One Michigan football “scandal” involving the NCAA has been put to bed. Almost. The NCAA announced that Michigan football will be on probation for three years and that five individuals agreed to show cause penalties in an agreement with the University of Michigan.
The NCAA noted that “one former coach did not participate in the agreement.” That portion of the case will be considered “separately.” You can guess that’s former Michigan football head coach Jim Harbaugh.
That will lead to a split resolution according to the NCAA: “The negotiated resolution also involved the school’s agreement that the underlying violations demonstrated a head coach responsibility violation and the former football head coach failed to meet his responsibility to cooperate with the investigation. The school also agreed that it failed to deter and detect the impermissible recruiting contacts and did not ensure that the football program adhered to rules for noncoaching staff members.
The committee will not discuss further details in the case to protect the integrity of the ongoing process, as the committee’s final decision — including potential violations and penalties for the former coach — is pending.”
It’s not clear how any of this will impact “sign gate” but here’s the wording on punishment from the NCAA:
“The agreed-upon penalties in this case include three years of probation for the school, a fine, and recruiting restrictions in alignment with the Level I-Mitigated classification for the school. The participating individuals also agreed to one-year show-cause orders consistent with the Level II-Standard and Level II-Mitigated classifications of their respective violations.”
We’ll have to wait and see what the conclusion of the other investigation is, but it doesn’t feel like the “hammer” is dropping. Still, watch the Ohio State fans celebrate this as some sort of win.
But since they haven’t had any wins over Michigan football in the past three years, it’s hard to blame them.
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