As it turns out, Michigan’s administration and its attorneys were absolutely correct last week when they accused the Big Ten of acting too hastily in issuing their three-game suspension of Jim Harbaugh: The Big Ten should have waited a week for the next shoe to drop in the Wolverines’ in-person scouting scandal.
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Michigan on Thursday suddenly withdrew its furious filing for a temporary restraining order against the Big Ten and commissioner Tony Petitti, apparently deciding Harbaugh’s suspension no longer qualified as “irreparable harm.” It made a lot more sense 24 hours later, when the school abruptly fired linebackers coach Chris Partridge. The Athletic’s Austin Meek reports that Michigan sources believe Partridge interfered with the NCAA’s investigation into Michigan’s alleged in-person scouting scheme but hasn’t determined that he was directly involved.
As Yahoo reported, the NCAA turned over new evidence to the school this week alleging that a booster named “Uncle T” — an absolute classic for a cheating booster name — helped fund staffer Connor Stalions’ scheme of buying tickets to opponents’ games and hiring people to film the opposing sideline. Partridge, whom earlier reports indicated was close with Stalions, is alleged to have covered up computer evidence after the fact, according to Yahoo. The Athletic’s Katie Strang spoke later Friday with Tim Smith, the booster connected to the “Uncle T” identity. Smith acknowledged having contact with Stalions but denied wrongdoing.
From the beginning, this was never a story about sign-stealing, a commonplace practice in college football. The numerous accounts of Stalions’ clunky scheme — including the broadcast stills of a guy who looks a lot like Stalions dressed up as a Central Michigan staffer on the sideline of its season-opener — were more comical than offensive. Nobody goes to prison for sign-stealing. Nobody died.
It was the brazenness of the operation, openly defiant of a well-established NCAA rule, all conveniently documented in a “master spreadsheet” a mystery investigator handed over to NCAA officials, that infuriated folks across the sport.
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Now, the new emerging details take this scandal to another level.
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Jim Harbaugh's turbulent Michigan 2023 timeline
If standard sign-stealing is the football equivalent of going 70 MPH in a 65 MPH zone, then doing it through illicit in-person scouting is more like driving 90. Sorry, sir, but we have to give you a ticket. When you throw in an ill-intentioned booster — the long-time scourge of NCAA investigators — and an assistant allegedly interfering with the investigation? Or covering up evidence? Now we’ve reached “go directly to jail, do not collect $200” territory.
All of which makes Michigan’s original scorched-earth, self-victimizing response to Harbaugh’s suspension even more bewilderingly aloof than it was at the time.
First, the school took its conference to court, casting themselves as mere noble defenders of the right to “due process,” as opposed to, say, intentionally obfuscating and delaying in an attempt to push any potential punishments until after its ongoing championship quest.
“This shoot first, ask questions later approach to sanctions is a flagrant breach of fundamental fairness,” its attorneys wrote in their request last Friday for a temporary restraining order, which the judge tabled until a hearing that would have taken place a week later.
Then, athletic director Warde Manuel came out spitting hot fire in a statement released shortly before last Saturday’s Penn State game: “Not liking someone or another university, or believing without any evidence that they knew or saying someone should have known without an investigation, is not grounds to remove someone from their position before the NCAA process has reached a conclusion through a full NCAA investigative process.”
Statement from Athletic Director Warde Manuel on Friday's Big Ten Decision:
"I want to make it clear at the outset of this statement that no one at the University of Michigan is happy to hear of the allegations and preliminary evidence that has come forth about in-person…
— Ryan Ermanni (@RyanEFox2) November 11, 2023
Manuel went on to mock Big Ten coaches and his fellow ADs who “can rejoice today that someone was ‘held accountable.’” It’s the kind of rhetoric you’d expect from someone only if they believe their closet to be completely clean.
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But you can understand why Manuel and his Michigan brethren would have preferred Petitti refrain from using his open-ended sportsmanship powers and leave the dirty work to the NCAA. After all, the NCAA’s enforcement department has been notoriously ineffective over the years of unearthing much of anything without the help of the FBI or the media. And its infractions committee gets so routinely beaten down by schools’ lawyers that it even failed to find North Carolina guilty of academic fraud for committing 18 years of academic fraud.
But lo and behold! It appears NCAA investigators did in fact prove capable of busting someone — specifically Partridge, who Yahoo reported is not believed to have had prior knowledge of Stalions’ scheme but later attempted to destroy computer files documenting it. Without yet knowing what else the NCAA might still uncover, one thing is clear. Harbaugh’s game-day suspension was a wrist slap compared to some alternatives Petitti would now be fully justified in imposing — had the conference not agreed Thursday, when Michigan dropped its case, to close the investigation.
The primary reason Petitti got involved rather than waiting on the NCAA was that Stalions was buying tickets as recently as the Oct. 21 Penn State-Ohio State game. In his formal notice to Manuel last week announcing Harbaugh’s suspension, Petitti wrote, in part, “Enforcing the Sportsmanship Policy with appropriate discipline this season in light of the University’s established violations this season is thus of the utmost importance to protect the reputation of the Conference and its member institutions and to ensure that our competitions on the field are honorable and fair.”
Though fully admitting the league had “not yet received any information indicating that Head Football Coach Harbaugh was aware of the impermissible (scheme),” it chose the punishment it did because “it preserves the ability of the University’s football student-athletes to continue competing.”
And so, he refrained from invoking a more impactful punishment, like Michigan having to forfeit games and/or be rendered ineligible for the conference championship game. But the NCAA may already have enough evidence to impose something harsher — albeit not for another or year or two, after its laborious infractions process plays out.
Harbaugh may not have specifically known about Stalions’ actions, but it was only two months ago, after returning from his first three-game suspension, that he pledged the program would become a “gold standard” for rules compliance. That, like a lot of things coming out of Michigan Men’s mouths lately, now seems laughable. If anything, Michigan has become the sport’s most renegade program.
Among the headlines surrounding the Wolverines over the last year: The NCAA’s original investigation into impermissible recruiting during the 2020-21 COVID-19 dead period; co-offensive coordinator Matt Weiss’ January dismissal over alleged computer-access crimes for which the FBI is now investigating; Harbaugh hiring as an assistant recruiting director Shemy Schembechler, son of Bo, only to fire him three days later after Internet sleuths uncovered a trove of racist comments he had “liked” on Twitter; and now … all of this.
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Over the last week, the Michigan community leaned hard into a “Michigan vs. the World” mantra that became a hot-selling T-shirt. Perhaps that rallying cry will help the Wolverines take down Ohio State next weekend. But it doesn’t seem like Michigan needs any motivational help when it comes to committing misdeeds.
(Top photo of Jim Harbaugh: Michael Hickey / Getty Images)
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