Mandel: Michigan's loss of integrity is biggest hit in Stalions scandal, not NCAA penalty

New York Times

9 hours ago

Once upon a time, a future Hall of Fame coach lost his job in disgrace for lying on an NCAA compliance form in claiming he knew of no unreported NCAA violations by his players. The condemnation was harsh, especially from fans of his archrival who had tired of losing to him every year.
'Spare us the hymnal, cooler-poopers,' wrote MGoBlog. 'Jim Tressel is was a football coach, not a social worker. As he did this, he turned boys into men like every football coach does. This just makes him a football coach. He's also a hypocrite and liar who lived up to the 'Senator' nickname in the end, his moral rectitude just a cover.'
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My, how the tables have turned. These days, the phrase 'hypocrite(s) and liar(s)' ought to be added to the lyrics of 'Hail to the Victors.'
On Friday, the NCAA Committee on Infractions memorialized what we'd long suspected about Michigan's football program under former coach Jim Harbaugh. Forget lying while filling out paperwork. These guys lied to people's faces. Over and over and over.
'The effort to obstruct (the investigation), and the failure to cooperate aggravated what happened here,' said COI chief hearing officer Norman Bay. 'It made what would have been a serious violation even more serious.'
Former coach Jim Harbaugh, now basking in the Los Angeles sun, first got the Wolverines in trouble last year for lying to NCAA investigators about meeting a recruit at a burger joint during a period when recruiting visits were forbidden. He claimed not to remember it, despite receipts and photos suggesting otherwise.
The Michigan fan base's spin: Big deal, it's a hamburger.
But Burgergate was just a prelude to Spygate, the much-chronicled scheme by which former support staffer Connor Stalions spent three years buying tickets for friends to go to Michigan opponents' games and film their signals. Amusingly, we now know he referred to them as the KGB.
If you watched last year's Netflix documentary 'Sign Stealer,' you know Stalions lies to people as nonchalantly as a cat chews up furniture. He'd have you believe he was a StubHub broker with overzealous friends. 'It's kind of like when your aunt gets you a Christmas present that you already have,' he said. 'You're not going to be rude and be like, 'Oh, I already have this, I don't need it.''
According to the NCAA's report, poor, put-upon Stalions also did things like throw his incriminating phone into a pond before investigators could seize it, tell a player to cover for him if interviewed and instructed a couple of interns to destroy the evidence.
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The Michigan fan base's spin for all this became the school's official response as well.
'Michigan noted that the limitation on in-person scouting was adopted as a cost-saving measure — not as an attempt to reduce competitive advantage by limiting the observation of opponents,' the COI wrote. Accordingly, Michigan argued that scouting is not related to honesty, sportsmanship or competitive balance.
Because nothing says honesty and sportsmanship like a covert operation nicknamed 'the KGB.'
Lest you think Stalions was the only one destroying evidence, the report confirms that current head coach Sherrone Moore, then Harbaugh's offensive coordinator, deleted 52 text messages with Stalions, 'approximately 30 minutes after news of the allegations broke.' His initial response when asked about this was that 'he attempted to blame the lack of retention on storage space.'
For committing essentially the same NCAA sin Tressel did, Moore will serve a three-game suspension — two this year, one next. But only after Michigan gets past its big Oklahoma game in Week 2. Harbaugh is now exiled from college coaching until 2038. He doesn't care. Stalions' show-cause is for eight years. Nobody cares.
Whatever sanctions the committee levied were never going to satisfy Michigan's critics. It's been heavily neutered since 2011. The membership has steered away from postseason bans because they 'unfairly penalize student-athletes for the actions of coaches and staff who are no longer (there).' Instead, the committee issued an eight-figure fine equivalent to two years' postseason revenue. That's no small thing in the revenue-sharing era, when even Michigan athletics runs a deficit, but unlikely to deter the next Harbaugh or Stallions.
Nor can the NCAA take away Michigan's 2023 national championship, because the College Football Playoff is not an NCAA championship. And Bay explained Friday that vacating wins is only used in instances involving ineligible players.
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Therefore, Michigan keeps its national title, and now nothing can keep it from competing for another one this year. To which Wolverines fans will surely say — worth it. But the reputational hit that school has taken these past two years is no small thing.
'Everyone cheats' has long been a mantra in college athletics, but Michigan, more than most, has long sold integrity as core to its brand. Harbaugh, you'll recall, was once hailed as the definitive 'Michigan Man.'
There's no official criteria that makes a 'Michigan Man,' besides having played or coached at Michigan, but Harbaugh himself tried to define it at his news conference after winning the national championship.
'Doing something that's bigger than for yourself,' he said. 'Caring about somebody other than yourself. Never being outworked, doing right. You don't lie, you don't cheat, you don't steal.'
So much for that.
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