Michigan’s use of staffer exposes Harbaugh
In the Michigan community directory and on the athletic department’s website, Ryan Osborn is listed as an analyst.
The men who hold these positions tend to operate in the shadows while scouting opponents, formulating detailed game plans, crunching data and consulting with on-field assistants.
What they can’t do, according to the NCAA, is coach.
But multiple people inside the program have said Osborn has been doing just that.
Taylor Upshaw, one of the team’s eight newly labeled edge defenders, revealed as much during an April 5 news conference. He told reporters Osborn was leading his position subgroup instead of third-year defensive line coach Shaun Nua.
“The reality is Nua is more like a Dtackles coach right now,” Upshaw said. “Coach Osborn is really our main guy. He knows what he’s talking about. He’s a good coach. You can tell just with his passion and the things he’s getting us right with our technique.”
An anonymous Michigan edge player
told the Free Press in May that Osborn helped refine his footwork and taught a different way to “flip our hips.”
He then added, “Coach Nua and Coach Oz, it’s interchangeable...they are interchangeable, man. They serve the same purpose. They’re both coaches. Nobody is doing more or less.”
But according to section 11.7 of the NCAA manual, Osborn is prohibited from providing “technical or tactical instruction … to a student-athlete at any time” and is “prohibited from participating … in on-field activities.” .
No word on self-reporting
A week after preseason practice began this month, Harbaugh acknowledged Osborn overstepped his bounds in the spring.
“We’ve addressed that,” he said last Friday. “Ryan Osborn is an analyst; he has got to do analyst duties. That correction has been made. We’re all on top of it. Myself included. Once we became aware of that, put a stop to it.”
Asked Monday if Michigan self-reported Osborn’s activities to the Big Ten or NCAA, a U-M spokesman did not answer directly.
Harbaugh’s had a lot to say on the topic
Osborn’s potential brush with an NCAA violation came less than a year after Harbaugh chastised Ohio State’s Ryan Day during an August 2020 Big Ten coaches call about a Buckeyes assistant pictured working with players at a time when on-field instruction was forbidden. It was the latest instance that Harbaugh had taken a vocal stance about following the letter of the law. During his first season at Michigan, Harbaugh was rankled when the Wolverines were whistled for the famed “intent to deceive” penalty, moaning days later about the in-game call.
“I take the rules very seriously, understanding the rules, understanding the consistency, the clarity of the rules,” he said in November 2015. “Not just the rules, but the spirit of the rules, and doing everything that we can to follow the rules.”
Two years ago, Harbaugh made headlines for another preachy quote.
“Hard to beat the cheaters,” he said, without identifying any of the so-called rule-breakers or the type of violations they may have committed.
But Harbaugh has unwittingly opened his own program to scrutiny.
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‘It’s not Ryan’s fault’
Osborn has continued to present himself as a full-fledged coach, emerging as a point person in Michigan’s high school recruiting. Four-star edge defender Mario Eugenio, who committed to the Wolverines in July, recently said Osborn told him “how he was going to use me and how I fit their defense.”
“Yes, he did,” Eugenio continued, “because he will be to be one of my coaches — him and Coach Nua.”
“It’s not Ryan’s fault,” Harbaugh said. “He’s a coach. He wants to coach. He wants to talk.”
But as Harbaugh also understands, rules are rules.