As I sit here watching Michigan play Penn State without Jim Harbaugh on the sidelines, I find myself thinking back to his reaction after a brawl broke out in the Michigan tunnel after the 2022 Michigan-Michigan State game.
“There needs to be accountability, there needs to be a full, thorough, timely investigation,” Harbaugh said at the time. “I can’t imagine that this will not result in criminal charges, the videos are bad. It’s clear what transpired, it seems very open and shut as they say.” Open and shut is an interesting way to put things in light of recent developments, but we’ll get to that. Doesn’t sound like he’s arguing for much due process, one might say.
Fast forward a year, and Harbaugh has now been suspended by the Big 10 for Michigan’s involvement in a sign-stealing scheme. The school is calling for due process and filed for a temporary restraining order against his suspension (which was rejected), and Harbaugh sits on the suspension.
I bring up due process because it seems to be something that the Michigan faithful are big on when it comes to their team, but not so much for others. See, at the same time Harbaugh and athletic director Warde Manuel were pushing for criminal charges and suspensions for the Michigan State players involved in the brawl, their own stud defensive lineman Mazi Smith was facing felony gun charges. Was he suspended? No. Did the story get released? Not until charges were announced over a month later. He was allowed to continue playing while the judicial process played out, according to their AD.
Sooooooo…MSU suspends 8 players the week following the brawl, before charges were ever announced. The players didn’t play the rest of the season. One of Michigan’s best players was facing a felony gun charge and not only was he not suspended, no one knew about it until the charges were actually announced. And even after the charges were announced, Smith was allowed to continue playing. One of the MSU players, Malcolm Jones, was never charged for the brawl, but he didn’t play for the rest of the year. And look, I’m not going to defend the brawl at Michigan Stadium, but it’s worth pointing out that it was the second incident in that stadium in a matter of weeks, and we never actually saw what started the brawl (I’m not going to defend a 7 of our guys jumping 2 of theirs, but I’m guessing it didn’t start because Ja’Den McBurrows and Gemon Green said, “Gee guys, good game, better luck next year.”)
Who’s the school that supports due process again?
Michigan wants any investigation and punishment to come from the NCAA, knowing that the only thing that moves slower that an NCAA investigation is…well…nothing. The Wolverines would see to it that any punishment gets pushed down the road, when they could whine that Harbaugh (who will inevitably have left the school for the NFL by then) wasn’t there anymore, and how could you punish kids who weren’t there when the violations happened?
The Big 10 – at the urging of every coach and athletic director that doesn’t play it’s home games in Ann Arbor – went full Lee Corso and said, “Not so fast, my friend.”
It’s worth looking at the charges against Michigan. In October, the NCAA announced that they were investigating the school for in-person scouting – an NCAA violation – which had allegedly taken place since at least 2021. It was reported that a staffer, Connor Stallions, had purchased tickets in his own name for more than 30 games over the past 3 years at 11 different league schools. The games Stallions bought tickets for featured teams that Michigan would play later in the season. The tickets were around the 45-yard line, high enough for a clear view of the opposite sideline. There was reportedly video showing people in the seats Stallions had purchased recording the opposing sideline.
These aren’t allegations. Stallions purchased the tickets in his own name, with his own credit card. I suppose it’s possible that he could’ve done this completely on his own, but he was an unpaid volunteer until 2022, when he was hired on at $55,000 per year. He could’ve done this on his Marine Corp pension, but tickets in those seating areas and travel to those stadiums isn’t cheap.
Now, I’m not a football expert, I’m just a loudmouth with an obvious bias who complains about sports on the internet. So I can’t tell you exactly how big of an advantage this provides to a team. What I can tell you is that the opposing coaches were adamant that this was a significant advantage, that they’d heard rumblings that the Wolverines had their signs, and they didn’t want to wait for the NCAA to hand down their punishment.
I can also tell you that from 2015 (when Harbaugh was hired) until 2020 (the year before the sign stealing is alleged to have started), Michigan was 49-22, losing all 5 games against rival Ohio State. From 2021 until now, they’re 34-3, they’ve beaten Ohio State twice, and they’ve been to the College Football Playoff both years. Going from what is essentially a 4 loss per year team to one of the best teams in the nation seemingly overnight seems curious, to say the least. The Michigan name doesn’t buy you that kind of turnaround these days.
The Big 10 took a creative approach to punishing Michigan. Technically they didn’t suspend Harbaugh, because such a punishment is limited to a 2-game suspension. They punished Michigan by saying they violated the conference’s sportsmanship clause and preventing them from having their head coach on the sidelines for the last 3 regular season games.
Michigan has their supporters and their defenses. They’ll tell you it’s not that big an advantage, that you still need to stop the other team. True, but I think back to the first game of the NFL season, when the Chiefs’ Jawaan Taylor kept lining up illegally and jumping the snap. There were discussions that Taylor’s alignment gave away clues about the play, and thus the Lions didn’t make a huge stink on the sideline. So there’s something to be said about what kind of advantage knowing what’s coming can provide to a defense.
They’ll tell you other teams had Michigan’s signs, and that they shared them prior to the 2022 Big 10 championship game. Fair point, but stealing signs isn’t illegal. The NCAA allows it if you can pull it off in-person at the actual game you’re participating in or from game broadcasts. There are no allegations that any other school participated in the type of in-person scouting at other facilities that Michigan did.
They’ll tell you that Ohio State coach Ryan Day’s family was involved in the investigation into on-field scouting. It’s not true, but they’ll spew those falsehoods and supposedly threaten Day and his family anyway. Because foobaw!
The talking heads that went to Michigan will tell you they’re being treated unfairly, that everyone is jealous of Michigan’s success. What are we jealous of? Your 3 wins in your last 18 games against Ohio State, 2 of which are probably tainted? Your 1.5 national titles in the 85+ years since the AP poll was created? Your 2 losses in the CFP? Your basketball coach, who’s strengths seem to be, in order, (1) recruiting, (2) threatening Wisconsin’s basketball coach, and (3) coaching? Thanks Charles, but I’m good.
Look, anyone who knows me or reads this blog knows I’m a pretty devoted Michigan State fan, and we have done PLENTY of things to draw peoples’ ire. We oversaw one of the worst sexual abuse scandals in American sports history, made worse because we could have taken guidance from Penn State on what not to do and decided, nah, we’re good. We hired a stopgap football coach and gave him an idiotic contract extension because he’d managed to beat Michigan twice. That coach took a bonus that was meant for his entire coaching staff and kept it for himself. We were able to get out of that contract, but only because Mel Tucker is a creep who decided to sexually harass a rape survivor who had come to the school to speak to the team about sexual abuse. And any punishment for that incident only came about after the news story broke, when Tucker had been under investigation for 9 months.
What I’m trying to say is MSU has a lot of things to not be proud of.
But what we don’t do is get on our high horse and act like we’re waiting for the process to play itself out when our players get arrested. Or go from Walmerines to legal experts to defend our obviously illegal behavior. Or defend a man who ignored sexual abuse (let alone keep up a statue or his name on the football building). Or cry for criminal charges and suspensions against players at other schools while our own players play because, “We’re letting the legal process play itself out.” We don’t act like we’re better than everyone, because we’re not.
If only Michigan could do the same.
It’s that time of year again, when almost everyone’s dreams of winning their bracket is over and for the vast majority of the population their teams have been eliminated from the tournament. So naturally, every sports media organization insists on putting together a “who should you root for” article for those of us who are dealing with the dual heartbreak of your school’s season ending and your bracket being busted.
Detroit Sports Czar 