Fickell's account of the conversation differed.
"I’ve got notes if you want them," he said. "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."
The NCAA denied a waiver for Hudson, a 6-foot-5, 300-pound offensive lineman and former four-star recruit from Toledo Central Catholic, to play this season in May. Hudson practiced with the Bearcats in December leading up to the Military Bowl. He played three games for Michigan in 2018.
Hudson said via Twitter in May that he left Michigan for mental health reasons.
"The NCAA has denied my waiver specifically because I never spoke up about my mental struggles to the administration at the University of Michigan," Hudson wrote.
“Like many football players I was afraid to speak up about my depression not wanting to look weak. Now the NCAA is telling me that my courage to step forward and speak about my issues was done too late and subjectively my 'Circumstances do not warrant relief.'"
Fickell said Smith's waiver included mental health, too.
"We saw how it works with coach Day at Ohio State and how they helped Blue Smith out, to be honest with you," Fickell said. "So, whether people know a lot about that, they wanted to help the kid. They didn’t want to lose him, but they wanted to help him. They did stuff to help make him eligible here and gave him an opportunity to be eligible."
Harbaugh has said in the past he believes transfers should be allowed to leave a school with instant eligibility once, no matter the circumstances. He repeated that on Tuesday. But he expressed doubt last month when asked during a radio interview with ESPNU whether college athletes should be allowed to gain immediate eligibility under the current rules in place due to mental-health or depression-related conditions.
"And the other piece that bothers me about it is the youngster that says, 'This is a mental health issue. I'm suffering from depression,'" Harbaugh said. "Or that's a reason to get eligible. And once that's known: 'Hey, say this or say that' to get eligible. The problem I see in that is you're going to have guys that are, 'Okay, yeah, I'm depressed.'
"Say what they've got to say. But down the road, I don't see that helping them if it's not a legitimate thing. But nobody would know. But what are you going to say? Ten years down the road – 'I just had to say what I had to say?' And I think you're putting them in a position that's unfair, not right. And, as you said, you're saying it just to say it. And that's not truthful. That's not necessarily truthful. It's not something we should be promoting at the college level. Telling the truth matters. Especially at a college. You can't have experiments that aren't truthful. You can't lie about equations – shouldn't be lying in football. That's a message that we should be teaching."
Hudson's final appeal to play this season was denied last month. Fickell said he's met with Hudson individually on multiple occasions to help keep Hudson's mindset in a positive frame.
"It’s unfortunate that (the NCAA) can’t give, not me, I’m a grown man, but they can’t give a 20-year-old an explanation exactly why," Fickell said. "But it’s over now. We’ve got to move forward." “
So, as you can see, Fickell DID deny it. So, your assessment the he “asked him to lie” is quite a stretch.
As I said, it is nuanced, if you take them both at their word, it seems Fickell thought they would be more supportive like Saban and Day. Harbaugh though he was asking him to say something that was not true. And yes, for the record, Fickell is widely known as a person of extremely high integrity. He has been criticized before for being a shitty coach ( fair or not), but a damn good man.
