Michigan football and the NCAA: It’s either ‘fair and square’ or it isn’t
Michigan is still waiting to hear from the NCAA on its investigation into ‘signgate,’ with more optimism in recent months that the case was overblown from the start. While many believe rivals leaked information in hopes it would derail the Wolverines’ season, it backfired on them spectacularly.
For one, had they waited until the end of the year, the narrative would have existed forever — “did they only win because they were stealing signs?” And there would have been no way to disprove it with the season over. Instead, they beat the best teams in the conference — and the nation — without their head coach in the Big Ten games, overcoming huge distraction.
The look of devastation and disbelief on James Franklin’s and Ryan Day’s faces after the wins at Penn State and vs. Ohio State was reward enough, frankly. But when NCAA President Charlie Baker essentially put the stamp of approval on the national title, he all but destroyed rivals’ hopes of “vacated titles” and “asterisks.”
“I don’t regret doing it because sitting on that information, given the comprehensiveness of it — I think we would have put everyone, including Michigan, in an awful place,” Baker said. “As it was, it was out in the public domain and people either made adjustments or didn’t.
“At the end of the day, no one believes at this point that Michigan didn’t win the national title fair and square. So, I think we did the right thing.”
Sources say the NCAA has continued to conduct interviews without much success and has at least planned to meet recently about any findings. But the U-M lawyers — and those for Connor Stalions, the alleged mastermind of the sign stealing operation, and others involved — have more than enough to push back with at this point.
For one, nobody could legitimately argue that the Wolverines needed to steal signs to beat the teams on the first half of the schedule. They were simply that much better that the Rutgers and Indianas, etc. Minnesota coach P.J. Fleck, in fact, said it was like facing an NFL team when his team lost at home, 52-10, so he would pretty much throw out the film and forget it happened.
But guys like Franklin and Day put all their chips in, Day especially in insinuating sign stealing was the only reason Michigan had thrashed his teams the two previous years. Then, they both lost to a team with an interim coach, and in doing so essentially proved the bluster was much ado about nothing.
One thing they obviously overlooked — this was a generational Michigan team that was going to defy the odds, no matter how much the deck was stacked against them.
“For the people on the outside who think our players didn’t win fairly or do something, or do that, it was … ‘OK — bet,’” Moore told Fox analyst Joel Klatt. This is what we’re about. We’re going to go attack the moment, and we did. And now what can you say about us? Without our head coach, we proved ourselves right, that we can go win in this big environment.”
And thanks to the timing of the allegations — midseason — only those fan bases will still cling to the “but they cheated!” mantra. As Baker said, U-M won its title fair and square. If the NCAA tries to argue otherwise, all Michigan has to do is use their leader’s words against them … or, they can point to the fact that the NCAA thought the rule itself provided such a minimal advantage that they tried to get rid of it a few years back.
“I think they were motivated by that more than anything,” Moore said of allegations his players only won because they cheated. “Winning the national championship, getting the national championship — because that’s all they talked about in the beginning of the year, after the TCU game last year — we always talked about process over prize, and we knew what the prize was …
“I think when all that stuff started to come out, it just added a little fuel to the fire just a little bit. We didn’t need any, but you’re kind of glad you had a little fuel. It kept that chip, kept that boulder on their shoulder even brighter, and they took it and ran with it.”
Regardless, having watched the NCAA’s actions (or inaction) over the years, there won’t be comfort until we see what they present. There have been too many occasions in which the obvious has gone unpunished, for example, and for which they’ve tried to make examples of others.
But as Baker said, there’s no denying Michigan was the best team, and the Wolverines proved it on the field against the top teams in the country “fair and square.” Nobody — not even the NCAA, if it wanted to — could take that away, and most doubt at this point they have enough to even try.
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