Unverified Voracity Isn't Even Mad... ok, Slightly Mad
Then, as farce. Jim Harbaugh is getting the relative book thrown at him for the Hamburger Incident:
Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh and the NCAA are working toward a negotiated resolution that is expected to see him suspended four games this season in penalties stemming from alleged false statements he originally made to investigators, sources tell Yahoo Sports.
This is the same number of games that Michigan State players not named Khary Crump got for the post-game assault on Gemon Green and Jaden McBurrows. For a couple of hamburgers to already-committed recruits. Also Mike Macdonald is receiving a one-year show cause penalty, which is hilariously useless since Macdonald kinda has a job lined up already—he's DC of the Ravens.
None of this matters. Michigan's most difficult game during the period of the suspension is against Rutgers; the national media is more or less ignoring the most blatant pay-for-play scandal to hit college football in a minute, so the only place that's even going to mention this for one second after the suspension expires is the RCMB. It is nonetheless irritating that the NCAA continues wasting its time on the little things they can find at the same time as NIL is rapidly obsoleting the association itself.
[After THE JUMP: Jeremy Pruitt as Nancy Pelosi in that one picture of her kneeling with Africa Scarf™ around her neck]
In tangentially related matters. Meanwhile, that scandal-type substance down at Tennessee:
The latest beneficiary of a kinder, gentler NCAA is Tennessee football. It was cited Friday by the association’s Committee on Infractions as having committed “hundreds” of violations in a case that it labeled “one of the worst the COI has seen.” The then head coach, Jeremy Pruitt, personally paid recruits and their families. Several former assistants and other staffers were involved in brazen violations as well. The Volunteers were a veritable rule-breaking factory, seemingly the only thing Pruitt was good at while going 16–19 in Knoxville.
The current NCAA penalty structure requires—not recommends, it requires—a postseason ban in this instance. Yet the COI deviated from established guidelines to avoid it.
One dollar says that this was to avoid a lawsuit. Tennessee's AG more or less promised one if the NCAA tried it:
"Tennessee law prohibits the NCAA from imposing such a sanction, and I will not hesitate to vindicate the rights of UT students to enjoy the full measure of their intercollegiate athletic opportunities. NCAA rules cannot supersede Tennessee law," he wrote the NCAA in a letter obtained by the Knoxville News Sentinel.
States will be rushing to pass laws that prohibit the NCAA from so much as glancing owlishly into their universities.
The NCAA did bomb the various staffers who committed the nefarious acts—primarily head coach Jeremy Pruitt, who was issued a six-year show cause. It is grimly funny that Pruitt was only hired after the Tennessee fanbase successfully stormed the Bastille because the athletic director was set to hire Greg Schiano. Would Schiano have done worse than 15-19 and hundreds of NCAA violations? Probably no.
Meanwhile the newspaper has FOIAed the legal proceedings and yeeeeesh:
Pruitt said a player’s mother showed up in the parking lot outside the UT football complex in tears because of financial hardship. She told him she had nowhere else to turn for money to pay her bills.
Pruitt admitted giving her the cash from his car, where he typically stored it.
He told investigators that he felt sorry for her because of the financial strain caused by the COVID shutdown and that UT’s Student Assistance Fund, which is used for student-athletes with hardships, was tapped out.
And Pruitt said his privilege, her race and social unrest were on his mind.
“Then you throw in George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, okay, so you sit there as a white man and you see all of this going on and you can see these kids suffering,” Pruitt said.
“… (It’s) pitiful when you sit in a room and you hear grown men, and I’m talking about our coaches too, when they talk about growing up and the circumstances that they’ve been under, because it’s hard for a white man to understand, right.”
Pruitt defended its actions to investigators for giving the mother $300.
On he one hand, I do not believe for one second that Jeremy Pruitt was meditating on the state of race relations in America when he decided to hand out cash. On the other hand, his transparently cynical attempt to grab a virtuous mantle on his actions… isn't actually wrong?
Ben Herbert things. I will listen to Kris Jenkins talk about anything:
Momentum wins. This is why it's good to have a Kenneth Grant or two lying around:
Go Blue pic.twitter.com/Lgm1c6yoAt
— BUM CHILLUPS AKA SPENCER HALL (@edsbs) July 10, 2023
No substitute for being bighugelarge sometimes.
The guys were together. I would not necessarily have assumed that Michigan would come close to leading the country in this stat:
Offensive Line Continuity among Power 5 teams in 2022 pic.twitter.com/36OqjPSolW
— parker, is it football season yet? (@statsowar) July 6, 2023
I would have assumed that a team that lost a starter halfway through the season and also had another guy out for a ~third of the year would not be the fifth-most cohesive OL in the P5, at least in terms of playing time.
SUBPLOT: yeesh, Peyton Thorne sure can pick 'em. He's transferring from the #57 team on this list to #69—dead last. Down that low you're rotating through a bunch of guys because no one can play; not fixable in a year.
PFF All-Conference items. No analysis here so I can't tell if this is just a list of the highest-rated guys who are returning to college or actually a projection, but FWIW:
- First team: JJ McCarthy, Blake Corum, Drake Nugent, Zak Zinter, Kris Jenkins, Will Johnson, Rod Moore.
- Second team: Donovan Edwards, Mason Graham(!), Josaiah Stewart, Junior Colson, Mike Sainristil
- Third team: Roman Wilson, LaDarius Henderson.
That's a lot of guys.
Sherrone Moore talking technique. Enjoy:
Michigan Offensive Coordinator/OL Coach Sherrone Moore explaining why they had to rethink how they were teaching double teams after the 2020 season and why they now use Gallop technique...
— James Light (@JamesALight) July 17, 2023
- Gain depth & width
- Strike the hip with same foot/same shoulder
- Explode through hips pic.twitter.com/v3RAE2j3CP
Etc.: Congrats to Michael Woods, who went from cross country at Michigan to winning a stage of the Tour de France. Rutgers basketball don't schedule too good. The only Pat Fitzgerald ending post you need. Someone please un-break the internet.
You're getting crushed with down votes but you are right. And for all the raging and railing, think about Tressel. He lied and got fired.
Tressel? Are you kidding me? The guy lied so his players could compete in a bowl game. The NCAA burner accounts are invading the board!
Pedant alert: Tressel was not fired; he resigned.
More germane to this discussion: Tressel lied in the face of explicit evidence provided to him by a former walk-on player who was an attoreney. That lawyer emailed him to say, hey, your players are doing this business that's an NCAA violation *with a guy under investigation by the FBI* and I think you need to know.
Editorializing caveat, but Tress, despite being given that explicit information, lied about it because he didn't want those players suspended on a team that he thought could win a Natty. He intentionally didn't tell anyone about the emails he received. His excuse on top of not doing anything was to claim he didn't know to whom to forward the information, which is laughable on its face for a guy who was formerly also an AD at YSU.
THEN, several months later, the DOJ told Ohio State, hey, we have all this memorabilia that we got from this tattoo guy that we've been investigating. OSU asked him about it and HE LIED TO THEM ABOUT IT.
A few months after that, after OSU found the original emails to Tressel from the lawyer proving he lied, they were STILL not going to fire him. It was only when Sports Illustrated came out and said, hey, yeah, we found all of this information indicating this has been happening for the better part of a decade, that he resigned.
To even insinuate these two situations are the same is laughable.
And for all the raging and railing, think about Tressel. He lied and got fired.
Wow, it's almost like it's been 10+ years and the landscape of college football has changed
What a pathetic joke this is. All the crap the NCAA knows about and turns their head on is ridiculous. Basically JH just told them he didn’t remember the incident when first asked and the immediately called him a liar. If I had been JH I would’ve told them to fuck off and get out of the building. They are just butt hurt and being revengeful.
That’s the issue. If they had evidence of tier II violations do what you got to do. But to bring in the head coach and ask him about a $10 burger is the real joke. If he lied he should not have done so. If he did not remember that is reasonable. To me the issue is why is he even being questioned? It’s just such a trivial circumstance.
After the NCAA inevitably collapses, we really need an investigative journalist to look into how the NCAA and the SEC were in cahoots. It's so blatantly obvious that the NCAA gives the SEC preferential treatment and I'm curious just deep it goes
You are right 1000%
You think if UM and Penn State were 1 and 2 in recruiting rankings for a decade we would have clean programs? You cant be well behind in recruiting and then lead in penalties it just makes no sense.
We live in a world where young, talented men play football, and openly, rightfully, make large amounts of money for doing so. There arent even any baselines in place for the crazy amounts of money changing hands. Yet a largely obsolete corporation with essentially no say other than a lingering facade of brand recognition, hands out punishments over an, at most, $10.00 burger. Make that make sense. Fuck the NCAA.
That Herbert video is fire. I want to go run through a wall and my eligibility was up in the early 90s.
Worth absolutely every dime they pay him and easy to see how he fits as a Harbaugh guy.
What are the implications of the suspension other than not being on the sidelines for the first 4 tin cans? Is he allowed to communicate with players? Staff? Set foot on campus? Communicate with recruits? Wear M logo hats?
No burgers...only nervous birds for 4 weeks. That's the real punishment.
This is a chip that we will use as fuel to win the B10 again, beat OSU again, get to the playoffs again, and finally win the championship.
I agree, this is Harbaugh's Norman Dale 4-D chess move: "throw me out of the game and I'll start screaming like a mad fool". I think at this point the "negotiation" is calculated by Harbaugh and will be used to the fullest.
"Don't get caught wathcing the paint dry."
As well we should.
Michigan would have done well to pull an OSU on this one. Internally investigate, find that JH wasn't forthcoming with info, suspend him for 1 or 2 games, move on. Urbz got just 3 games for (i) knowingly allowing a significant crime to occur by one of his staff members, (ii) destroying evidence, and (iii) lying to investigators. But because OSU handled it and showed the NCAA how "serious" they were about it, the NCAA just walked away.
Or they just walked away because it was OSU.
I actually think the whole Urban thing was a compromise. The former university president wanted to fire him. Gene Smith didn't want any punishment at all. Three games and his fake "health issue" retirement were the compromise.
i love brian posts. there’s always a nonzero chance that he’ll drop in the criminally-underused “owlishly.”
Wait, so Michigan wouldn't have to keep pretending that the NCAA matters if the Michigan State grads in Lansing passed a law saying that the NCAA is irrelevant?
Should be call it Hamburgergate or is that too OG?
You're right. Kris Jenkins is great to listen to.
If Harbaugh buying a burger for an already-committed player is worth four games, the serious physical assault by multiple Sparty players in our tunnel should have resulted in the death penalty for that program. The double-standard is the really frustrating thing here.
I also hate that this puts a blemish on what could be a once-in-a-lifetime season. For the NCAA to foolishly mar the efforts of the players and coaching staff is shameful — it elevates a petty grievance over sport.
Regardless, I fully expect the team to rally around the assistant coaches, and Harbaugh when he returns.
Izzo cried for them. So it's okay to give them 4 games.
I would have assumed that a team that lost a starter halfway through the season and also had another guy out for a ~third of the year would not be the fifth-most cohesive OL in the P5, at least in terms of playing time.
Don’t tell me you’ve already forgotten the Dark Times.
P.S. I’m all for a coach constantly re-thinking how things are done. Yeah you can take it too far but overall I feel a lack of introspection in coaching.
Why are we “negotiating” with a meaningless and powerless entity? Serious question.
Fuck off NCAA.
Completely agree
It's another failure by Warde. I'm genuinely not sure how he's still employed
I'll again stick my neck out there and bet my last dollar Harbaugh is autistic. He screams "takes one to know one" to me. And one thing I learned (a hard lesson that took decades because we're mentally disabled about these sorts of things) about political sociopathic turds like the NCAA is that they hate, HATE autistics because we take things said literally and follow rules to the letter. We say what we mean and, in turn, are mentally incapable of grasping hidden meanings. Give us a form and we'll fill it out, every field, to the best of our ability and, god forbid, even ask questions to fill it out more accurately.
That is NOT what the NCAA wants! They desperately want everyone to cheat. Actually, "cheating" doesn't go far enough because that implies hiding the truth; it's more they simply don't want to know. We'll send you these silly forms and thick rulebooks like we care but for the love of money (the one thing we truly worship) please, please don't fill it out and send it back! It's not supposed to matter that you can't put cream cheese on bagels; none of it is! You're supposed to ignore us! They're not even hiding it; it's their naked agenda. They want every school to go wild while they pretend to be in charge and the paychecks clear. See no evil, speak no evil. The last thing they want to do is, you know, work.
But I'll bet Harbaugh is the one guy in college football who even actually submits the reports they don't want to read so they're like fine, we'll go over these damn things and throw the fucking book at you for not leaving us alone. And when he doesn't remember something, he'll honestly say that, and they'll pounce because they're petty little shits offended by the sheer audacity that someone would take them seriously.
There is absolutely NO ONE in the world the NCAA openly loathes more than someone who actually tries to follow their rules & policies like they stand for something. Well, guess who's that guy.
This really does make a lot of sense. Maybe not the label but the man and his methods for sure.
1) Because we CONTRACTUALLY agreed to do so. We literally voluntarily signed up as a member, and signed a legally binding contract to follow their rules.
2) Because as powerless as they may be in football (and they really aren't) - they absolutely are NOT powerless in all the other sports.
4 games is a joke, and not a funny one. Hey NCAA, want to punish Harbaugh? Make him donate a few thousand hamburgers to various soup kitchens/charities and move on. The more you (I’m still speaking to the NCCA) drag this out the dumber you look though I’m not sure that is possible. Move on
The NCAA is an obvious corrupt disaster and has been for awhile, just like the current Supreme Court. It has no ethics, no credibility, no common sense, no legitimacy and should be disbanded. It virtually ignored the seriousness of the widespread pervasive Tennessee violations, ignores enforcement of its own NIL rules, ignores the widespread portal tampering.
I take offense that anyone, including some so-called Michigan fans, thinks it ok for a 4-game suspension at the beginning of the season on the ground it won't hurt the team's record. FOUR GAMES! 1/3 of the entire season! Think of the impact on all the young Freshman and Sophomore players who lose the opportunity to share their first playing time with the Head Coach THEY PERSONALLY CHOSE TO PLAY FOR. Think of their parents and families.
There are significant other human costs resulting from the NCAA bullies singling out Harbaugh for punishment while the SEC and others flagrantly violate the rules. I have no respect for anyone tut-tutting and clucking “you have to play by the rules.” The rules aren’t really rules unless they are enforced and administered fairly and completely, in proper proportion to the harms involved.
No politics. Also, what if the playcalling improves without Harbaugh.
Rich Rod got busted for stretching,
JH got nailed for stretching the truth…
It would be cool if this motivates Harbaugh even more and he just takes it out on the rest of college football and runs it up on everyone. Scorched earth.
Thanks to the NCAA for breaking through all the (deserved) hype the 2023 football team is being showered with. Think we'll hear about an "Us versus the world" mentality developing?
If I were Jim I'd change the name on my office from The J. Ira and Nicky Harris Family Head Football Coach to "The Hamburgler".
Warde can be Mayor McCheese.
Burn the whole NCAA to the ground. All of it.
I have nothing more to add about how outrageous it is, how unfair it is, how it would never ever happen to any other program or coach in the country beyond what everyone has said all day, but I do have a mechanics question. Is this a 3.5 hours on Saturday suspension or is it a 24/7 suspension? I assume the former, but if he can't coach practice and everything for the first month of the season that could be a real problem.
The former. It's an Urban Meyer suspension.
What happens to Michigan if they defy the ncaa ruling? Double secret probation? They have no teeth, enforcement or oversight. Ignore it. What are they going to do, sue them?
Not let any Michigan teams in sports other than football play in any NCAA sanctioned games, tournaments, or the end of season championships?
The lawsuit questioning penalty to infraction relative to similar or worse under the criteria of a court of law will cause them to fill their pants and settle
sue
WE ROLL DEEP
So Penn St is a top 5 team, but at the bottom of the OL continuity list. With a first time starter at QB who has accuracy issues.
Make it make sense.
I'm with all of you that this is a load of shit. But it won't matter. In fact, IF this team is as mature and focused as I think they are, these first 4 teams are in for a worse beating than otherwise expected. Focus, ferocity, domination. Not just by the starters either. Make a statement.
I think Pruitt is (somewhat) aware of racial unrest in the country and apparently moved practice so that his players could attend a march on campus, which shows a level of awareness above a number of his brethren. Now, that doesn't mean he had any of those thoughts go thru his head when he handed family members $300 in a Chic-fil-a bag, and the audacity to claim that was his intent is incredible.
I do get a sense that the NCAA punishment is going to be yet another issue that may push Harbaugh out of college coaching. If this team has another successful season it would be a smart time for him to bolt, and there are jobs out there where he'd be a fit. Even an extension probably won't change that; any exit fee that needs to be paid won't scare off an NFL team. But it also doesn't seem to be a huge drag on recruiting either, as college recruits seem to have figured out that with the transfer portal and how often coaches move around anyway that you aren't locked into a school for years if your coach bolts. So we'll see. But the NCAA has shown its full ass recently and at some point Harbaugh isn't going to stick around for the hypocrisy.
Its going to make them handing Harbaugh the national championship trophy that much sweeter. Full circle mf-ers
If I were Harbaugh I’d tell the NCAA to f itself and coach those games anyways. They’re a complete joke. What authority they may have had is completely gone.
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