Michigan Football: Luke Fickell doesn’t understand the transfer process

Luke Fickell is wrong about Jim Harbaugh, Michigan football, and the transfer process according to two well-known attorney’s.

The saga began shortly before Big Ten Media Days and has dragged on for over a month now. It all started with James Hudson and his attempt to transfer out of the Michigan football program and into – former Ohio State player and coach – Luke Fickell’s Cincinnati team. Hudson’s eligibility for the 2019 season was up in the air and was eventually denied by the NCAA despite mental health being cited as the reason for the transition.

Following Big Ten Media Days, Jim Harbaugh made some unfortunate remarks about situations where, due to the difficulty of obtaining a waiver, players might feel the need to lie to gain immediate eligibility.

The exact scenario Jim described was one where a student-athlete would falsely claim mental health as a reason to leave one university for another and many assumed the comments were directed at Hudson.

James and his mother have since lashed out against the Michigan football head coach, citing their uncomfortable exit interview and Jim’s public statements as reasons for their distrust and disappointment.

Fickell followed suit with his own misguided blows, explaining that he received support (potentially in violation of NCAA rules) from coaches in the past for transfers but not from this Wolverine staff, specifically calling out the Michigan head coach.

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Harbaugh responded by saying that in this situation the coaches have nothing to do with the transfer waiver process and that its completely up to the NCAA. Jim also said that when he and Fickell spoke about James Hudson, Luke tried to ‘coach’ him on how to handle the situation.

“I’ve got notes if you want them,” Fickell said of his phone call with Harbaugh. “Nothing more than asking, ‘hey, what’s your stance on James? Are you going to help the kid?’

“It wasn’t like pleasant or anything. It was kind of cold. It was short. It wasn’t a long conversation. It wasn’t hard to figure out what their stance was. They supposedly weren’t going to hold (Hudson’s waiver) up but they weren’t going to help him.”

Clearly, Fickell’s stance is that Harbaugh isn’t playing along with his game and, therefore, it’s ok to publicly criticize a fellow coach even without all of the facts at hand.

Fickell didn’t stop there.

“I can’t really speak intelligently about why they (Michigan) feel the way they feel. It must be their philosophy and their program,” Fickell said Wednesday after the team’s practice. “Personally, we’re in it for what is best for our kids. If that means we might have to help somebody move on, then you might have to help somebody move on. I don’t know. You’d have to ask (Harbaugh).”

Legal jargon

To get clarification on the entire process, The Detroit News conducted an interview with a famous college football attorney, Tom Mars. Although, Tom’s comments seemed a little convoluted.

Here’s an excerpt of what Tom had to say.

“Finding the exceptions to the year-in-residence requirement and the specific requirements for each requires one to begin with the 440-page (NCAA) DI Manual, which has a table of contents that might as well be labeled, ‘Don’t Start Here,’ ’’ Mars told the Detroit News. “Then, if you’re fortunate enough to find what you’re looking for, which often refers you to another bylaw with exceptions to the exception, you have to go to the Legislative updates that have been published since the annual DI Manual went online and search through those to see if anything has changed, which is usually the case.

“With that in mind, it’s probably not wise for coaches and other people who don’t deal with this complex minutia every day to speak publicly as though they’re an authority on transfer waivers.”

To clarify Tom’s complicated answer, I decided to get a second opinion.

Enter Alan Helmkamp of Helmkamp, Ellis, Abraham, and Engerer, a Michigan law firm based out of Livonia. Alan has been a practicing attorney for longer than he would like to admit and when asked to decipher Mar’s comments, he didn’t hesitate.

After sending the entirety of the article to Mr. Helmkamp, he responded with the following:

"“Mars is basically saying the waiver rules, with all the exceptions, are extremely complicated, and difficult for even experienced attorneys to wade through, let alone coaches, reporters and regular folks. He’s saying that schools that players transfer from have only a limited number of cases where their possible objection to the transfer can have an impact, and in most cases, that school and coach’s input is totally irrelevant. He said the exception that Hudson is trying to use, ‘athlete injury/illness’ is not a case where the school or former coach has any input.”"

Now two prominent attorney’s have come out and said Luke Fickell’s unprovoked ambush of Jim Harbaugh was off-base and that’s not just my interpretation of what was said.

“Harbaugh is correct and Fickell is wrong,” Alan concluded.

The season is still a couple of weeks away and yet the score sits Jim Harbaugh 1, Luke Fickell 0.