

Harbaugh praised Kiffin’s past as part of what could make him successful on the recruiting trail.

“He’s a proven guy,” Harbaugh said. “He’s obviously been good. He’s got good traits.”

“This is about affording kids opportunities to go places.” Lane Kiffin, FAU head coach

Kiffin