Michigan’s real punishment is being branded a cheat, not some ruling from the weak NCAA

Many people were celebrating at the end of the week when news broke that the NCAA’s punishment of Michigan for its sign-stealing scandal would be revealed on Friday. They were anticipating that the NCAA would come down on Michigan with an iron fist, a notion that arose from either online misinformation from uninformed personalities or blind hope.

People wanted justice. Michigan straight-up cheated, lied to cover it up and behaved in a reckless manner that threatened the integrity of this sport. It should pay.

Funny enough, when the NCAA revealed its punishment, Michigan is paying a lot … of money. It is facing fines that could surpass a staggering $30 million.

But the tangible knockout punch that has been highly anticipated for over a year never came. There was no death penalty (that was always an irrational prediction), no vacation of wins, no future postseason ban and no scholarship reduction. There was nothing that Michigan — a very wealthy institution that has boosters with extremely deep pockets — cannot fix with the stroke of a pen on a check.

This was met with quite the upheaval, as those invested in the NCAA’s investigation felt Michigan got off the hook. It did, even with the steep financial ramifications. There are no real penalties that could impede Michigan’s ability to compete in the future, and there was no attempt to discredit the past, mainly the 2024 national championship run. The NCAA hammer never came. The Wolverines were barely slapped on the wrist.

Here’s the lost reality, though: Michigan’s harsh penalty was never going to be delivered from a weak NCAA that is too afraid of being sued to ever deliver a knockout punch ever again.

The real penalty is now Michigan — the program that used to levitate above the rest of college football with an inflated ego blown up by doing things the right way — will forever be remembered as a cheat. Team 144 — perhaps the best team in Michigan football history — will never be honored purely. It will never be remembered without someone saying “it cheated” or hearing the name Connor Stalions.

It did cheat. It did lie. The NCAA’s Committee On Infractions’ report was harsher than the punishment. Read through the 74-page document and you’ll find some pretty incriminating stuff. Want some examples?

• Page 21: “There was a clear, sophisticated and well-resourced operation in place to skirt a rule, all aimed at gaining an advantage over competitors. That alone contradicts the principles of honesty, fair play and sportsmanship.”

• Page 26: “(Jim) Harbaugh ran a program that was largely dismissive of rules compliance. There was little, if any, emphasis on following the rules. To the contrary, his program saw compliance as the enemy, made their own decisions regarding interpreting the rules to their benefit, or outright committed rules violations.”

• Page 31: “The scope and scale of Stalions’ failure to cooperate is one of the more significant and serious failures the COI has seen.”

• Page 53: “Stalions destroyed, removed, or otherwise failed to produce information and materials pertinent to the investigation. He also provided false or misleading information during the investigation and encouraged at least one student-athlete to do the same.”

The entire document reads like that. Those are small snippets of proof of lies and deceit. There’s no denying any of it anymore.

Did Michigan win the national title in 2024 because of all of this? No, it didn’t. Those who think that are probably bitter fans of rival programs. In truth, this whole situation would feel far more egregious had we found out about it all after Michigan won it all two years ago. But because the Wolverines’ biggest, most important tests of the season — namely Ohio State, Alabama and Washington — all came after Stalions’ scheme came to light.

Michigan didn’t beat Ohio State in 2024 because it cheated. The Wolverines won because they were better. Michigan’s 2024 team was elite. And if you still somehow don’t believe it, then, well go and look a the subsequent NFL Draft in which 13 Wolverines were selected. No other team had more.

Which is what makes all of this even more head-scratching.

On one hand, Stalions’ behavior was extensive and elaborate — we found out Friday that he unironically referred to his illegal filming ring as the the “KGB” — and he wouldn’t have kept on doing it had it not given Michigan a competitive advantage. On the other hand, it seems as if Michigan wouldn’t have needed him to do any of it given its late-season success after his dismissal and Harbaugh’s suspensions. People knew Michigan was stealing signs in advance, changed their signs and still lost.

So why?

It tarnishes everything Michigan accomplished and undermines what Harbaugh did, which, actually, is one of the most profoundly impressive coaching accomplishments of the past 20 years. Harbaugh out-evaluated and out-developed, sprinkled in some five-star prospects and assembled a team that slayed superpowers like Ohio State and Alabama on the way to a 15-0 season.

And now we have to talk about whether Michigan cheated instead of celebrating excellence? Now instead of being viewed as one of the sport’s geniuses like Clemson’s Dabo Swinney, we have to look at Harbaugh — who was hit with a 10-year show cause penalty Friday — like he’s a crook?

It seems like such a waste.

You can still debate whether Michigan got off easy. Though it’s impossible to ever truly know how much Stalions’ efforts helped Michigan win games, the Wolverines blatantly cheated and lied about it when it got caught. Regardless of how effective the cheating was, shouldn’t the actions alone be punishable? Probably.

But who cares about vacated wins? The entire reason sports exist is because of legacy.

And while Michigan fans will look back at Team 144 with great affection and pride and Harbaugh will forever be a Wolverines legend, a large portion of the rest of the country won’t respect it. And given how amazing what Harbaugh built was, that’s a damn shame.

What does it mean to be a Michigan Man? A reporter asked Harbaugh about that after the Wolverines won the national championship in Houston two years ago. Here’s part of Harbaugh’s answer.

“Just doing something that’s bigger than for yourself, caring about somebody other than yourself, never being outworked, doing right,” he said. “You don’t lie. You don’t cheat. You don’t steal. And you give it the very best to your God-given ability. That and more.”

That’s insulting to read now. Being a Michigan Man is no longer held with the same reverence.

Make no mistake. That’s the punishment.