Is Michigan’s Winning Worth the Fallout with Jim Harbuagh?

Another day, another NCAA infraction committed by Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh and his staff, or so it’s seemed this season.

Multiple media reports announced Thursday that the NCAA is investigating allegations of sign-stealing and improper in-person scouting committed by Harbaugh’s staff.

This comes only a few weeks after the school imposed its own three-game suspension of Harbaugh to try and get in front of a potential punishment for recruiting violations.

How many strikes do you get when you’re having this much success? Let’s discuss.

What to Make of Harbaugh’s NCAA Violations

Like many Wolverines fans, I hardly batted an eye at Harbaugh’s suspension to begin this season.

Recruiting players during the COVID dead period is enough of a unique circumstance to not get too worked up.

And considering that the games he missed were against cupcake opponents, fans never had a reason to worry about the season being affected.

But sign-stealing is a different discussion.

There is no explicit NCAA rule against sign-stealing (except via electronic means), but in-person scouting is not allowed, and there’s a chance Michigan is punished if the allegations are proven true.

It seems unlikely that this will impact the Wolverines’ chase for a National Championship this season, but that’s not entirely out of the question.

The NCAA had no comment on the ongoing investigation, according to the Associated Press. The Big Ten Conference offered a short statement on the issue.

“The Big Ten Conference considers the integrity of competition to be of utmost importance and will continue to monitor the investigation,” the league said in a statement, according to the AP.

The only thing left to discuss is if the juice is worth the squeeze with Harbaugh.

It’s still a resounding yes for me! Wolverines fans don’t need a reminder as to how MISERABLE many seasons were before Harbaugh, and there’s nothing better than beating Ohio State.

That being said, Harbaugh can’t make a habit of committing NCAA violations. It will catch up with the program before long, and at that point, it might not be up to Michigan to keep him or not.

Until then, let’s ride out this mess and enjoy the fact that Michigan is ranked No. 2 in the nation with a legit chance to return to the College Football Playoff.

After all, what else is more important than that?

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