Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK
Michigan football still isn’t ready for the adult table
It was Abraham Lincoln who famously said “If you ain’t cheatin’ you ain’t tryin’.” Or maybe it was Winston Churchill. Could have been Confucius.
Regardless, it’s a sentiment that is at its most true in college football. NCAA oversight is basically a joke and there is over 100 years of history showing how profitable for all involved when a coach, player or program breaks a rule or two. The average violation barely even makes national news, some are even celebrated.
But for the whole thing to work, there needs to be an acceptance by the guilty party. A mindset of the ends justifying the means, and then the foresight to take care of the loose ends. If that sounds too much like something from a mafia movie, that’s not an accident – the two organizations have a lot in common.
The University of Michigan football program should know this better than almost anyone. Their origin story is based around working in the gray area, at the bare minimum. And last season, despite TWO scandals, the program won the national championship in dominating fashion. This should be a KMA moment. The haters from Columbus or East Lansing can call them cheaters all they want, but then they can kiss the ring.
The fact that there was some general impropriety around the season shouldn’t be a big deal. Especially considering what is being alleged. No one was really harmed at all. Basically all that happened was Jim Harbaugh paid for some hamburgers and an assistant coach wore a bad halloween costume.
But Michigan just refuses to take on the attitude needed for the situation. The attitude taken on by all the other elite programs in the game. Instead, they are playing stupid games and winning stupid prizes.
It was the second of those two issues that is causing most of the issues. For those who didn’t follow along the otherwise comical Connor Stalions saga, it was actually pretty fun. An assistant coach for Michigan got busted illegally scouting opponents and stealing signs from the opposition’s sideline. Real crimes against humanity stuff.
Michigan is far from the first school to break a weird rule like this. They were just unlucky or too brazen and got caught. They then had a decision – bury the problem and continue on winning games, or fight it tooth and nail and keep the story in the headlines. Guess which one the scholars from Ann Arbor chose?
Remember when Nick Saban took over Alabama and immediately the team was involved in a scandal around textbooks? Or how about earlier this year when Georgia had to fire a staff member for betting on football? Oh, you don’t remember those things? That’s probably because Saban and Kirby Smart took care of them.
In those mafia movies, the crime bosses are less concerned with people knowing they are breaking rules and much more focused on too much attention on those specific dirty deeds. Similarly, programs like Alabama and Georgia are happy to accept a slap on the wrist (often self-imposed) as long as a trusted donor can make the problems fade away quickly from the headlines and the team can focus on winning games.
Instead, Michigan bought a pink Cadillac.
The latest headlines surround Stalion attempting to get a job coaching high school football in Michigan. On its surface, this is the perfect job for UM. It mollifies Stalions while hiding him somewhere the national media won’t care to look. But it appears the powers that be in Ann Arbor didn’t quite dot all the i’s. The deal fell apart and emails have been leaked.
Stalions has since found another job coaching high school football in Michigan, which means this will certainly be the last we hear of him. OH WAIT!
With Stalions refusing to stay quiet and one coach after another getting entangled in his mess, Michigan can’t get rid of this story. It’s a punchline in what should be a victory lap.
At the end of the day, it probably doesn’t do a whole lot to hurt the product on the field in the immediate. But as they should have learned last year, the more Michigan thumbs its nose at the NCAA, the more likely it is the organization will try to throw the book at the Wolverines for an otherwise small infraction.
Which, really, is just phenomenal theater for everyone else.
