I’ll give him this much. Jim Harbaugh has some balls on him.
Check this out…
Jim Harbaugh isn’t giving in to the NCAA, says he did not cheat or lie.
This is now on Michigan to deal with. pic.twitter.com/T1SQn9DaDS
— Trey Wallace (@TreyWallace_) August 5, 2024
This is in response to the leaked NOA from the NCAA regarding Michigan and Connor Stalions which mentions deleted text messages from new head coach Sherrone Moore to Stalions and other things.
Let’s be clear, I don’t really care if Michigan cheated or not using advanced scouting of opponents and signal learning (not stealing). Penn State, Ohio State, Iowa, Alabama and Washington were all aware of the allegations against Michigan after it became a major news story and each changed their signals to an extent. And each lost. Those teams had a chance to shut this all down, make Michigan look foolish and look like cheaters and they didn’t do it. Had any of them won, everyone on the planet would be talking about how Michigan can’t win without cheating. And now it simply can’t be done. So bully on Michigan and shame on those teams as they could have ended all of this in the public eye.
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But as much as I don’t care I also don’t believe for a nano second that Harbaugh wasn’t aware of what Stalions was doing. Proving he gave the orders and orchestrated the whole thing has been difficult obviously and we won’t know everything until the NOA is released. Harbaugh may have ignored it all and counted it as the efforts of a misguided super fan he somehow let on his own staff. But not being aware of it? That’s nonsense and we’re not that dumb.
Michigan fans have two choices here. They can believe that their beloved coach knew and didn’t really care to stop it and think it was a big deal or they can believe he’s an absolute moron. But there’s no in between. Nothing that’s this advanced, from more than 50 scouting trips to being on the Central Michigan sideline under a false name wearing shades that happen to flash a blue light at times (when recording), is unknown. Michigan has obviously done a very good job concealing these efforts. Who paid for the trips? Who helped him get sideline access? Which coaches were in talks with him? All of that is somewhere in the NOA most likely but if this was obvious it would have blown up long ago. There is no smoking gun and it’s kind of a big deal that hasn’t proven to be a big deal. But the head coach not knowing? Hogwash.
I’ve heard dozens of Harbaugh stories over the years and even more since this story broke last Fall. Some of them are cool about his quirky personality and how fun it is to be around him. But the majority of them are about his narcissism and me-first attitude. Harbaugh says he hasn’t lied or cheated or stolen? There are a whole lot of people out there who can refute that but have zero skin in the game and zero reason to speak out. But like this story, where there’s smoke there’s fire and there is no way on earth I believe when he says he wasn’t aware.
But proof is all that matters here. I don’t have any, this is just my opinion after numerous discussions about this situation and Harbaugh himself with a whole lot of people who also don’t have proof. And there may be zero proof that Harbaugh left behind which would be amazing. But in a college football program, something like this is always brought to the attention of the man in charge. It just is. And I expect Harbaugh to lie about it. The man has balls.
