Getty Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh (left) and NCAA president Charlie Baker
It all started, remember, in October with Charlie Baker, less than a year on the job as the new president the NCAA. Baker had received information that Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh was using staffer Connor Stalions to organize live scouting of opponents’ games, and informed the school and the Big Ten. And because conference commissioner Tony Petitti has an axe to grind with Harbaugh and Michigan, things went haywire from there.
But what Baker did, as he sees it, is draw a line under whatever misconduct Michigan might have committed before that point—the Wolverines were 7-0 in the soft part of its opening schedule—and secure credibility for whatever happened after that. We know what happened now. The Wolverines rolled through the final eight games of its schedule, beating Iowa for the Big Ten championship, topping Alabama in the Rose Bowl and drubbing Washington for the national title.
“I don’t regret doing it because sitting on that information, given the comprehensiveness of it, I think we would have put everyone, including Michigan, in an awful place,” Baker said this week, per Yahoo! Sports. “As it was, it was out in the public domain, and people either made adjustments or didn’t. At the end of the day, no one believes at this point that Michigan didn’t win the national title fair and square.”
Jim Harbaugh: Michigan Football ‘Innocent’
That is somewhat different than the perspective of Harbaugh himself, of course, who said that not only did Michigan football need to overcome the strain of the sign-stealing allegations, and the three-game suspension he served because of it, but that the team did nothing wrong to begin with.
The Detroit Sports Podcast posted a video after the championship game captioned, “Jim Harbaugh regarding cheating scandal: We’re Innocent.”
Jim Harbaugh regarding cheating scandal: We’re Innocent
Harbaugh said: “It couldn’t have gone any better, it went exactly how we wanted it to go, to win every game. Off the field issues, we’re innocent. And we stood strong, and tall, because we knew we were innocent. And I’d just like to point that out.”
Baker would not go that far. But he said the result on the field this week was enough to validate that Michigan football was not crooked and that its championship required no asterisk.
“The good thing about the game is Michigan was clearly the better team [Monday] night,” Baker said. “As a fan, you hope for a really close game where one team is going to go away victorious and the other team is going to go away thinking, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe we didn’t win that!’ Or you want to have a game where there is a clearly defined outcome. In this case, Michigan won.”
Can’t Argue With 15-0
And despite all the anger and vitriol from the Big Ten, despite the fact that Harbaugh could soon wind up in the NFL, despite the fact that Baker’ NCAA is still investigating Michigan football, the 2023 championship belongs to the Wolverines. No one is taking that away.
“It’s been a team effort all the way,” Harbaugh said in his press conference this week. “Nothing fancy. No surprises. Just good old-fashioned, roll-up-your-sleeve hard work and teamwork, and it’s been a beautiful thing. So often the goal is to, you’re chasing perfection, and it’s hard to be perfect.
“And it rarely comes around. You hope to achieve excellence along the way. But, gosh, it’s perfect. It was a perfect 15-0.”
Well, maybe a few surprises, and perfect might not quite be the right word. But 15-0 nonetheless.