How U-M penalties will affect upcoming season
Tony Garcia
The Michigan football program has officially been handed a punishment after it admitted to NCAA violations involving its football program as part of a negotiated resolution that was announced Tuesday afternoon.
The terms, which the NCAA said Michigan has agreed to in its announcement, include three years of probation, an undisclosed fine and recruiting restrictions. In addition, five current or former football employees have agreed to one-year show-cause orders.
Now, there’s one major question left: What does it mean for 2024, with the Wolverines scheduled to kick off their national title defense against Fresno State on Aug. 31?
The short answer is somewhere between we don’t know yet and not all that much, at least on the field. For starters, probationary terms can vary, but typically they aren’t dire for a program.
There are currently five other football programs across the nation currently on probation: Tennessee, Florida State, South Florida, Air Force and Baylor. Other than Baylor, all of those schools had winning records last season, including FSU, who would have likely played U-M in the Rose Bowl had quarterback Jordan Travis not suffered a season-ending injury a few weeks prior.
Terms of probation can range anywhere from serious punishments, like vacated wins and missed postseason games (neither of which are happening for U-M), to minor slaps on the wrist like educating coaches on NCAA compliance and telling all potential prospects about the terms of the probation.
The next portion of the infraction is a fine. Though the exact financials were not disclosed as part of the agreement, U-M’s athletic department had an operating budget of more than $229 million dollars last season, so presumably it will be a pain, but there’s no reason that should impact the on-field product in any way.
The final part, the recruiting restrictions, is perhaps the place where Michigan could be the most impacted.
It’s not yet clear what that will look like, however, even if there were scholarship limitations, there are ways to indirectly circumvent that. Perhaps a student on scholarship opts to take a walk-on spot if they know that they can make up for it elsewhere in NIL deals and marketing.
Part of the agreement meant U-M acknowledged Harbaugh both “demonstrated a head coach responsibility violation” and “failed to meet his responsibility to cooperate with the investigation.
In a text message to the Free Press, Harbaugh’s attorney Tom Mars said he “filed a lengthy response to the (Notice of Allegations) on behalf of Coach Harbaugh, which unfortunately hasn’t been made public and will probably never see the light of day. That
still
concluded Coach Harbaugh’s participation in the case.”
Harbaugh still faces a Level I charge after he was deemed to have misled investigators. While Harbaugh has maintained his innocence, U-M’s athletic department is officially separated from the matter any further.
“Today’s joint resolution pertains to the University of Michigan Athletic Department and several former and current employees,” Manuel said. “We are pleased to reach a resolution on this matter so that our studentathletes and our football program can move forward.”
This news does not mean U-M is out of the woodwork entirely as it pertains to looming
NCAA investigations.
Harbaugh was suspended for three games twice last season. The first was a self-imposed suspension after U-M after failed to reach a negotiated resolution with the NCAA for the COVID-era violations discussed above.
The second time, however, was by the Big Ten Conference for an alleged sign-stealing scandal, spearheaded by former low-level recruiting staffer Connor Stalions. Harbaugh has never been shown to have any affiliation to that plot, nor has any current or former staffer not named Stalions.
Michigan has not received a draft letter of the notice of allegations for that alleged impropriety, which is still in the discovery phase.