So what's going to happen with all the Michigan cheating stuff?
And does it even matter? They won three conference crowns, a Rose Bowl and the CFP title. Memories are baked, shirts were printed and parades happened. History is written by winners.
Which is why Jim Harbaugh grossly underperforming in Ann Arbor through the 2020 season, after which he accepted a significant pay cut is now largely forgotten. The final year of that stretch included a 2-4 record and ducking out of playing Ohio State as a 31-point underdog.
The following season Michigan's B1G threepeat began. That's where history begins. After unsuccessfully attempting to have immunity from termination specifically related to NCAA investigations written into his Michigan contract Harbaugh left Ann Arbor for the NFL. Whatever, check out the trophies he left behind.
This past season was Michigan's first in a decade without him with the program, and it took Ohio State evacuating every last drop of its bowels into its pants for Michigan to secure its only road victory of 2024. The Wolverines lost everywhere else they went during the regular season. The only team they beat away from home were the national champs.
Michigan's run from 2021 to 2023 is the Barry Bondsiest thing we've ever seen in THE BIG TEN.
Five-loss Michigan is the defending ReliaQuest Bowl champion, and outside of Nov 30, this is kind of who they were prior to the pandemic? But no one remembers anything before 2020, because that's how history works. Ryan Day won in Ann Arbor two months before the pandemic. Seriously, look it up.
So what's going to happen with all the Michigan cheating stuff, and does it matter? You're probably an Ohio State fan reading this and the only thing that makes you happier than the Buckeyes winning is Michigan losing. Something was stinky in Ann Arbor to start that run of theirs. In these parts the cheating stuff matters.
It's the Barry Bondsiest thing we've ever seen in the Big Ten. The two seasons bookending Michigan's threepeat - where they were practically unbeatable - produced a 10-9 record. From 2021-2023 they were objectively talented and disciplined without having to resort to bending and outright disintegrating rules.
H o w e v e r there was clearly more than talent and discipline involved. At least there was to us. Rivals don't give each other the benefit of the doubt. You shouldn't expect it from them either.
What was done to salvage a coaching career careening into the abyss could be the most elaborate cheating scandal ever. Or, it might be nothing. Pretending the NCAA is aggressive, competent, fair or able to enforce anything beyond universal disdain for the targeting rule is foolish. These aren't the cops you call when you need a perp cuffed.
And Harbaugh is no longer there. What happened on his watch can neither hurt nor help Michigan anymore...maybe. People are still talking about it, and Michigan is now amplifying what happened again with the intention of diminishing what NCAA investigators concluded. It's a strategy!
What the scandal can do is haunt the program and curse what Harbaugh left behind - while Michigan works to try and keep Harbaugh's accomplishments clean. Because those trophies are program trophies. The Wolverines were winners recently, and history is written by winners. Cheaters only get to write excuses.
Jan 13, 2024; Ann Arbor. Jim Harbaugh talks to athletic director Warde Manuel during the national championship celebration at Crisler Center in Ann Arbor on Saturday. © Junfu Han-Imagn Images
When it comes to the Michigan cheating stuff we should be more specific, as the pandemic also erased Michigan's historically-flimsy veneer of poet warrior rules-following virtue. Good for them for discontinuing a charade no one bought outside of Ann Arbor.
Their recent cheating stuff is expansive. The NCAA closed the second part of a previous investigation into the Michigan football program right before the 2024 season began. The first part was a negotiated agreement involving violations committed by non-coaching staff members.
Not pearl-clutching stuff in the least. Making fun of Michigan for doing normal shit is something Michigan brought upon itself over the decades when it insisted it was exceptional. They're Big State U and nothing else. Don't expect them to change the fight song lyrics.
That second part of the now-closed investigation involved Harbaugh recruiting during the pandemic dead period, which itself is a secondary violation - except that he lied to the NCAA about it. If you're old enough to remember why Jim Tressel abruptly stopped leading the Ohio State football program, this was a non-crime adjacent to that. Cover-up > Crime, a lesson as old as time:
Jim Harbaugh violated recruiting and inducement rules, engaged in unethical conduct, failed to promote an atmosphere of compliance and violated head coach responsibility obligations, resulting in a four-year show-cause order.
The Michigan cheating scandal you cannot remember or don't really care too much about is on par with Ohio State's Scandal of the Century™. Times change; we were born too soon.
Michigan fans and media nicknamed their head-coach-lying-to-the-NCAA scandal Burgergate, similar to how Ohio State fans and media refer to Tressel's NCAA transgressions as Tatgate. Impermissible recruiting versus impermissible (at least in 2010) benefits, neither a big deal until you try to cover them up and get caught.
But that scandal is over and settled, and Harbaugh's show cause doesn't matter to the NFL the way Tressel's did back in 2011. The Connor Stalions stuff, however quiet it's been since November 2023 is not over.
Michigan fans and media began to zero in on the leaky source of THE evidence AGAINST THEM: Columbus, Ohio. Actually, Manchester, New Hampshire.
While the Tatgate era provided daily broadcasts around Ohio State's transgressions, the current sports media landscape is much quieter when it comes to NCAA investigations. They take forever. They're kind of boring. There's other clicky stuff to discuss instead.
Oh, and the NCAA is a toothless bitch. This isn't Eliot Ness coming to bag Al Capone.
If you were interested enough, you could visit the public NCAA Infractions Dashboard every day and refresh it to see if any movement had been made with the Stalions stuff - because if you're a Buckeye, goddamn it those guys deserve the hammer. They need to be haunted by what they did forever. But day after day, no movement at all.
Yesterday, it moved. Here's the timeline up until right now, in case you weren't following along:
-
Investigation Start: 10/18/23
- Enforcement began investigation as a result of source information -
Notice of Inquiry: 10/20/23
- Party delay from 1/2/24 to 4/2/24 due to untimely production of requested materials
- Party delay from 2/16/24 to 5/2/24 due to improper withholding of communications - Review Board Held: 6/26/24
So the investigation began when all the Stalions stuff hit the fan last October but didn't conclude until late June because Michigan was late to provide materials and then also hid some stuff, citing attorney/client privilege. That seems more like obfuscation, but I'm not a lawyer and the NCAA is pretend-law anyway.
Maybe Michigan wasn't taking it seriously because all of this might be nothing. That feels like walking into an old creepy house and taunting ghosts to show themselves, but Michigan seems confident. Or scared. It could be really bad, or it could be nothing.
So many details get lost to time and 24-hour news cycles, but one that's worth clinging to is that the NCAA informed Michigan a month into its investigation it knew and could prove Michigan orchestrated an in-person scouting scheme.
It was right around this time Michigan fans and media began to zero in on the leaky source of this damning evidence, and all of their fingers pointed in the same direction: Columbus, Ohio. I mean Manchester, New Hampshire. Uh, both. Both.
If you're a terminally online Michigan fan, the idea of Ryan Day's mysterious brother Sherlock Holmesing his way into Schembechler Hall from New Hampshire to do his family a solid is just diabolical enough to be true. If you're not, this is what that theory sounds like.
Anyway, the NCAA didn't care. Once the Investigation Phase concluded, the Charging Phase began. They skipped the Warm Liquid Goo phase. I just rewatched Austin Powers on a plane for the first time in decades and forgot how good that movie was. I digress, it's my brand. *Frau Farbissina voice* CHARGING PHASE:
- Enforcement held allegation review board: 6/26/24
- Enforcement provided draft allegations for parties' considerations of resolution options: 7/26/24
- Initial Selection of Resolution Method: 8/16/24
A week later the NCAA formally served Michigan another Notice of Allegations (NOA), this one containing no improper hamburgers and only a few more dead period recruiting violations as part of the bundle.
Harbaugh - currently in the first year of his four-year show cause - as well as successor Sherrone Moore were both named in the NOA. Since the previous investigation had closed, both of those guys could now both potentially be cited as repeat violators.
The NCAA has a Repeat Violator rule. The rest of us call it something else. Stop, this is silly.
Connor Stalions, left, stands next to Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh during the team's game against Rutgers, Sept. 23, 2023 at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor. © Kirthmon F. Dozier / USA TODAY NETWORK
In my non-lawyer opinion, Michigan would probably try to resolve this quickly rather than filibuster the way that it has been while trying to run as much clock as possible - if this were nothing. Playing the long game with a notoriously patient and boring NCAA infractions committee is a choice. Hey, it could work?
So that second NOA came down last August. Michigan had 90 days to respond to this one, which gave them a November 21 deadline to close the whole thing up and avoid it haunting them any further.
Investigation Phase, Charging Phase and now the Bunch of Administrative Stuff and Things Phase:
- Resolution Method Approval: 8/22/24
- Involved Party Requested Extension to Respond to NOA: 11/5/24
- Committee on Infractions (COI) Granted Party Extension to Respond to NOA: 11/8/24
Michigan asked for and was granted an extension. By rule, this meant another 90 days to respond to the NOA, which was now amended to reflect the extension. That gave them until February 6 to respond. Turns out they didn't need the whole 90.
- NOA Amended: 11/13/24
- Preliminary Negotiated Resolution: 11/14/24
Let's just step outside of the NCAA's Michigan timeline for a minute to remember something.
Jim McElwain announced he would be retiring as Central Michigan's head coach effective at the end of the 2024 season the week after the Preliminary Negotiated Resolution. He didn't disclose any health or personal reasons.
McElwain had just signed a five-year contract through 2026 which included retention bonuses paid in February. His abrupt retirement is relevant because of, well, you remember this:
It's just some guy on CMU's sideline during the Michigan State game wearing sunglasses at night which appear to be recording footage. Probably a kooky CMU staffer. The Spartans were a future opponent on Michigan's schedule, if you're into coincidences.
This kooky guy also seemed to realize whenever the action came toward him the TV camera would surely follow, so he'd look away from it. No one from CMU claimed to know who he was, and no one came forward from CMU claiming to be him.
If we can just be normal for one goddamn second: He looked exactly like a guy trying really hard to not look like Connor Stalions.
A lot of circumstantial stuff here - just because McElwain and Stallions were both on Harbaugh's staff at Michigan together and McElwain's CMU staff included a bunch of other former Michigan staffers doesn't necessary mean that --
NCAA investigators determined that Connor Stalions was on the sidelines wearing a disguise during the Central Michigan @ Michigan State game last fall, according to the draft.
— Dan Murphy (@DanMurphyESPN) August 4, 2024
No info provided on how he got a bench pass for the CMU sideline.
Ah, so it was Connor Stalions wearing a disguise and video recording sunglasses at night during a game featuring a future Michigan opponent. Reminds me of a famous quote.
Anyway, McElwain walking away from $2.3M in guaranteed money without disclosing a reason in the midst of an investigation which included him...it's a little stinky. But it might also be nothing. Onward - COI PANEL AND HEARING PHASE:
- COI Panel Assignment & Review Date Communicated to Parties: 12/4/24
- COI Hearing/Panel Review: 12/6/24
- Final Negotiated Resolution: 12/12/24
- COI Hearing/Panel Review: 12/16/24
- NOA Response: 1/6/25
The moral of the story is a process which began 446 days prior to Jan 6 is still quite active. It's just been really quiet. Kind of like a haunted house which none of the denizens want to believe is actually haunted.
Yesterday Yahoo Sports' Ross Dellenger reported some of the details from that 1/6 response, where Michigan accused the NCAA of grossly overreaching and wildly overcharging without credible evidence. If your protest requires theatrics, just add some adverbs.
The biggest news of the revelation was that one person was absolved by the document Dellenger referred to in his report, emphasis added:
The tipster derived from Michigan’s own campus. The unnamed source, which the NCAA has not disclosed, appears to have worked at the school, at least at one point.
Ryan Day's nefarious brother is off the hook. He may now go back to whatever it is he was doing - which wasn't using his alleged private investigation skills to bring sunlight to Michigan's cheating scheme. The calls to the NCAA about what was being cooked up in Ann Arbor were coming from inside the house:
Michigan believes the confidential leaker was used by the NCAA to produce at least some of the charges in the notice of allegations, something in which it expresses “concern.”
While the school respects the secrecy of confidential sources, it says in the document, the NCAA can present evidence and infractions based only on “information that can be attributed to individuals who are willing to be identified.”
Sloppy writing is my wheelhouse, so consider me an expert here - those two sentences are incompatible with each other. They basically say we respect confidential whisteblowers...but show us who you are, you pussy. Whistleblowing works as intended. I'm positive Michigan has a class that teaches this.
They would not be delaying, refusing, denying and now aggressively fighting these charges if they weren't innocent, right? Or, they're guilty but believe their stamina and resolve can outlast the desk jockeys at the NCAA, who are just grifting administrators destined to give their two weeks' notice to work for an insurance provider, or an electric company. Or anyone else.
Run as much clock as possible, because people leave their jobs. Allow attrition to dampen any enthusiasm or continuity for this case. W-2s are temporary, but Michigan football is forever. Those Who Stay Will Elude Sanctions.
Back to our original question: So what's going to happen with all the Michigan cheating stuff?
The answer is they're all still trying to figure it out. It might be really bad for Michigan - but it might be nothing too. Here's the thing, though - everything in between is a spooky limbo bracketed by nothing is going to happen and Michigan is going to get hammmmmmmmmered. That isn't a good place to be, either.
Resolution is their friend, if this is truly all about nothing - or very little, like wrist-slappy stuff. Which repeat violators generally aren't privileged enough to receive, but again - Eliot Ness isn't walking through that door.
This all means there are multiple paths to Michigan suffering and only one to Michigan preserving the history it has written for us all. Regardless of how the case closes, you're going to have a hard time finding a Michigan fan or media outlet that will acquiesce to any advantage that in-person scouting operation gave them.
They did it. And they pretty clearly covered it up, if you're to believe what the NCAA has said about it. We know how the NCAA feels about cover-ups. They're bad, but you know what's also bad? Ohio State's performances against Michigan recently!
After all, Michigan beat the Buckeyes in 2023 without Stalions on the sideline, and then again in 2024 as three-touchdown underdogs - while missing some key players! It's a loser's errand to continue to care about what happened in a closed era. History has been written, even if it's a little spooky. I guess we'll all have to wait and see.
Michigan will insist forever that it didn't need cheating to win. Too bad we'll never know.
