The NCAA was never going to drop the hammer on Michigan

The city of Columbus is still standing, even if the hopes of many of its citizens were destroyed on Friday. After investigating the University of Michigan football program and Connor StalionsThe brain of a signs of theft of signs, for almost two years, the NCAA opted for a wrist to transmit any penalty with real teeth.

Yes, there is an important financial fine that could cost the Michigan sports department of more than $ 20 million. The money is real, and it’s a lot.

But would you spend 20 million dollars to win a national university football championship? Of course, you would. Ohio State spent as much on the name, image and resemblance (Nile) for the team that won its own national title last January. And now we can put a price on the one that his rival Michigan won the previous year.

Despite all that Stalion made from 2021 to half the 2023 season – of the “counterintelligence” network of individuals whom he called the “KGB” to the “dirty film” they provided when they sent him signs of the adversaries, according to NCAA investigators – Michigan will not lose its championship trophy.

The Wolverines will not leave any victory for this championship season. The current team will not do not do not in the face of a ban on the playoffs either. The NCAA has chosen not to handle the biggest weapons of its arsenal against a program that spent almost five years in the reticle of its application arm. The NCAA infractions committee has done the three things it has done to rules of rules in recent years: 1) bringing the school; 2) punish so-called adults in the room; and 3) call it one day.

Stalions was affected by an eight -year evidence penalty; He will remain radioactive in university athletics. Former Michigan head coach and current Los Angeles Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh I was affected with a 10 -year accounting penalty; He will never return to the university coach anyway. This penalty means nothing for him in the NFL, and he no longer has to pretend to take seriously the rules of the NCAA in the pros.

And that’s it.

Current head coach Sherrone Moore will be suspended in total of three games over two years, because he initially deleted the text messages that the NCAA investigators sought at the start of the signs volley scandal. It is just a game more than Michigan offered as part of self-imposed sanctions. It seems that Moore will arrive in Cherry to choose the matches that he is missing (to jump the third and fourth games) so that he can train 2 week against Oklahoma – his Alma Mater.

In its public report, the NCAA said on several occasions that Stalion was not cooperative both with the NCAA investigation and its infringement audience process. He said that “Harbaugh leaded a program that largely restored compliance with the rules. The staff members lacked compliance with compliance agents over and over again.

But this lack of cooperation was never going to come back and bite Michigan. The NCAA was never going to really hammer the Wolverines – not in the current sports environment.

The NCAA was not going to cancel the victories of the 2023 Michigan season, because its rules only allow it to use the records of records as a penalty for cases involving ineligible players. It wasn’t that. And the organization would have struggled to try to withdraw a title when NCAA president Charlie Baker said Michigan won him “just and square”.

The NCAA was not going to give Michigan an post-season ban and penalize players who had nothing to do with reprehensible acts years ago. The Committee of Infractions admitted that it should have implemented an post -season ban because Michigan is a repeat offender with aggravating factors – such as the lack of cooperation of participants, the best testifies by Stalion throwing his phone in a pond to avoid putting it back to the investigators. But the Co was not really going to implement this ban. He avoided post-season prohibitions even in cases involving a break-up of blatant rules for a few years now.

“An post-season ban would unfairly penalize student-athletes for the actions of coaches and staff who are no longer associated with the Michigan football program,” said the report. “Thus, a more appropriate penalty is a offset financial penalty.”

The COO has added that its current penalty lines and its justification are “in contradiction with the current state of college athletics” and asked the members of the NCAA to examine and modify the available sanctions available to them.

But if the Co is not really able to leave the victories and to distribute post-season prohibitions as before, what penalties are even significant? What penalties would the coaches be dissuaded from violating the rules in the future?

Certainly not what we saw here with Michigan. Schools would gladly collect the funds necessary to pay a fine if they can get away by postponing the limits beyond what is authorized by the NCAA.

“I think the penalty here was important,” said COSE’s audience director Norman Bay said on Friday. “I think it was significant, and I think it sends a message to membership that these rules are important, that having a compliance program and a strong culture of conformity, and that schools that do not comply will be held responsible.”

I think most of us would disagree. The message sent on Friday was quite clear – but that was not what Bay thinks.

The era of heavy penalties of the NCAA is completed. It is worth looking for shortcuts, playing in the gray area and even cheating. If you get caught, you will simply pay a fine for your bad behavior – just as they do in the pros. There is no real alternative these days, and because of this, there is no real deterrence.

And ultimately, almost two years after Connor Stalions became a familiar name, it was never worth putting all the eggs in the NCAA basket after all. It is an entity that sterilized its power sterilized, which leaves it with a little more than the possibility of creating headlines with a Friday dumping ground. The several year saga ends with a groan.