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Mike Gundy Remains On Cutting Edge Of Recruiting With Five-Stop #MegaCamp

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8 years ago

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Jim Harbaugh gets all the publicity for the mega camps that have invaded college football, and rightfully so when you’re rocking Allen Iverson and Cal Ripken throwback jerseys.

But Mike Gundy quietly put together a five-stop camp through the heart of Texas that turned into a pretty successful little weekend. Glenn Spencer and Co. traveled via what appears to be a RV to the camps to check action.

The whole thing was pretty crazy as literally thousands of high school kids paid their $40 to attend one of five camps over the weekend. Look how many kids there are!

The thing was a bit of a free-for-all, but that’s how Gundy likes it (presumably). Interestingly coaches aren’t allowed to recruit at these camps. Just … I guess hang out. ESPN had a funny little tidbit on how many kids there were at these things.

As one coach said: “Excuse me, I’ve gotta go find the two kids I actually invited to this.”

I’m not going to say Mike Gundy takes credit for inventing said Mega Camps, but he doesn’t really not take credit for it either.

“We came up with the ‘Wal-Mart theory,’ where you can go to one building and get everything you need,” Gundy told ESPN. “So we started recruiting other schools.”

How proud do you think he was of “the Wal-Mart theory”?! Kristen, I thought of a good one today!

“It’s really a combine, is what it’s turned into,” Gundy told ESPN. “Why not have them anyway? You’re seeing them from apparel companies. You should really have two or three of them in the Houston area, Dallas area, Central Texas, East Texas and everywhere else in the country, and coaches can come. You can’t recruit them anyway. That is what’s going to happen in the future anyway, in my opinion.

“The risk/reward investment is worth it. There is no question that the travel camps we started 12 years ago have made a huge impact in our ability to win games. I don’t think we would have been able to do it without them. It’s been a huge part of the success we’ve had the past 10 years.”

This is where Gundy’s value to OSU really shines. He understands that you can’t just roll 5-star guys up I-35 and expect them to commit to you. You have to figure out who fits your system and go out and get them. This is the … I can’t believe I’m using this word … genius of Gundy.

And it’s seemingly a win-win for everyone. Schools get to see kids who might fall through the cracks (I believe James Washington went to one of these) and kids get to show their stuff without having to fork over a ton of money for travel. The only person who seemingly doesn’t like them is Nick Saban who, you’re not going to believe this, has absolutely nothing to gain from satellite camps.

So everybody wins, except Saban. Sounds good to me.

Also, watching Coach Arroyo throw deep balls is pretty fun as well.

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