After months of what felt like radio silence in the Michigan sign-stealing scandal, it appears a potential punishment could be in the cards for the Wolverines football program. According to Chris Balas of On3, the Michigan Wolverines could face a postseason ban in addition to potential recruiting sanctions. Balas did report, however, that it did not appear that the Wolverines would be forced to vacate any wins. That would mean the team and Jim Harbaugh’s national championship – and undefeated 2023 season – would remain intact.
Michigan Could Face Potential Postseason Ban
We could learn of the NCAA’s intended punishment “as soon as this week,” . The NCAA is expected to issue its Notice of Allegations soon, in which former Michigan assistant Conor Stallions will likely receive very heavy violations. Stalions is accused of building essentially an illegal scouting network in which he allegedly arranged several on-site scouting trips (which is against NCAA rules). Stalions has since been fired from the Michigan program.
Michigan is expected to fight tooth and nail against the potential sanctions, which means we could be headed for a lengthy and expensive legal battle. In all likelihood, any financial punishment they wouldn’t really care about as they could easily handle those, but anything that would impact their on-field product and recruiting is something they would try and take to court. A postseason ban of either one or two seasons would certainly affect that.
It’s probably best to make a judgment until all the facts come out from the investigation. It does feel like if the NCAA were to push for a postseason ban on a blueblood program, though, there must be some pretty solid evidence against the program.
We’ll see what happens next in this case, and whatever does happen next could very likely come this week. But after it seemed like this roller coaster died down a bit after Jim Harbaugh’s departure to the NFL it would appear that it’s about to pick back up again.
The timing of this also can’t be super easy for first-year head coach Sherrone Moore to deal with. Moore replaced Jim ♛Harbaugh as head coach in January and has done a good job recruiting in his first full off-season in charge. However, the threat of a postseason ban could also potentia🅰lly scare off some Class of 2025 recruits. Add that to the fact that the Wolverines will likely have a target on their back due to the allegations and that their schedule is quite difficult this season, Moore will have his work cut out for him in year one.
In the first six weeks of the season alone, the Wolverines have matchups with the Texas Longhorns who are expected to compete for an SEC title and national championship as well as the USC Trojans and Washington Huskies. Later on in the schedule, they’ll also take on Oregon who is one of the favorites to win the Big Ten, and they’ll take a trip to Columbus for The Game against Ohio State. It won’t exactly be a cakewalk for Michigan in their quest to defend their championship.
Moore did help guide the team through quite a bit of adversity last season though. He took over as head coach for four games while Jim Harbaugh was suspended – one at the beginning of the season and three at the end including wins at Penn State and at home against Ohio State.
Whenever the latest news with this story comes out, we’ll have more coverage on the details but it seems like it could come any day now.
