Of all the participants in Michigan’s sign-stealing scheme, Sherrone Moore’s alleged wrongs are the lightest. Jim Harbaugh, Chris Partridge, Denard Robinson, and Connor Stalions are to be hit with Level 1 accusations, according to a leaked draft of the NCAA’s notice of allegations. Moore’s are Level 2. Level 1 is the more severe level.
I don’t know what to think about Harbaugh. His legacy is the biggest thing at stake here. Did he cheat his way to a national title? I don’t think that’s accurate. Michigan won that championship, and what relevant cheating they did along the way doesn’t seem out of line with common college football misdeeds. The recruiting and practice violations weren’t outrageous. They broke rules, but they didn’t exceed normal college football rule breaking. The alleged sign-stealing was outrageous, but it wasn’t relevant. It helped Michigan win games, but probably not in the title season itself, and so what impact it had on the national championship was most likely limited to the impacts of the games it won in 2022: Those wins boosted Michigan’s recruiting profile and earned them playoff experience via the TCU loss. Those benefits were only indirectly helpful to the 2023 campaign.
Whether Harbaugh won his title through cheating or not, though, is partly independent from how much he’ll be remembered as a champion and how much he’ll be remembered as a cheater. Harbaugh seems to really care about this distinction. He wouldn’t cooperate with the NCAA. He won’t admit any misdeed. Harbaugh wants people to think he was clean. Will they?
Harbaugh was suspended twice last season. I suspect fans remember this. At the end of the year, the Big Ten suspended him because of the sign-stealing allegation, with Michigan eventually backing down after initial vociferous challenges to the conference’s decision. Before that, though, he was suspended for the recruiting and practice violations. Specifically, he lied to the NCAA.
Harbaugh’s core NCAA offense in both cases was a refusal to cooperate with the investigation. The thing that got him suspended for the beginning of last season was not the rules he broke, but his refusal to admit he broke those rules.
Had that been the only suspension of the season, Harbaugh’s college finale might have ended on a purely triumphant note. The suspension was weird, but it was unnecessary. It would have received passing historical mention in a universe where Connor Stalions stayed in the military.
Instead, Harbaugh’s suspensions—plural—came to be the story of his national championship campaign. What will be remembered from Michigan’s 2023–24 title? First, Connor Stalions. Second, that Jim Harbaugh was suspended all the time.
The first suspension was a nothing-burger in and of itself. Taken together with the second, though, it inflates the perception. By getting himself suspended for those first few games of the year, Jim Harbaugh made himself look like a bigger cheater.
With the sign-stealing: Will we ever find out what Jim Harbaugh knew? If we do, that will change things. If our knowledge remains what it is today, though, it’s mostly an exercise in confirmation bias. I don’t believe the Big Ten formally accused Harbaugh of knowing about the cheating. It doesn’t sound like the NCAA is accusing him of knowing either. According to the ESPN report, the violations are again for a refusal to cooperate. Was this refusal an attempt to cover up knowing? Or was Harbaugh being Harbaugh? Harbaugh has done himself a favor here by behaving so bizarrely over the course of his Michigan tenure. Were he not so weird, the cover up explanation would seem likelier. As it stands, it’s easy to believe either. It’s easy to believe that Harbaugh knew and even enabled Stalions. It’s easy to believe that Harbaugh had no idea and that he wouldn’t hand over his phone out of a Ron Swanson-like desire for privacy. Michigan fans will presumably believe the latter. I don’t know about the rest of us.
As for Moore…
Moore’s penalty is also for obstructing the investigation. He deleted his texts with Stalions when the Stalions news broke. The texts were later recovered, and Moore then turned them over. It is unclear from ESPN’s report to what degree Moore is implicated in the Stalions scheme.
Even as a Level 2 allegation, Moore’s punishment could be deemed a “show-cause” penalty, meaning (among other things) that it will stick with him for its duration if he tries to go to another school, and that his new school will take on the punishment themselves. I’m not sure that this show-cause piece is particularly relevant with Moore. It doesn’t seem Michigan has any intent to fire him over this. They and Moore seem to intend to wear whatever penalties the NCAA successfully imposes. Maybe I’m missing something, but it seems that this piece, though loud, isn’t particularly meaningful.
Moore might be suspended, as Harbaugh was. If he is, relevant games he could miss include home games against Texas (Week 2) and USC (Week 4). If Moore is suspended, the impact could be real on this season, but it’s unlikely to matter much long-term. Say Michigan loses to Texas and Moore would have made the difference. If Michigan’s national title-caliber, they’ll make the playoff anyway. If they’re not, it won’t matter to them whether they make or miss the playoff. They’re not trying to hang banners for playoff appearances.
Will other penalties hurt Michigan in the long run? It doesn’t seem likely. They’ve lost some staff, but that might have happened anyway in the wake of a title. Like Harbaugh’s legacy, Michigan’s reputation is worse for the cheating, but it’s better for the championship. They’ll still have plenty of recruiting pull and an invigorated booster base. Whether they remain a national contender or not as the Moore era unfolds will not depend on what penalties they receive from this episode. In that sense, it worked out. Michigan might have a slightly worse season this year, and Michigan will have to deal with a lot of well-earned chirps that their title deserves an asterisk, and time will tell how this affects Jim Harbaugh’s standing among the college football greats. But Michigan won. It worked out for them.
We’ve quickly forgotten how many breaks Michigan caught on their way to the national championship. Ryan Day made strange decisions in Ann Arbor. The Wolverines caught Alabama in a messy offensive time. Alabama took care of Georgia on Michigan’s behalf. Washington took down Texas, a worse team than Michigan but a better team than Washington. The first six games of the Wolverines’ Big Ten schedule were cakewalks. Michigan became so good in the first place thanks to Covid allowing their offensive line to ripen into unprecedented levels of experience. Michigan won the title. Michigan earned the title. But it was an unlikely title, even if the cheating didn’t really help them win it.
With that, then…
There is a universe where the title didn’t happen. There is a universe where Michigan missed last year’s playoff, the sign-stealing scandal broke anyway, and Jim Harbaugh came to face a quit-or-be-fired scenario. In a number of ways, we were very close to occupying that universe instead of this one. Instead, we got this one. The cheating might not have helped. But the gamble worked out.
Miscellany
- There’s a solid chance (~40%, per current betting markets) that Carlos Alcaraz comes back from his defeat yesterday and wins the U.S. Open. If that happens, he’ll have won three major titles in a row, but he’ll have missed an Olympic gold medal between them. How would this be remembered? Would the Olympic defeat—one which appeared to mean a whole lot to him in the moment—wash away?
- On the other side of that match, is Novak Djokovic’s knee healthy? The gold medalist worried after his quarterfinal victory that he’d re-torn his meniscus, but reports were scant on that topic over the next two matches. Clearly, winning that Olympic gold—the last noteworthy title that’s eluded him—was a priority. Will he play in the U.S. Open now? Will he be at full strength?
- Sticking with the theme: Where does Scottie Scheffler’s Olympic gold stack up against his other wins and losses this year? Golf is a weird fit for the Olympics, given how rarely the best player wins, but that critique can be applied to majors as well. On one side, you could see the Olympics becoming another de facto golf major (Rory McIlroy seemed to be on this train of thought when he compared it to the Ryder Cup). On the other, it’s possible Olympic golf got lucky. This year, in golf’s third Olympic appearance, the best player did win. I suppose those sides aren’t mutually exclusive.
- I can’t believe Blake Snell had never pitched in a ninth inning before in the majors. That’s the craziest revelation from what he did Friday night. We knew Snell was often untouchable. We didn’t realize he was so untouchable he’d never recorded a 25th out. Some of that is the Rays’ desire to keep him from facing hitters a third time, but a lot of it is what he does to his own pitch counts. He’s a unique pitcher.
- In a moving moment yesterday, Alex Cora left Wilyer Abreu in to face a left-handed Rangers reliever the day after the death of his grandmother back home in Venezuela. Abreu homered, his second long-ball of the day. In moving moments today, Freddie Freeman is back with the Dodgers. His son has returned home after eight days in the ICU, and while he has a long road ahead, one which will include learning to walk again, the prognosis sounds hopeful.
- I missed this over the All-Star Break, but evidently, during a BWAA talk (or press conference?), Rob Manfred indicated draft picks will probably be available to be traded in the next CBA. What’s notable here was Manfred’s explanation: “I don’t think we have that many stupid clubs.” The reason draft picks haven’t been traded before has been to protect franchises from themselves. Now, I guess it’s just the Rockies and White Sox that Rob has to worry about.
- Why did the Yankees emphasize the “general fatigue” part of Gerrit Cole’s ailment last week rather than it being a stomach virus, as Aaron Boone indicated? Had Cole missed a start due to a stomach virus, I don’t think anyone would have batted an eye, and surely the Yankees knew this? It makes it seem like the general fatigue wasn’t actually from a stomach virus. Either way, Cole was fine in his return to the mound. A big figure to keep an eye on as the Yankees try to gain control of the American League.
- Jack Flaherty had a good first start for the Dodgers, striking out seven and only walking one over six scoreless innings in Oakland yesterday. The Dodgers play three against the Phillies starting tonight in the battle for National League preeminence.
- This isn’t new, but the Orioles might have gotten too cute at the deadline. Eloy Jiménez had a good weekend at the plate in Cleveland, but the O’s are really betting on the change of scenery mattering there. Another big figure to keep an eye on. It wasn’t direct, but in some ways they gave up Kyle Stowers for this.
- Max Scherzer is heading back to the IL, and speculation has mounted that he might retire after this season. In the meantime, the Rangers have fallen back off. They’ll get Tyler Mahle back this week, but I don’t know that they’re going to be close enough to the playoffs to justify any sort of rush with Jacob deGrom.
- Max Fried came off the IL, and the Braves have gained ground on the Phillies but they missed opportunity these last two days. Great playoff races all around. No safe division leaders, and the biggest postseason locks have some of the most panicked fanbases. Fun three months ahead.
- From the New York Times, on the NBA potentially launching a competitor to the EuroLeague: “The fear has always been if the NBA comes in, it’s going to be what the NBA is in the States: it’s business and it’s entertainment, and then it’s sports,” said one EuroLeague source. Yes. That is how American professional sports work. (Evidently the EuroLeague has a problem where teams are actively losing money because they’re trying to build strong enough rosters to compete. The NBA, on the other hand, has Jerry Reinsdorf.)
