Jim Harbaugh is in a snit with the NCAA over potential rules violations that were petty, avoidable and ultimately stupid if they indeed took place.
www.usatoday.com
Jim Harbaugh popped again for alleged cheating. It's time to drop the self-righteous act.
For the second time this year, Michigan's Jim Harbaugh is in a snit with the NCAA for potential rules violations that were petty, avoidable and ultimately quite stupid if they indeed took place.
Back in the good old days, when Jim Harbaugh was provoking someone in college football on a near-daily basis, nothing could get him rolling on social media faster than an allegation of cheating.
“If the Georgia coach is implying any intent on our part to break rules, he is barking up the wrong tree,” Harbaugh tweeted on Feb. 24, 2016, after Kirby Smart suggested the NCAA would be forced to step in after Michigan held spring practice at IMG Academy.
The following year, when ESPN’s Paul Finebaum suggested that Michigan hiring the father of a top recruit to his coaching staff was unsavory (albeit allowed), Harbaugh fired back with a Tweet calling him “Pete Finebaum, the unabashed SEC water carrier.”
But when you play in the gray area of the NCAA rulebook while walking around like you’ve just been blessed by the Pope, you tend to make a lot of enemies.
And now that Michigan is residing near the top of college football again, all the fangs are coming out.
For the second time this year, Harbaugh is in the middle of a snit with the NCAA over potential rules violations that were petty, completely avoidable and ultimately quite stupid if they indeed took place.
Harbaugh served a self-imposed three-game suspension at the beginning of this season for misleading or not cooperating with NCAA investigators during an investigation into impermissible contact with recruits and coaching activities during the COVID-19 dead period.
Now, in a story reported first Thursday by Yahoo! Sports and confirmed by the Big Ten, Michigan is under another inquiry for in-person scouting of opponents, which has been against the rules for nearly 30 years and is quite unnecessary these days, unless the goal is to glean extra information about an opponent's play-calls that teams often try to disguise on the sideline.
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Jim Harbaugh's latest alleged offense is once again less about the offense than the offender. Michigan has been posturing itself on a moral high ground that the NCAA doesn't think exists.
www.cleveland.com
Michigan football’s latest NCAA investigation turns the tables on Jim Harbaugh’s old ‘cheaters’ accusation: Jimmy Watkins
Jim Harbaugh cannot tell a lie or fathom breaking the rules. He knows both happen in the big, scary football world, but he is fighting to keep Michigan virtuous, even if it costs him wins.
At least, that’s the coach’s portrait UM sold in a 2019 book entitled: “Overtime: Jim Harbaugh and the Michigan Wolverines at the crossroads of college football.”
The story details Michigan’s virtuous quest to keep its football program honest
and successful, which is no small feat given the obstacles UM employees say they were facing four years ago.
Back in 2019, before Harbaugh claimed any Big Ten championships, College Football Playoff appearances or wins over Ohio State, Michigan’s then-director of recruiting Matt Dudek explained the challenge of recruiting players who met UM’s stringent athletic, academic and cultural standards.
“Name another school that competes with the bluebloods athletically – we’re talking Ohio State, Alabama, Clemson – while competing with the bluebloods academically: Stanford, Northwestern, Princeton,” he said.
Dudek also told Bacon that Michigan knows some schools “don’t operate on the same moral ground,” that Harbaugh demands, and that diverting from Harbaugh’s strict standards was, in Dudek’s words “the fastest way to get fired around here.”
Most notably, when explaining the difference in recruiting spending between Michigan and some SEC schools, Harbaugh himself told Bacon,
“(It’s) hard to beat the cheaters.”....
Must be. Because for the second time this year, the NCAA trying to figure out if Harbaugh has broken the rules he once claimed to hold dear. This time, the Big Ten sent notice Thursday that the NCAA was investigating Michigan for scouting games in person and stealing signals.
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