I normally can’t stand websites that put their content behind a paywall. I think the whole journalism business is in big trouble because they’re really caught between a rock and a hard place: you either put up a paywall, or you completely ruin the reader’s experience with ads. Some of these websites today are essentially unreadable–it’s like there’s no space on the page for the article itself because there are ads on the top, bottom, sides and even in the middle of the page.

Yet with paywalls, it’s like…. No, I will not subscribe to AZCentral.com. I just want to read one article there. What, am I expected to start paying monthly to a newspaper’s website in a city I don’t even live in? That makes no sense to me. No, I will not subscribe to the IndyStar. What do these newspapers think this is?

However, the one site I do pay monthly for is The Athletic. Yes, it’s mainly because I got a deal where it only charges me like $1.99 a month, and I don’t know if I’d pay anything more than like $3.99 a month for it, but The Athletic is a great site and they typically do awesome work.

This article that Bruce Feldman and Max Olson have written about the Michigan scandal is a shining example. Even if I don’t read anything else on the Athletic for the rest of the month (and it’s only November 1), this article alone is worth the price of admission. 

What they have done is interviewed 50 different coaches across the FBS to get the pulse on what the college football world is thinking and saying about Michigan’s cheating scandal. And the results shouldn’t be shocking to anybody other than Michigan fans, who still insist this is a witch hunt, but it is pretty incredible to read some of these quotes.

Let’s just go through the article.

“The Athletic surveyed 50 FBS coaches and asked them to assess the seriousness of Michigan’s alleged actions, where it rates on the wide spectrum of dubious behavior in the sport, how they now view the Wolverines’ recent success and much more. More than a dozen head coaches offered their takes, as well as coordinators, assistants, analysts and staffers from all 10 FBS conferences. Coaches were granted anonymity in exchange for their candid responses.”

The first thing they did was poll the 50 coaches on how serious the allegations against Michigan are, on a scale of 1-5 with 5 being the most severe. 39 out of 50 said either a 5 or a 4, with 23 of 50 saying 5:

Only 2 of the 50 coaches said a 1 or a 2.

So it’s pretty heavily skewed towards the “severe” side. The average score is a 4.2 overall.

Some choice quotes:

“It’s easy to call plays when you know what the defense is,” said a Pac-12 head coach. “It’s a huge deal that someone went to another game and filmed all their signals. That’s Spygate stuff. They were flying around the country? It’s crazy.”

“In some ways, they should be held accountable for just sheer stupidity,” said a Sun Belt head coach. “They could’ve done this for years and years and never been caught if they’d just been smart about it.”

A Mountain West linebackers coach who rated the seriousness of the allegations as a 4 was just as baffled by the recklessness of the alleged scheme: “If you’re gonna do it like that, at least be subtle about it. They were so arrogant and brazen and didn’t hide it all. (It) just showed how much they didn’t care about the rules.”

“That’s one of the few rules that nobody is brave or stupid enough to just step over,” said one staffer at an SEC program. “My God, what idiots. Doing it is one thing. Getting caught is an entirely other thing.”

Unsurprisingly, some of the most interesting responses came from coaches who have worked in the Big Ten and faced Michigan.

“We knew they had a signal guy, this Navy Seal or something,” said one former Big Ten analyst (Stalions is a graduate of the Naval Academy and a retired captain of the Marine Corps). “We were very concerned about it. Our head coach was super concerned about it. … In 2021, (Michigan pass rushers) Aidan Hutchinson and (David) Ojabo had these hand signals for run/pass, but we figured that was legit. It got us into the mindset that they were looking for tips and tells. That isn’t a coincidence. We never would’ve guessed it was this deep.”

This is an interesting response because it definitely undercuts a talking point a lot of Michigan fans online are repeating. They say, “Everyone knew about it so everyone was prepared for it!” or something like that.

I think some teams knew that Michigan may or may not have picked their signs, but I don’t think anybody knew the extent of it–that Michigan knew everything about what they were doing. You’re allowed to pick signs in the course of a game, but Michigan went completely above and beyond that. I doubt many of Michigan’s opponents knew that Michigan was coming into the game against them already knowing everything.

In fairness, here’s a response from someone who voted “2”:

One of the two coaches who ranked the seriousness 2 recently spent several years in the Big Ten as an assistant. He believes this type of advanced scouting goes on more than some might think, but probably not to the same degree.

“A lot of guys are coward-ing out, acting like they’re at places that haven’t done stuff that’s also crossed the line,” he said. “Michigan just got caught.”

Unless everyone else is lying, it doesn’t seem like this type of scouting is as common as this guy says it is.

One Big 12 head coach rated it 4 and took more of a big-picture view, lamenting how this situation is a byproduct of frustrating inaction in college football.

“We are wasting so much time and energy on this. We are employing individuals whose main jobs are to signal or steal signals,” he said. “The technology is available. All these guys with different-colored shirts and these guys that have these boards up? It’s just a bad look for our sport. We’re always reactive in this sport. This is something we should’ve handled on our own.”

This, I totally agree with: the NCAA just needs to allow the helmets with comms and be done with it. Having that completely negates all the signals and codes and everything Michigan was doing.

The next section gets into the question of whether Michigan should be punished.

47 of 50 coaches polled said Michigan should be punished, only 1 said they shouldn’t, and 2 were unsure.

The quotes:

“I think you should be fired for that stuff,” one Conference USA head coach said. “Doing stuff like that where you violate all the ethics of sportsmanship, that’s horrible.”

Few coaches went that far, but several did say they believe a postseason ban should be on the table. “Everyone is watching this,” one Mountain West defensive coordinator said. “A slap on the wrist and everyone will be doing it.”

This is what I’m saying. If you can not only cheat like this but get caught in the middle of the season and still be allowed to compete for a National Championship, why wouldn’t everyone do it? If you are not going to be immediately shut down once you’re caught, what’s the real downside?

“The coaches in the conference are going to try to use it and make an example of Michigan,” one recent Big Ten assistant said. “That’s the problem. It’s the Big Ten and the Big Ten coaches that are saying ‘eff that.’ They’re gonna plead to the Big Ten: ‘I thought we’re the conference of integrity, sportsmanship, class and academic excellence.’ That’s really what’s gonna get ‘em.”

As they damn well should.

Another longtime Big Ten staffer sees an immediate postseason ban as the only reasonable response. The staffer argued that, regardless of how the College Football Playoff committee treats this situation, new Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti needs to step in for the good of the conference.

“If you’re doing it — which they did — and you’re caught — which they were — and it’s explicitly against the rules — which it is — and everyone believes that to some degree it’s a competitive advantage, then they shouldn’t be able to play in the Big Ten title game,” he said. “The Big Ten owes 13 other programs the competitive balance and owes it to them to protect the sanctity of the conference. If that many programs have confirmed that he bought tickets specifically under his name, they can’t play in the Big Ten title game. There’s no gray area. It’s explicitly against the rules.”

This is what I’ve been saying from the start. If you get caught cheating in the middle of the season, you should immediately be disqualified from the postseason. It’s one thing if a program wasn’t doing it this year, but they were cheating like 5-6 years ago under a past head coach and staff, and it just came to light now. Then it wouldn’t really be necessary to take swift action and ban them from the postseason.

But they were cheating this year. They got caught this year. Everything they have done this season and will do is tainted by cheating. Everything. If you are caught cheating mid-competition, that renders the results of anything you do null and void. At least it should.

I mean, for fuck’s sake, when they caught Sammy Sosa using a corked bat in ‘03, they immediately ejected him from the game and suspended him.

The MLB has for years had a cheating problem where pitchers are sometimes caught applying “sticky stuff” to make the ball move differently. They apply the “sticky stuff” to their hat, their gloves or sometimes their belts and then touch it from time to time to apply it to the ball. It got so bad that the MLB had to start allowing the umpires to conduct periodic checks on pitchers when suspicions were raised. The rule clearly states that if a pitcher is using sticky stuff and is caught by an umpire, he’s immediately ejected from the game, and then suspended. No exceptions.

If you get caught cheating in the middle of a competition, you are disqualified. Period. That is a general rule across all sports.

Now for the other side:

Other coaches are less enthusiastic about handing down severe penalties if the Wolverines are indeed guilty of the alleged scheme. As one Sun Belt head coach put it, it wouldn’t feel right to wreck the careers of everyone on staff based on “one young dumb guy’s decisions.”

Several coaches were skeptical that Harbaugh’s players deserved to endure a postseason ban.

“Do you punish the kids for it? What did they know?” one Group of 5 general manager asked. “I wouldn’t imagine they were aware of this, to the extent of what was going on. They were just playing ball. That’s why I always hate vacated games and bowl bans and punishing people that were not complicit. Why does J.J. McCarthy have to suffer for that?”

Because he benefited from it, whether he knew about it or not. He ran the plays called by an offensive coordinator who was cheating. It’s all fruit of the poisonous tree.

By the way, McCarthy should not be eligible for the Heisman, for the same reason Michigan shouldn’t be allowed to compete in the postseason: because it’s simply unfair to the other players and teams that didn’t cheat. You give the Heisman to a cheater over a player that didn’t cheat? That’s a travesty.

And it’s not just a matter of “one young dumb guy’s decisions.” He was attached at the hip to both the offensive and defensive coordinators. It went beyond Connor Stalions. He was not just some “lone wolf” or “rogue staffer.” If the Michigan coaches were not on board with what he was doing, they would’ve fired him. They certainly wouldn’t have let him more or less call all their plays.

Next question:

Another lopsided response. 35 of 50 say Harbaugh doesn’t have plausible deniability. Only 6 say he does. 9 are unsure.

On the same day the Big Ten confirmed an NCAA investigation of Michigan was underway, Harbaugh issued a statement pledging full cooperation. He denied having any knowledge of illegal signal stealing and denied directing anyone to engage in off-campus scouting.

Are his coaching peers buying it?

Seventy percent of the coaches surveyed are not. Among the 13 head coaches polled, eight do not believe Harbaugh has plausible deniability. To them, a staffer whose official role is working in the recruiting department being so involved with Wolverines coordinators on the sidelines during the game is a red flag.

“I don’t believe (Harbaugh) organized or started it, but if some young guy comes up to me and says, ‘I’ve got all of their signals,’ well, I’m thinking, ‘I know you did something that you shouldn’t have,’” one Big Ten defensive coordinator said. “That’s on the coordinators. And if I’m the head coach and I’m watching one of my recruiting analysts have a constant flow of information with my coordinators during a game, I’m wondering what is going on there or I’m an idiot.”

So essentially Harbaugh would like us to believe he’s an idiot.

A Pac-12 quarterbacks coach agreed about the suspect optics. “It doesn’t look good. He’s next to Jim Harbaugh and then the defensive coordinator (Jesse Minter) and then the offensive coordinator (Sherrone Moore). (For analysts) there are rules about what they can and can’t do. They’re just supposed to be charting and bringing energy.”

“Hell no,” said an analyst in the ACC. “Who gets that close to a head coach who doesn’t have access?”

Beyond that, these coaches understand the NCAA rules. Head coaches are presumed to be responsible for the actions and violations of all institutional staff members. “That’s NCAA manual 101,” one SEC assistant said. Harbaugh has already served a three-game self-imposed suspension this season for alleged recruiting violations, a factor in any argument that he promoted an atmosphere of compliance.

There is no plausible deniability. We have all seen the videos of Stalions in the ear of both coordinators telling them exactly what play is coming next and then the coordinators make the play call.

Stalions was INTEGRAL to the entire Michigan gameday operation.

The fact that Stalions is making $55,000 annually also adds to coaches’ skepticism.

“Who paid for this?” wondered a Pac-12 head coach. “There’s no way this kid paid for it out of his own pocket. You can’t tell me Jim didn’t know. This is the same guy whose answers to the recruiting thing (allegations stemming from the COVID-19 dead period) was to say, ‘I don’t remember.’”

This next coach is lucky the answers are anonymous, because he’s kind of self-incriminating here:

One head coach in the Sun Belt conceded that it’s conceivable that Harbaugh could’ve been in the dark on the extent of Stalions’ actions: “There’s some stuff that goes on in my building that I’m sure I don’t know about. There are guys that I take information from where I don’t know where they get all their information.”

Might want to get your house in order there, buddy.

A Group of 5 offensive coordinator added, “A lot of head coaches are clueless, and most of the time it’s on purpose. But there is a very, very slim chance he didn’t know. He’s on the headset. You would be asking, ‘So, how the hell does this guy know all this stuff?’”

Bingo.

But Harbaugh already knew. There’s no way he didn’t know.

Next question: has the sign stealing played a role in Michigan’s success over the past three seasons?

A resounding yes:

Quotes:

Michigan went 2-4 during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. Since then, the Wolverines have made a remarkable turnaround in going 30-3, thumping Ohio State twice after losing eight in a row to their rival and winning two Big Ten titles to earn CFP bids.

The details of Michigan’s alleged signal-stealing scheme have a lot of people in the coaching world questioning whether it played a key role in that startling 180. Within the Big Ten, the Wolverines’ knack for getting great intel on opponents was already on the radar of rival coaching staffs.

“I think Michigan is really good at stealing your signals,” a Big Ten running backs coach told The Athletic in 2022 on the eve of the Michigan-Ohio State game. “They got our stuff early and they got us on both sides.

Little did he know.

Seventy-four percent believe illegal signal stealing has played a role in Michigan’s rise. One coach pointed out that the Wolverines utilizing that intel to turn into a powerhouse again has also enabled them to recruit better, both with blue-chip high school recruits and transfers, now that the program is atop the Big Ten.

“If this is all factually true, look at how their record changed since they started doing this,” said an AAC head coach.

“It’s a hell of a coincidence, isn’t it?” said a Pac-12 quarterbacks coach with a chuckle.

A Pac-12 head coach agreed and referenced Michigan’s struggles in 2020, when the program endured losses to Michigan State, Indiana, Wisconsin and Penn State. “They had to beat Rutgers in overtime!” he added. Since that season, the Wolverines are 24-1 in Big Ten play.

A Sun Belt head coach believes the scheme was a “total difference-maker” and was a strong voice among the 74 percent. (Worth noting: In the Wolverines’ past two games against the Buckeyes, they’ve allowed an average of 25 points. In the previous two before 2021, they surrendered an average of 59 points per game.)

“They have the answers to the test,” he said. “Defense is all about anticipation, and then you take two steps in that direction. It’s a way bigger benefit for a defense than an offense.”

Among the 26 percent who gave the Wolverines the benefit of the doubt, many gave credit to their personnel, their physical style of play and their recent run of NFL Draft picks, with a combined 14 picks in the past two years, including three first-rounders and five defensive players selected in the first two rounds.

Okay, but they’re not the only team that sends players to the NFL. And they were dominating teams like Ohio State and Penn State that send even more players to the NFL.

And how many of these players had their draft stocks inflated because their coaches were cheating?

The thing is, the skeptics of the Michigan scandal all say the same thing, “You still have to execute” as if that somehow absolves Michigan.

It doesn’t. It doesn’t at all, not even a little bit.

Both teams have to execute. The difference is one team knows all the other team’s plays. It’s not a level playing field at all. It’s a lot easier to execute when you know what’s coming. And, on the flip side, it’s a lot more difficult for the other team to execute when the opponent can anticipate their every move. You’re a running back and the defense knows for a fact it’s a run, so they just load up on the run and stonewall you–that’s not just a matter of “execute better.”

Execution goes out the window when it’s not a level playing field.

Next question: how many points per game was the sign stealing worth? Can we quantify this?

Definitely a more murky result here, hard to figure any sort of consensus. But it’s worth noting that no coach responded that it didn’t have any effect–there was no “0 points” option here.

I would probably say it’s hard to quantify, and it depends on the opponent. If it’s a team you’re going to beat by 30 anyway, it’s not going to add an additional 20 points to that.

But if you think about a “matchup game” or a “talent-equated game,” it could easily add 20 or more points. That’s just 10 points on offense and 10 points on defense. You force three field goals instead of allowing touchdowns, that’s 12 points right there for your defense. And then you score three touchdowns when you might have been held to three field goals otherwise, that’s 12 points for your offense. Now you’re already at a 24 point difference. Instead of being down 21-9, you’re up 21-9. Massive difference.

And another thing: it’s impossible to tell how many three and outs your defense forced that you otherwise wouldn’t have, and vice versa for your offense. An opponent drive that results in no points may have resulted in 7 points if you weren’t cheating. It’s impossible to quantify unless you actually have someone from Michigan breaking down the game film play-by-play, saying, “We knew they were running to the boundary here and we snuffed that out,” etc.

The quotes:

If Michigan’s staff went into games with impeccable but impermissibly gathered information on its opponents’ signals, just how valuable would that edge be? How can you quantify it? We asked coaches to attempt to put a number on it. Of those who ventured a guess, roughly half felt that the Wolverines’ edge was somewhere in the range of 3 to 7 points. The other half believed calling it a one-score difference wasn’t nearly enough.

One Sun Belt head coach didn’t hesitate to say it could easily be a 20-point difference. A Big 12 analyst thinks it’s closer to a touchdown for the offense and another for the defense. It’s easy for them to let their imagination run wild about how many perfect calls for either side turned into easy points. More explosive plays and efficiency on offense. More tackles for loss and third-down stops on defense. In Michigan’s toughest games, it may have made a serious difference.

“You can probably attribute that to a few points here and there in some big ones,” one SEC assistant said.

Perhaps the right people to ask, though, are those who are experienced signal stealers. One defensive assistant at a Big 12 school who specialized in legal signal stealing at a previous job insists the difference between hunting for hints in TV copy and having a full game of footage you’ve filmed is massive. The coach believes it’s worth several touchdowns on both offense and defense if Michigan had a reliable system in place to relay the intel to coordinators during games.

I would say having Connor Stalions stand right next to both coordinators and whisper play calls into their ears the entire game fits that description, no?

“I mean, you’re shooting fish in a barrel,” the defensive coach said. “If I was able to do what Michigan was doing, that would be the difference between big-time winning and losing. If you filmed all the signals from a game, you’d take that and put it into the film system and match up the play-by-play with what the opponent is running. And then, I mean, it’s over. Having a steady film of the signals during a game would be mind-blowing.

“To me, it would be the same as going and filming somebody’s practice. If I was on the Michigan staff and was part of that operation, I would be very uncomfortable using that info. To me, that’s a big moral line in the sand that was crossed.”

Now for the other side:

Others were more skeptical. One former Big Ten assistant said he’s coached in games where his staff had every signal and blitz call for an opponent and still lost. Some point to the likelihood that opponents — especially Big Ten foes who may have had suspicions about Michigan’s tactics — made in-game adjustments to limit their exposure.

The Wolverines’ last loss, in the CFP semifinal against TCU in the Fiesta Bowl, came against an opponent that had been warned ahead of time and knew to switch up its signals, sources said. Early in the game, the Horned Frogs used false “dummy” signals when calling plays. Quarterback Max Duggan would check to the sideline for signals that TCU was changing its play call. Except they weren’t. The original call was still on. The TCU staff’s rationale: If Michigan got burned by its intel two or three times, Harbaugh and his coaches might stop listening to their signal stealer.

Whether or not that worked, TCU went on to score 51 against a team allowing 13.4 points per game.

Okay, I get all this, but it completely misses the point.

It’s not a question of, “Can you still beat Michigan if you are AWARE that they have all your signs?”

The actual question is, “Can you beat them if you are UNAWARE that they have your signs?”

The whole objective here for Michigan was to do this secretly, without the opponent’s knowledge.

To say, “Well it didn’t help them that much because some teams knew they were doing it.”

We’re talking about the teams that DIDN’T KNOW they were doing it!

No shit you can mitigate the impact of an opponent’s cheating if you KNOW they’re cheating–if you go into the game knowing they are cheating, like TCU did.

But at that point we’re not even talking about the cheating anymore–we’re talking about what their punishment should be.

Because, you know, THEY GOT CAUGHT CHEATING.

There’s even more questions in the Athletic article, but they’re broader in scope and a little more philosophical. There’s a question about how serious a problem in-person scouting is, there’s a question about whether teams have staffers devoted to sign stealing (17 yes, 33 no), and then the last question is about whether coach-to-player comms technology should be allowed (42 yes, 8 no).

I’ll close this out with a couple of quotes I loved about the in-helmet comms question:

“I think in-helmet communication would level the playing field and save a lot of time,” the Big 12 defensive assistant said.

“Why haven’t we done this? There are obviously some powerful programs out there that don’t want it,” an ACC offensive coordinator said. “If you put earpieces in the helmets, you’ve gotta coach football and you’ve gotta coach technique. You don’t know the screen is coming. You don’t know what run is coming.”

Yes.

The sport becomes about football again. Right now it’s almost like literal warfare, trying to crack the enemy’s codes, intercept their communications and all that.

It should be about football. The smartest players and coordinators who can read formations will be able to guess what the opponent is doing–like Tony Romo often does on the CBS NFL broadcasts–that’s great. That’s fine. That’s legitimate.

But the whole process of signs and thus sign-stealing–it should not be a thing. It’s not football.

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Now an update that dropped late Wednesday night: according to Pete Thamel, there was a conference call between Big Ten coaches and commissioner Tony Petitti, and it got heated. The coaches demanded that the Big Ten take action against Michigan:

A vast majority of the Big Ten coaches expressed their frustrations with the ongoing signal-stealing investigation at Michigan in a video call with commissioner Tony Petitti on Wednesday, sources told ESPN.

The call, which took 90 minutes, included nearly an hour without Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh, who hung up after the regularly scheduled Big Ten business to allow the conference’s coaches to speak freely about the NCAA’s investigation into Michigan.

According to five sources familiar with the call, a chorus of voices encouraged Petitti to take action against Michigan in a call that was described as both intense and emotional.

“Collectively, the coaches want the Big Ten to act — right now,” said a source familiar with the call. “What are we waiting on? We know what happened.”

They have the proof Stalions bought tickets to their games. What’s the hold-up?

The coaches in the Big Ten laid out to Petitti, who was hired in April, just how distinct of a schematic advantage Michigan has held the last three years by illegally obtaining the opposition’s signals ahead of time, as has been alleged.

Coaches used words like “tainted,” “fraudulent” and “unprecedented” on the call to describe Michigan’s signal-stealing scheme, as has been alleged. Much of the call, according to sources, was coaches explaining to Petitti both how it worked and how it impacted them and their programs. Both in-person opponent scouting and using electronic equipment to steal signals are not allowed by NCAA rules.

In the three years that Stalions left a paper trail of purchasing tickets to games of Michigan opponents, the Wolverines have gone 33-3 overall and 22-1 in Big Ten play. In the prior three years, they were 21-11 overall and 16-8 in league play.

Fraudulent.

Michigan is the Enron of college football.

“People don’t understand the seriousness of it,” said another source. “How it truly impacted the game plan. To truly know if it’s a run or a pass, people don’t understand how much of an advantage that was for Michigan.

“There was anger interspersed throughout the call, as one source described the sentiment as: “Every game they played is tainted.”

That’s the truth. They cheated, in Big Ten games, THIS SEASON. How can they possibly be allowed to compete for a Big Ten Championship?

“I don’t think the Big Ten understood how upset everyone was,” said another source. “The tenor of the call was asking the Big Ten to show leadership — the conference and the presidents. An unprecedented violation of the rules would require unprecedented action from the Big Ten.”

And this is unprecedented. We’ve never seen anything like this.

If there is no action taken this season, it’s a travesty.

Now that the Big Ten coaches have made the position clear, if the conference fails to act, it would represent the conference deliberately allowing a bad deed to go unpunished.

This morning, ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg added this:

If you’ve got 13 of the 14 programs in the conference all pounding the table–intensely, emotionally–demanding action be taken against Michigan, you’re pretty much backed into a corner here if you’re Tony Petitti.

He hasn’t even been on the job a year. It’s kind of not fair to him that he has to deal with the biggest cheating scandal in sports history this early into his tenure. But this is what he signed up for whether he knew it or not.

At a certain point he’s going to begin weighing his options here: do I side with the 13 programs who are hounding me, or the program that is likely to get kneecapped by NCAA sanctions when this is all said and done, and will likely not be a contender for years to come afterward. Just looking at this from the perspective of Petitti’s own self interest, if he sides with Michigan, he’s pretty obviously backing the wrong horse. Michigan is a sinking ship.

It’s really a no-brainer to side with the 13 other programs rather than the one that is circling the drain. If Petitti sides with Michigan and loses the confidence of the 13 other programs, his tenure as Big Ten commissioner is basically over before it ever began. I don’t see how he doesn’t take action here.

Then again, Petitti’s background is TV–he was a TV executive at various networks for his entire career, so he’s looking at this from a ratings perspective, I’d imagine. Michigan is good for ratings. Controversy is good for ratings. People will tune in if Michigan isn’t disqualified–in fact more people might even tune in to hate watch. Ultimately, Tony Petitti’s job is to make the conference as much money as possible, and at the very least, he’s going to try to resist taking any action against Michigan for as long as possible because it’s best for business. Until the pressure from the other 13 schools becomes overwhelming, he will probably resist taking action here.

One last thing, about this line we keep hearing about how “the NCAA always moves slowly.”

I don’t remember the NCAA “moving slowly” when they suspended Chase Young in 2019 for the heinous crime of accepting a personal loan from a family friend to fly his girlfriend out to the Rose Bowl!