As it turns out, the high school football scandal of the year, the sign-stealing fees against the Michigan Wolverines, have reinforced an old truism about the game in particular and the game in general.
In words, winning solves problems. Within certain limits, adjust the narrative around an athlete or team.
Let’s start with the last example.
As head coach Jim Harbaugh served the third game of a three-game Big Ten suspension Michigan first fought and then accepted, the Wolverines did not. 3 held on to beat second-place Ohio State 30-24 on Saturday. They were all undefeated before the game started; sorry, The Game.
That gave the Wolverines a spot in Saturday’s Big Ten Championship against No. 18 Iowa (10-2), in which they are favored through more than 3 touchdowns against the offensively challenged Hawkeyes. A win would secure the Wolverines a direct third spot to the school football playoffs.
But more important, from Michigan’s perspective, is what Ohio State’s victory denied rival fans, not just in Columbus but everywhere. And it’s an opportunity to say, “You couldn’t win if you didn’t cheat. “
Maybe it’s a good time to tell anyone who hasn’t been following the story that, earlier in the season, with Yahoo!Sports at the top of the report, revealed that Michigan had been accused of sending a football analyst to opponents’ upcoming games. to examine your symptoms and signs. NCAA regulations do not prohibit the theft of symptoms consistent with themselves, but they do prohibit the pre-evaluation of an opponent in accordance with son.
Harbaugh, who had already served a separate suspension for the first 3 games of this year, openly defended his program but then had to pull out when Michigan and the Big Ten agreed to his end-of-season suspension. The Wolverines responded by beating Penn State and Maryland before their win over Ohio State, all without their head coach.
Now, the team’s winning streak in the season will continue this weekend, but assuming that’s the case, then the sign-stealing issue will possibly become a stumbling block in a year that Michigan enthusiasts won’t fondly forget for a long time.
STATE COLLEGE, PA – NOVEMBER 11: Michigan Wolverines enthusiasts hold a sign after chef Schulz’s suspension. . . Michigan Wolverines head coach Jim Harbaugh is announced before the opposite game at Penn State Nittany Lions Beaver Stadium on Nov. 11, 2023, at State College. Pennsylvania. (Photo by Scott Taetsch/Getty Images)
Which brings us back to the question.
As someone who has followed school football for decades and for five years as the school football editor of the Associated Press, that’s the winning lesson. There are times when a controversy fades away, especially when it violates regulations, if the team wins at the climax.
As a Notre Dame alumnus, when, at the start of the 1993 season, a book titled “Under the Tarnished Dome: How Notre Dame Betrayed Its Ideals for the Glory of Football” featured a handful of allegations that then-coach Lou Holtz Holtz, muzzled throughout college after speaking out on the subject, he responded with his last very smart season on the field, leading the Fighting Irish team to second place in the polls.
A Sports Illustrated article from the time, published after Notre Dame defeated Michigan 27-23 in the second game of the season, predicted the consequences. “If the Irish play a lot of games like Saturday’s, the publishing industry will revert to its classic task of ‘Looting Notre Dame for inspirational material,'” it reads, “and Holtz will make a sincere critique. “
In 2010, when a sensational quarterback named Cam Newton guided Auburn through a dream season, questions arose around him about whether his had been purchased at Mississippi State and then Auburn for that season. When asked about the challenge before the Heisman Trophy presentation, Newton simply smiled. That year he won the award for the most productive school player.
In the end, his Tigers were undefeated national champions and nine months later, Auburn moved into the NCAA.
This year, now that the Big Ten have shut down their investigation in Michigan, we find ourselves in the same situation. The NCAA is conducting an ongoing investigation into the case, which may take weeks or even months. The framework that governs college sports has a small staff committed to infractions and basically involved with the organization of championships.
The NCAA may or may not punish Michigan, but the more the Wolverines win, the less their enthusiasts, and even their detractors, will care.
Michael Weinreb, a prominent sports editor and editor of “Season of Saturdays: A History of College Football in 14 Games,” said in a phone interview this week that rule-breaking and outright fraud have been part of the game “forever. “
And it’s true. Big Ten host Dave Revsin even recounts in his e-book “The Opening Kickoff: The Tumultuous Birth of a Football Nation” how seven of the 11 players on the 1893 Wolverines team were not enrolled at the University of Michigan.
But what Weinreb dislikes about this modern sign-stealing case is that “it seems compatible with our situation as a society: just the breaking of the rules and the concept of winning at all costs. “
“He turns out to be more glorified than ever. “
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