Trouble Brewing for NCAA as National Analyst Exposes Fallout From Michigan’s Response in Jim Harbaugh’s Defense

The NCAA used to be the boogeyman of college football. It handed out postseason bans like Halloween candy, stripped wins with the ruthlessness of a Wall Street banker, and made sure no program—no matter how big—was above the law. In 1987, the SMU football program received the “death penalty” when it was discovered that they were making illicit payments to players. USC received a two-year postseason ban and lost 30 scholarships because of gifts Reggie Bush and his family allegedly received from prospective agents. But over the years, the NCAA has seen its power being challenged.

The 1984 Supreme Court case over television rights was the first big defeat for the NCAA and programs have continued to retaliate since then. In 2017, North Carolina escaped without any punishment for their alleged academic fraud allegations for giving fake classes for nearly two decades, giving students, many of them athletes, credit for courses never taught by instructors. This was a clear sign of the NCAA’s dwindling power and now Michigan’s stance after being issued a Notice of Allegations hints that the program isn’t backing down from a fight.

In a portion of the 137-page document obtained by Yahoo Sports, it is revealed that Michigan has come out in open defense of their staff members, current and former, and has blamed the NCAA for  “grossly overreaching” and “wildly overcharging” the program. The school isn’t here to negotiate. It isn’t here to play nice. It’s treating the accusations like a speed bump, not a roadblock.

Last year in August, the NCAA issued a NOA to Michigan following the sign-stealing drama under ex-HC Jim Harbaugh. The NCAA launched an investigation into impermissible in-person scouting and sign-stealing allegations that undermined Michigan’s championship-winning 2023 season. The probe revealed that the main accused was former Wolverines staffer Connor Stalions, who was allegedly using a “vast network” of individuals to record sideline signals from future opponents.

CBS’s Josh Pate on his “Josh Pate’s College Football Show” called the NCAA “incapable” of taking down major programs, adding, “Get all the legalities out of the way. Is Michigan gonna burn for this? Are they gonna go down for this? No.”

Josh Pate laid it out bluntly. Michigan may take a financial hit. They may have to fork over a hefty fine. But as for actual punishment—the kind that alters a program’s trajectory? Not happening. “You would have to staple my eyelids to the back of my forehead and have me watch that happen in order for me to believe that’s ever gonna happen to this program because it’s too big to fail,” Pate said. And he might be right. The NCAA it seems has neither the power nor the leverage to bring down a program that is a financial asset to the sport’s most valuable conference.

“Gone are the days where the NCAA is gonna take on any program and really kneecap them in terms of their ability to compete on the field moving forward,” Pate added. Michigan isn’t fighting alone—it has an army standing behind it, all of whom benefit from keeping business as usual.

On Tuesday, Yahoo Sports reported the details of the document where Michigan addresses NCAA’s NOA as having “numerous factually unsupported infractions, exaggerates aggravating factors and ignores mitigating facts” and that the alleged sign-stealing operation offered the program “minimal relevance to competition.”

The school faced allegations that claimed several Level I violations surrounding an alleged scheme to steal football signals from opponents that were said to be led by former analyst Connor Stalions. The program also Level I charges for a pattern of noncompliance along with Stalions, former head coach Jim Harbaugh, and two other UM football assistants.

In its response, Michigan defended former head coach Jim Harbaugh. Michigan claims the NCAA’s charge against Harbaugh is “without merit.” According to the report by Yahoo Sports, “the NCAA alleges that Harbaugh failed to cooperate between Oct. 20 and Jan. 24, 2024 when he did not produce text and telephone records from his personal cell prior to his departure from the school.

Imaging of Harbaugh’s phones — his personal and work — were part of a large initial collection of data that included imaging of phones and other devices from 10 individuals, the school says, including two computers assigned to Stalions and an external hard drive owned by Stalions. However, there were “legitimate concerns” that the data being imaged contained personal and sensitive information and/or attorney-client communications, so images were withheld. The NCAA did not receive Harbaugh’s images by the deadline and deemed him to have failed to comply.”

Michigan also refuted the NCAA’s findings on Stalions, saying that he attended only one game out of the 52 where he was alleged to have improperly scouted. The eight other games were attended by then-Wolverines low-level staff and others were attended by Stalions’s friends and family, which is not an NCAA violation itself.

The program further alleged that most of Stalions’ sign acquisition efforts were “permissibly done” with television and other publicly available footage and not in a way that would have given the team an unfair advantage. Hence, they want the NCAA to treat most of the infractions as Level II, and not the more serious Level I allegations.

This isn’t the 1980s when SMU’s football program was shut down for the 1987 season for paying recruits and repeated recruiting violations. The program was also hit with a lengthy list of sanctions and penalties by the NCAA that spanned into the 1990 season. This isn’t even the early 2000s when USC saw Reggie Bush’s Heisman wiped from history like he never existed after reports of illegal cash and benefits from agents began to surface. No, this is an era where the NCAA has backed itself into a corner.

The second it even thinks about bringing real punishment to Michigan, it’s not just facing the Wolverines. It’s taking on the Big Ten, every network that pays billions for its rights, and every power player that has an interest in keeping the cash machine rolling. Michigan’s response to the NCAA clearly reflects that it won’t be easy for them to levy any sort of major punishment.

And now, with more than 300 former Michigan players filing a class-action lawsuit against the NCAA and Big Ten Network over NIL rights demanding a payment of $50 million, the program has changed the battlefield entirely.

Although, when Fox’s Bruce Feldman said, “Michigan having real money people,” this doesn’t mean cheating is suddenly an open invitation. Just because Michigan’s response doesn’t equate to a free pass for future scandals. But what it does mean is that the penalties for major programs have changed.

The cost of getting caught is now a matter of financial settlements, not postseason bans or scholarship losses. It’s like getting pulled over for speeding in a Lamborghini—you pay the fine, but you’re still driving 100 mph down the highway five minutes later. Michigan, for all the headlines, is no different than any other superpower in CFB. The NCAA may bark, but it doesn’t bite anymore.

The NCAA’s recent setbacks in courts also don’t bode well for the organization and this particular case.  In December 2023, a U.S. district court judge ruled with a restraining order that the NCAA can’t limit free transfers, which meant that players are free to move from team to team every season without losing a year of eligibility.

Then in January last year, a federal court in Tennessee suspended the NCAA’s NIL rules with its own injunction. The ruling prevents the NCAA from enforcing its NIL rules against any school and giving student-athletes freedom to sign deals. The NCAA also had to eat humble pie last December when a federal judge ruled against it when it granted an injunction blocking the NCAA from ruling Vanderbilt quarterback and former junior college transfer Diego Pavia ineligible to compete next season.

So, call the ambulance—but not for Michigan. The real casualty here is…

Jim Harbaugh accused of ‘running to the NFL’ as sign-stealing drama intensifies

The Michigan sign-stealing saga just won’t die down, and now another head coach has jumped into the mix—this time with a not-so-subtle jab at Jim Harbaugh.

The Wolverines are pushing back against the NCAA’s allegations in their lengthy 137-page document. One of the more explosive claims? Current Michigan HC Sherrone Moore allegedly deleted text messages from former staffer Connor Stalions. Moore, however, has maintained that his decision to erase the messages wasn’t about hiding anything, but rather out of frustration with the situation.

As all of this unfolds, an old Harbaugh quote from his San Francisco 49ers days resurfaced: “If you cheat to win, then you’ve already lost.” That didn’t sit well with Illinois head coach Bret Bielema, who wasted no time firing back on X.

“Really…. Why did you leave? Was looking forward to playing but understand why you ran to the #NFL. See you in the future and can’t wait. #famILLy #ILL”. Bielema’s not alone in his skepticism. Many believe Harbaugh’s decision to bolt for the Los Angeles Chargers was more about escaping the NCAA’s wrath than chasing a new challenge. However, we all know the Wolverines are walking away from this mess just fine.