Jim Harbaugh's NFL Connection Remains Michigan Football's Best Recruiting Weapon

Brandon Peters didn't care about satellite camps.

He went to one near his hometown of Avon, Indiana, but only after he had already committed to Michigan months earlier, so it never really factored much into his recruitment.

While the rest of the college football world was paying attention to his antics and unprecedented summer plans, Wolverines head coach Jim Harbaugh was using his primary recruiting pitch to lure his quarterback of the future to Ann Arbor.

Comparing Peters to the last college quarterback he had coached at the time, former Stanford and current Indianapolis Colts star Andrew Luck, Harbaugh managed to secure a pledge from what would be the first commit in his 2016 class, which ranks fifth nationally.

"It was something that stood out to me," Peters recalled. "He just kind of compared me to [Luck]. It's a pretty big thing to say."

It's also a pitch Harbaugh won't be retiring anytime soon.

While the sizzle of Michigan's recruiting pitch under Harbaugh—the satellite camps, the zany tweets and the celebrity endorsements—captivates the college football world, the steak of his sales pitch remains an unmatched NFL resume, at least as far as college coaches are concerned.

Some coaches can claim an NFL background as a coach, while others can do so as former players and many can tout track records of putting players in the pros, but very few can do all three—especially at the level that Harbaugh has in the past year-and-a-half.

"It does help that there has been NFL experience in our coaches' background," Harbaugh said on his first signing day as the Wolverines head coach. "A lot of our players, that's one of their goals, to make it to the NFL. We don't discourage that; in fact, we try to teach it."

Paul Sakuma/Associated Press

In case that's gotten lost in this offseason's satellite camp drama and subsequent summer turf wars, this past week has served as a reminder of Harbaugh's primary selling point.

After all, he has to be pitching something during his ballyhooed satellite camp tour, which as of last count is up to 34 stops, per Mark Snyder of the Detroit Free Press.

One of those camps just received a little extra boost over the others, with this week's announcement that Harbaugh's brother, John Harbaugh, and his Baltimore Ravens staff will be joining the Wolverines at the previously announced Next Level camp at New Jersey's Paramus Catholic High School.

"

Just in. Past Super Bowl winning coach, John Harbaugh/Baltimore Ravens, will instruct at the Next Level FB camp with some of his staff.

— James Vail (@JamesPVail) May 17, 2016"

Of course, there's some gamesmanship in Harbaugh inviting his also-famous brother and his NFL staff to work at his camp. In an effort to neutralize Michigan's effort in its own backyard, Rutgers opted to host a satellite camp of its own alongside Ohio State and Temple, six miles away at the exact same time on the exact same day.

Thus, it never hurts to have Super Bowl-winning coach John Harbaugh one call away.

It's also nice to be able to sell a pro football pedigree of your own, which the younger Harbaugh possesses thanks to his 14-year career as an NFL quarterback and a successful four-year stint as the head coach of the San Francisco 49ers from 2011-14.

Harbaugh's NFL connections will once again be on display this summer at the Wolverines' second annual Ann Arbor Aerial Assault (A4) camp, the sequel to last summer's successful and unprecedented quarterback camp.

Just announced this week, this year's camp will feature another impressive lineup of "counselors," including NFL quarterbacks Jay Cutler, Blake Bortles, Zach Mettenberger and Tavaris Jackson, pro offensive coordinators and quarterback coaches Sean McVay, Dowell Loggains and John DeFilippo, as well as Michigan's own pro-experienced staff.

The star of the show, as it often does, remains Harbaugh, whose resume with signal-callers transcends the traditional prisms through which we often view quarterback whisperers.

Transform a pistol system quarterback into a player who was just a few plays away from winning a Super Bowl? He did it with Colin Kaepernick.

Refine the tools of an already highly touted prospect and turn him into the NFL draft's No. 1 overall pick? Look at Luck's time at Stanford.

Play in a Pro Bowl himself? Harbaugh's done that, too.

Even in his first year at Michigan, Harbaugh managed to add another notch to his quarterback champion belt, developing Jake Rudock from NFL afterthought to the Detroit Lions' sixth-round pick. This year, he'll get another opportunity to do the same with the Wolverines, whether it's John O'Korn, Wilton Speight, Shane Morris or even Peters who winds up as Rudock's successor at signal-caller.

"You saw it this year with Jake and how much he developed throughout the year," Peters said. "He's had the experience in the NFL, and that's what really drew me to come to Michigan."

Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images

Harbaugh, however, doesn't want to necessarily be viewed as a quarterback specialist. "That's the fun part of being the head coach. You can coach any position. I like coaching all the positions," he said last spring.

After all, there are 21 other starting spots alone he still has to recruit.

But between his time at Stanford, the 49ers and even his one year at Michigan, Harbaugh can lay claim to having coached some of football's most prominent players at some point in their careers.

A running back prospect may be compared to Frank Gore or Toby Gerhart, a wide receiver to Randy Moss, a tight end to Vernon Davis or Delanie Walker and an offensive lineman to Joe Staley or David DeCastro, which is proof of Harbaugh's bona fides. Even with his expertise coming primarily on offense, Harbaugh's resume of defensive players coached includes the likes of Richard Sherman, Patrick Willis, NaVorro Bowman and Dashon Goldson.

"It provides an opportunity for recruits to come in and say that these are guys who know what it takes to get to the next level and what the expectations are at the next level," Wolverines passing game coordinator Jedd Fisch, who has spent 12 years an NFL assistant coach, told MGoBlue.com. "I hope they want to be part of that."

Based on the recruiting results thus far, they do, and with one look at Matt Miller's 2017 NFL mock draft for Bleacher Report, it's easy to see it shouldn't be long until Harbaugh and his staff add to their already potent sales pitch.

Jabrill Peppers, Jourdan Lewis and Jake Butt are already viewed as highly touted prospects for next spring's selection show, and that doesn't even take into account the other players who will only benefit from another year in Michigan's pro-style systems on both sides of the ball.

And if this spring has taught us anything about Harbaugh, it's that the offseason noise won't stop—not when it's produced the results it has for the Wolverines staff in their first 16 months in Ann Arbor. But the noise is just a ticket, whether it be into a prospect's living room or getting him to attend one of Michigan's many satellite camps.

From there, Harbaugh still has to cash in with substance. And when it comes to his best recruiting asset, his track record speaks for itself.

Ben Axelrod is Bleacher Report's Big Ten lead writer. You can follow him on Twitter @BenAxelrod. Unless noted otherwise, all quotes were obtained firsthand. Recruit rankings and info courtesy of 247Sports.