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Well, well. See who got the money.
The highly anticipated penalties for Michigan’s illegal, advanced scouting scheme were announced on Friday, August 15th, with the NCAA revealing what’s important.
Get yours.
Everyone else is cashing in the New World of College Football, why shouldn’t the NCAA?
Look at the bright side. The NCAA can use Michigan’s unprecedented fines for fraud. It could reach more than $35 million. I’ll fool them.
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Hey, 1.25% of $2.8 billion is starting.
If this is all confused, then you shouldn’t. The NCAA had zero chance of a famously recognized NCAA sanctioned Boise state for putting recruits to sleep on dorm sofas, but it built the law in one of its valuable television facilities.
Last year, Michigan has repeatedly become a criminal offender after being approved for completely separate cases of violations within the football program. The worst criminal.
You have to make me a joke, you’re not that stupid to try to break the rules of criminals again.
But instead of postseason bans and/or spot losses on scholarships/rosters (see Real Meat in Enforcement Bones), the NCAA chose to reach for Michigan’s deep and vast cash battle chest and grab a handful. And why?
If players are making billions of dollars from revenue sharing and private nil transactions, why can the NCAA not be involved in the action if the coach is making the same thing with fat, guaranteed contracts (some are fired and paid for not being coaches)? Anyway, it’s all reliable.
Billions of dollars are changing hands at an incredible rate, and the four major actors involved have barely seen long enough to care for it. College, TV partners, coaches, players and now back in college with the latest surrender of the NCAA.
Worse, the Governing Body of Sports has simply thrown the barn doors into (more) rampaging cheating. The national title currently costs over $35 million.
Who wants some?
It doesn’t matter if you cheat or not, as the NCAA doesn’t know how to manage enforcement. It says it is there like that in a release from the Commission on Violation:
The NCAA has denounced the “new world of college athletics” for not following the more important paths of reducing scholarships and banning postseasons. The same “world” created by the NCAA in 2021 approved the freedom of player movements almost simultaneously, by approving that Guardrails is not in place.
By denounceing the current “world”, the NCAA conveniently allows for a pass from making difficult yet wise decisions for one of its respected students. Or, as the great Jerry Talcanian once said, “The NCAA was so mad in Kentucky that they gave Cleveland another two years of probation.”
The NCAA says players should not be penalised retrospectively due to scholarship cuts and postseason bans, rather than part of the advanced scouting scheme formulated by former low-level staff member Connor Stivilion in Michigan. Stallion is not the villain here.
That’s Jim Harbaugh.
The same Harbaugh that allowed Stallion to sneak into his program and approved his illegal plan. I’m going to say this again: Hell Harbaugh has no chance – the most meticulously organized megalomania of this side of Nick Saban’s coach – forgives Anything It happens within his program without complete knowledge and approval.
He doesn’t allow him to stand right next to the coordinator on the day of the game and can scream play calls.
Harbaugh is Michigan’s soccer team, and Michigan has gained a competitive advantage because the scheme is exactly what Wolverine should be fined, eliminating the scholarship/roster spot and giving a postseason ban.
It goes without saying that we will be freeing up victory, including those from the 2023 National Championship season.
However, the Commission on Violation pointed out Harbaugh’s three-game suspension in 2023, saying it was a sufficient penalty for his role in the scheme. No one on that committee believes that, but it’s a good cover.
Instead, Michigan will pay a $35 million bounty, but almost everyone lied, obfuscated and destroyed evidence about the illegal scheme that most certainly played a role in Michigan, which won the 2023 national title.
Everyone, money talks. It is a new world of NCAA enforcement.
Who wants some?
Matt Hayes is a senior national college football writer for the USA Today Sports Network. Follow him with X @matthayescfb.
