Burgergate: More info from Chris Balas on the level 1 sins of Jim Harbaugh

Pound sand NCAA

I wish he and Ward had just told the NCAA, "yeah, I did it, suk it you corrupt idiots!" 

strike the TCU game from the record books for all time. it never happened. 

The receipt thing is dumb and who cares who paid, but weren't the rules (understandably) strict that no in-person contact was allowed during covid?

NCAA: We know multiple institutions have thrown bags of cash at recruits and provided other legally questionable benefits but dammit Jim, how do you explain buying committed recruits a burger?

JH: I have no comment.

NCAA: Ever heard of SMU?

It would have been a Level II but Jim got them a side of fries with the burger thus raising the severity of the violation.  

So we can point the NIL Money Cannon at NCAA Athletes but if a coach buys them a $20 Burger when they are already committed, he gets in trouble even if he gets cranky or forgetful about the event?

The NCAA hammered Charleston Southern, declaring 32 players ineligible for a game because they used leftover scholarship money that was intended to purchase books to instead pay for school supplies.

UNC long ago conceded it was guilty, acknowledging that it committed "academic fraud" when it was being investigated by a regional accrediting agency. More than 3,000 students, nearly half scholarship athletes, took classes in which no attendance was mandatory. All the kids had to do was turn in a paper or two.

Many of the papers were plagiarized. Most were graded by a secretary, not a professor, who admitted she didn't read whole pages of many papers. Most received "A" or "B" grades.

Instead of cooperating with the NCAA, UNC spent $18 million defending itself. Shamelessly, the school revisited  the previous admission of "academic fraud" and declared it a "typo." It doggedly contended that the NCAA had no right to sanction the school for allowing athletes to take sham courses because the courses were available to all students.

NCAA officials responded forcefully, saying that the classes were their concern and arguing that they had the power to level sanctions. But in the end, an NCAA panel reluctantly reversed course and agreed with the folks in Chapel Hill that it could do nothing to penalize an institution for 18 years of academic fraud.

The NCAA that earlier this year, declared a Central Florida placekicker ineligible because he was posting, and profiting from, YouTube videos.

Just months after the NCAA sanctioned Louisville for holding sex parties for teenage basketball recruits,  an FBI investigation revealed that sports apparel giant Adidas was sending payoffs to high school kids if they would commit to particular teams – the Cardinals being one of them. The program will pay a $5,000 fine and take a minor reduction in available recruiting days, as well as two years of probation. The hearing panel determined no violation by former head coach No. 1 [Pitino] occurred given that he demonstrated he promoted an atmosphere of compliance.”

Those were some tasty burgers.

did Jim submit the receipt for reimbursement? Don't do it next time. 

And yet the NCAA can't be bothered to punish UNC for a complete lack of institutional control in letting its basketball players waltz through classes meant for kindergarteners. 

While the NCAA is a spineless organization, I think they more actively go after programs that they historically have seen can't/won't stand up to them or thumb their noses at them. Michigan is one of them. The NCAA has no credibility but they have to make it look like they do, so when they can put out a headline saying they instituting violations on big bad Michigan, it at least creates some semblance of an illusion that they're in control. Because historically, Michigan has not fought back on these kinds of infractions. Meanwhile, even if they go after, say, Kansas basketball, they know Bill Self and that program are going to take those infractions, use them for toilet paper, and go about their day. 

Honestly if this is the stuff that made Harbaugh want to leave for the NFL, who among us can really blame him? I have to imagine its easier to deal with Goodell and an NFL owner than this, and THAT is saying something. 

Good lord this is just getting dumb.

By the way, if you want to see how various other fanbases are trying to whitewash their own programs' far more serious transgressions, check out this article by noted Buckeye Ari Wasserman at The Athletic.  It's a whole lotta words to say "everyone cheats and thus every rule break is equally bad" but here's a kicker of a paragraph:

Regardless of what we were all led to believe about the “Tattoo-gate” scandal that is now more than a decade old, here’s the abridged version of what happened. There was a group of Ohio State football players — one was Pryor, a high-profile quarterback — who were selling their personal possessions for cash and/or services such as free tattoos. When the NCAA caught wind of this, it interviewed Tressel, and he was less than honest about his understanding of the situation and what his players were doing. It may have been misguided, but it was Tressel’s nature to shield his team from the irrational scope of the NCAA, even if it meant lying.

I ask anyone to look at the actual history of Tressel at OSU (and before at Youngstown St.) and see how many times guys got paid, guys broke obvious NCAA rules, etc. and Tressel wound up not knowing about it, or only finding out about it later after said player had no more eligibility, etc.  I'm on team "pay players their worth" but OSU got busted for 8 violations only last year for basically what UM did and nobody gave a shit then.  

Michigan should tell the NCAA to take a hike. This is farcical. Let them know they have exactly as much authority as institutions like Michigan let them have

So it's literally a Nothing Burger - note: dictionary definition of literally...

The NCAA chased Beilein away, I'll be pissed if it chases Harbaugh away too.

OH EM GEE, FIRE EVERYBODY

This is worse than that time players were given forbidden cream cheese or butter (I forget which) for their bagels.

Self-imposed death penalty in 3 .. 2 .. 1

I'm on team tell them to kick rocks. Force the issue. 

It's going to happen sooner or later, this may as well be the catalyst,