What's next for Michigan, the NCAA, and the never-ending 'sign-stealing' saga

ESPN's Dan Wetzel dropped by the Rich Eisen show to discuss.

"The hearing is going to be June 6th and 7th I believe, and they will finally have their hearing. The NCAA will issue punishment after that," said Wetzel. "Will they strip victories? Would they do a future postseason ban? I don't know. Generally speaking, there isn't a lot the NCAA can do anymore in this era of revenue sharing and NIL that really impacts."

In additions to the current limitations of the NCAA, Wetzel also acknowledged that the investigation never uncovered some grand conspiracy among the Michigan coaching staff. Instead, Wetzel says the NCAA never found evidence that suggested the sign-stealing scheme went far beyond Stalions himself.

"There's just limitations to what the NCAA can do, I don't know what they're going to come up with. They have not ever found a widespread understanding that Connor Stalions' actions went very far beyond Connor Stalions and a couple other guys - maybe a couple other guys - at his level. If anything, Sherrone Moore should have never deleted the texts because they, in some ways, made him look good. They validated that he did not know. But this is where we're at. This is how NCAA violations go. They often end up being process crimes. It's really hard to catch anybody doing anything without real police power, even in the days of electronic communication."

So what will the eventual punishment be? Will the NCAA force Michigan to vacate wins or even strip the Wolverines of their 2023 national championship? Wetzel says it's possible, but unlikely.

"I don't think they're going to strip any title, I don't think any of that stuff will happen. I don't know that they would have that. But, you know, the NCAA can do whatever they want on this. Maybe they make a big statement on it. They don't have a ton of cases anymore. Almost everything is legal, just not this. So we will see. We'll see how much Michigan fights back."