The Michigan Wolverines won the 2023 national championship against Washington. Naturally, the feat merited widespread celebration and praise. However, before they even made to the final, the program found itself embroided in the sign stealing scandal. Much of the spotlight was on their staffer Connon Stalions. However, their current head coach Sherrone Moore was also mentioned. Even though Jim Harbaugh’s role was never proven, he was still suspended for the last few games of the regular season. The Big 10, on its part, stopped pursuing the matter. But NCAA? Well, they are still determined to make an “example” out of Michigan.
While the allegations and NCAA violations have been talked of in the college football world for some time, still, for the less versed, the contentions were multiple. Michigan was alleged to have committed in-person scouting of opponents’ games through their recruiting analyst, Connor Stallions. The ingredients? 13 allegedly illegally scouted opponents, 58 games, and alleged involvement even of friends and family of the coaching staff. But the controversy didn’t end here.
A separate issue brewed that involved tampering by the previous Michigan head coach, Jim Harbaugh, and even Sherrone Moore. The whole issue revolved around both coaches making “impermissible” contact as alleged by the NCAA and having met recruits illegally during the dead period in 2021. The program denied most of the allegations and fired their analyst, Connor Stallions. They even filed a 137-page document that contained a strong denial of NCAA allegations. The result?
Even before the controversy could have boiled over, Jim Harbaugh, the former Michigan head coach, went to the NFL and became the head coach of the LA Chargers. Moreover, the head coach repeatedly denied all the allegations and has even done so up to this moment. But the former Ohio State wide receivers coach, Zach Smith, came out with a scathing reply for Jim Harbaugh.
“They fired Connor Stalions. Yeah. And so that was swift action. But then they kept pushing back that Jim Harbaugh, we’re not doing a suspension. We’ll fight that. We’ll take it to court. There was not, and their whole premise is that Harbaugh didn’t know. Well, guess what? The coordinators knew you. You didn’t suspend that. There’s no action there.”
The statement of Zach Smith comes after the NCAA recently issued show-cause notices to two of the former Michigan coaches. Both Jesse Minter, Michigan’s former DC, and Steve Clinkscale, the former defensive backs coach, were recently penalized for some minor recruiting violations. Both coaches, now with Jim Harbaugh at the Chargers, face one to two years of show show-cause order by the NCAA. But, since they aren’t in college football and will unlikely join any soon, the penalties are more symbolic than punitive.
More trouble for Sherrone Moore in a recent verdict?
Now comes the actual part, since all the above allegations and ‘punitive measures’ lack teeth when Jim Harbaugh and the other coaches are in the NFL. But, Michigan’s new head coach Sherrone Moore could face a different penalty altogether for his alleged involvement in deleting the chats between him and Connor Stallions. Craig Shemom, the host of ‘Locked on Big 10’, also echoed some of the similar concerns.
“There’s one sticky point to that entire investigation, and a sticky point to possibly moving on, and that would be current head coach Sherrone Moore. Moore was the offensive coordinator on the Harbaugh staff during the Spygate scandal. And the point of interest was the fact, you’ll remember that Moore deleted dozens of text messages between him and Connor Stallions the week that the whole stuff hit the fan with the Spygate story.”
Sherrone Moore, then the offensive coordinator of the program, allegedly deleted some WhatsApp chats between him and fired analyst Connor Stallions. The controversy took an ugly turn when the same text messages were retrieved by the NCAA later in the investigation, and Moore got officially embroiled in the whole controversy. Till now, however, the head coach has denied all the allegations, but considering the ‘show-cause’ notices the NCAA is handing out, it could be detrimental to all of his incredible development done at Michigan.
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