Around the Big Ten

[Da Geezer]

LOL .. okay .. whatever you say.

Here's your thread back.

What is this about you leaving the forum, Liney? My God, man, there are precious few here who are rational and are UM fans. Say it ain't so.

[lineygoblue]

What is this about you leaving the forum, Liney? My God, man, there are precious few here who are rational and are UM fans. Say it ain't so.

I'll have more to say about that in another thread. I've promised to leave this one alone.

[Jeff Buchanan]

I’m not quitting, never stated nor was it inferred that I was quitting. I have said that I’m pretty much done with following CFB and intend to reduce the use of my time following it. The reasons for that have nothing to do with hamburgergate of signgate (my terms, everyone knows what this is).

Background: I’m offering what I think will come of the two NCAA investigations that are underway. The first by date is for alleged Level II recruiting violations and a Level 1 violation involving Harbaugh lying to or misleading NCAA investigators. An NCAA Notice of Allegations (NOA) was received by Michigan in January 2023. During the time frame between the NOA and M’s response – the usual negotiation period, Harbaugh refused to accept an allegation that he lied to and/or mislead NCAA investigators – a level 1 violation. Hamburgergate allegations are still open and being investigated.

Proactively and in response to the NOA, For the Level I and Level II violations, Michigan self-imposed a 3-game suspension on Harbaugh and 1 game suspension on Moore for the 2023 season. The NCAA rejected those self-imposed penalties. The reason, in light of JH’s refusal to accept the allegation that he lied or mislead investigators, was that the NCAA wanted to gather and clarify more facts in the case, in particular the allegation that JH lied to investigators. This is common and does not reflect that the NCAA believes that the self-imposed penalties weren’t enough. Both self-imposed penalties were completed by Harbaugh and Moore and may be accepted as adequate when all is said and done.

So, this NCAA case involving recruiting violations and lying to investigators is still open and on-going. There are no updates containing details of this hamburgergate investigation. The NCAA policy is that nothing will be released publicly until the investigation concludes and M is given a chance to respond.

IMO, we won’t know the outcome of hambergergate until we’ll into 2024 and perhaps as late as the beginning of the 2024 season. The outcome, a guess, will be a Level II violation imposed on Harbaugh for recruiting violations. I think, for this one, the NCAA will conclude recruiting rules were broken but the 3 game on Harbaugh and 1 game suspension on Moore will be accepted by the NCAA as sufficient. I don’t think the NCAA will find enough evidence that Harbaugh lied to investigators looking into the alleged recruiting violations and will take Harbaugh at his word. JMO, YMMV. (to be continued with the sexier signgate stuff

[Jeff Buchanan]

The second alleged violation by date is signgate. This allegation is much more complex than hamburgergate but, I’ll try to break it down….. and let me be clear on my position. The NCAA is not involved in a conspiracy to get rid of Jim Harbaugh. That’s non-sense.

The complexity of signgate involves allegations by the NCAA that Michigan stole play-calling signs and the B10 intervened. M was notified in October that the NCAA was investigating via the standard NOA. Things get dicey when the B10 Commissioner, Tony Petitti, under pressure from unnamed parties within the B10 conference, decided he wanted to punish Harbaugh right away and not wait for an NCAA, likely 2y investigation, to be completed. He invoked a convoluted application of his power to punish the University of Michigan, not Harbaugh, for unsportsmanlike conduct. Petitti makes a good case that he had the power to punish. Regardless, it appears to me that he gave in to pressure by allegedly aggrieved parties to do something

The NCAA investigation into signgate is still ongoing and will follow normal NCAA processes to completion. Even though the NCAA has said it’s fast tracking the investigation, nothing gets done quickly by the NCAA – moving at glacial speed is the usual characterization of NCAA investigations.

Background: In response to punishment’s invoked by Petitti, Michigan filed a lawsuit alleging that the B10 breached several provisions in the contract between the B10 and Michigan and sought a TRO against the B10’s 3 game suspension of Harbaugh. Harbaugh was a co-claimant. That was denied and a hearing on the claim was deferred to Friday, a week later. The claim was settled on the day before the hearing with both Michigan and Harbaugh withdrawing their claims and both accepting a 3-game suspension. The B10 agreed to accept Harbaughs 3 game suspension and close it’s investigation. That’s pretty clear. Less clear is whether or not Petitti can impose additional punishments on Michigan related to the current signgate allegations. I’m pretty sure Petitti wanted to make sure that if new, unrelated to signgate, information was received, he could still act under the powers granted him in the B10’s contracts with member institutions.

I doubt M agreed to settle with Petitti having open ended authority for Petitti to continue to punish Michigan wrt signgate. I could be wrong here. I believe further punitive action wrt signgate by the B10 is unlikely. I understand that taking my position is controversial but it is where I am on this. I believe Harbaugh’s legal team will be prepared to contest any further B10 actions taken against Harbaugh related to signgate. The B10, at this point has acted and further punishments should be left to the NCAA.

The NCAA will, as usual, take a long time to complete it’s own signgate investigation. We may know something by mid-2024, possibly earlier but it doesn’t really matter. The elephant in the room is how severe M’s punishment will be for signgate after the NCAA completes its investigation. An outcome is dependent on 2 unresolved questions that we can only speculate about: 1. Did Stalion’s break scouting rules – I’ve read the applicable rules and damned if I can be certain that he did. OTH, there are those that think he absolutely did. Among them is Tony Petitti. I think the NCAA will be very careful with their interpretation of the rules because I think they are vague.

2. Did JH know about Stalion’s activities or should he have known about them. First, I’ve seen multiple posts elsewhere that conflate the Partridge firing with signgate. The Partridge firing has nothing to do with this question of knew or should have known. He was fired for not complying with U policy on not talking to athletes or anyone in the employ of the U while an NCAA investigation is underway.

I believe a case can be made by the NCAA that JH should have known and therefore, he’s not going to be exonerated on this count. He’ll be punished to what degree I really don’t know. This is where it gets political. If additional severe penalties such as show cause are levied by the NCAA Harbaugh will use the court’s to leverage the NCAA. How that all turns out is unknown and saying Harbaugh is going to get this or that is purely speculative. Since we've been asked, If the NCAA finds that Stalion's did break in-person scouting rules and a connection can be made between Stalion and anyone on the staff of the football program - two big prove it items, I think Harbaugh gets a show cause from the NCAA and "loss of institutional control." If that's established one has to ask why someone who knew about Stalion's proven illegal activities didn't report it to Harbaugh or someone in authority? Speculation that M will get a post season ban, forfeit games or the like is just plain "out there."

I think it important to point out that the media has blown both “scandals” out of proportion to the conduct that actually took place. The result has been rampant speculation, conspiracy theories and a large step back from the truth.

[iam416]

By the way, Talent fix your damn e-mail - I think you have been hacked. I keep getting weird shit from you that I know it's not meant for me.

Which email address? Yahoo or Gmail? My Yahoo is fucked up

[WingsFan]

Yahoo

[iam416]

Whew. Just deleted it.

[THE_WIZARD_]

Great news M fans...I'm not going anywhere...

[Mike]

Neither is Nebraska.

[THE_WIZARD_]

heh

[crashcourse]

that weird shit is a yahoo thing. talent sent me pictures. according to one post. thank god i didnt open them who knows what him and wiz took pictures of.

few weeks earlier I had gotten messages saying the same thing but it was one of the fantasy football leagues i compete in. its arbitrary and random and i dont know if its got to do with office pool or espn but those were the two places I do fantasy sports stuff and those emails came from others in that league. So I dont know what the deal is but dont open them

[Dr. Strangelove]

Brazen cheater and Michigan Man Connor Stalions bought tickets to at least 12 OSU home games over the past 3 years, including 6 games in 2022

Connor Stalions purchased tickets to 12 OSU home games in last 3 years, records show | WSYX (abc6onyourside.com)

[lineygoblue]

Actually, if you strip away the "sign" thing, Connor Stalions is a pretty decent fellow. If you were to actually read about the guy, you'd know that.

He honorably served his country in the military, .. he's made some excellent real estate moves... all legal of course... and he has a long history of helping people financially.

He has absolutely no criminal record. People who know the man, have nothing but good things to say about him.

He's not the unibomber.

If this is the worst thing he's done in his life, he's done pretty good.

[THE_WIZARD_]

Brazen cheater and Michigan Man Connor Stalions bought tickets to at least 12 OSU home games over the past 3 years, including 6 games in 2022

Connor Stalions purchased tickets to 12 OSU home games in last 3 years, records show | WSYX (abc6onyourside.com)

Everyone is doing it.

[Mike]

Is that supposed to be big news? We already know he bought tickets to 30 Big Ten games. I’m guessing he didn’t spend a lot of time breaking down Indiana.