College football week 11 thread: Lion Eyes

"As a Michigan"* fan I think we arrived at different sides of the same coin. Though I recognize that under NCAA rules, the head coach is responsible what goes on under his roof, I think there is evidence to suggest that Connor Stalions is crazy enough to have been going rogue enough that Harbaugh didn't know about it, or at least didn't know how it came to him. Probably gonna see him again selling some sort of "tactical bandanas" to seniors on Fox Nation in a couple years or something.

The thing with both this and the Astros is that we really don't know the value of the intel they actually got. How many times was his shit actually right and when? We know that Greg Schiano hinted at it not very obliquely earlier this season, and we know that people were feeding Purdue info before the B1G championship game last year. What is the on-field value of knowing the other team's play call and how quickly can that information be communicated from spy to coach to player in the span of a normal play clock? What additional information is gleaned from this intel that someone couldn't get Tony Romo style by reading the keys laid out in front of them? How many of these plays failed because Michigan's opposition just sucked? At point do we get into a "fool me twice, shame on me," situation? One story I've seen in the last day or two claimed that Michigan had evidence of in-person scouting by nine other B1G schools. Laying aside the fact that the ban on in-person scouting is mostly derived from cost control bullshit, I do kind of get a Tour de France vibe in that the greater sin for Michigan was not the crime but the getting caught.

The TV networks were going to cry bloody murder if this Michigan team was kicked out of the playoff without losing a game, so I think that was a non-starter. I do think the punishment is just in that it does not affect the players. I would have thrown the book at them financially. They were going to have to answer questions about this for the rest of the season and beyond regardless of the penalty Petitti issued, which I think is pretty sizable if not significant, in and of itself. What they're doing to Harbaugh, is, to me a desperate attempt to take punitive damages at the behest of a scarlet-tinted mob. I'm sorry that the wheels of justice don't turn fast enough for Ryan Day but that doesn't mean the league should flout its own rules.

*At one point "As a Michigan" was trending on Twitter today probably due to hundreds of people doing stuff like this very post.

 

I've been an Astros fan since at least 1980, so I feel your pain. That said, I've lived in SEC land forever, and have had to live with the whole "If you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'" culture long enough to be heartily sick of it. I have no patience with that bullshit.

The fifteen grand or so that it was costing to buy tickets and hire people to do the filming came from somewhere. It may be successful program building or simple coincidence, but Harbaugh's record got better about the time the scouting thing started. I have no idea what other B1G schools were doing, but that still reads as "What about..." to me.

I know that I'm pounding the drum for an ivory tower purity that won't ever exist in the real world of sports. I'm just sick of teams cheating their way to a championship and then the bad stuff comes out so long after the fact that at most the wins get taken away or they get an asterisk. For once there is a chance to stomp on it before that point, but the NCAA moves like a crippled racing turtle on this stuff.

I hope to hell that Michigan takes a loss so I don't have to look at them making the four team playoff.

 

I imagine they will need to upgrade security significantly in Ann Arbor in a couple weeks when Ohio State and various media members show up. It is likely to be very ugly.

 

If I were the Big commissioner and Michigan got a judge to put a stay on the ban today, essentially cutting the penalty and rule of the conference, then “Michigan’s head coach” sits out all football activity the first two weeks of next season.
Go to the courts again, then it becomes five.
I’m tired of sports teams going to the legal system to get around league rules.

 

Well, that takes you straight to the question: "do you think sports league rules should outweigh actual legal laws?"

(yeah, I know it's redundant, but it's for a reason.)

 

Yes, for their members. Sports leagues are essentially voluntary clubs. If you join a club, you agree to abide by the rules of that club and decisions of its leaders. If you can't do that, don't be a member of that club.
It's not like sports leagues are denying someone life and liberty by enforcing their rules. They are just saying you can't be in the treehouse this week.

 

Yeah, except these leagues are hugely supported with tax money, from parks and rec kiddie sports to school sports teams to college up to the NFL and the Olympics.

 

The first Al Davis vs. the NFL suit set the precedent that your post here is incorrect and that the law applies to voluntary associations, especially when those voluntary associations are for-profit business enterprises.

 

Well, hell... let's get a judge to rule that teams only have to get eight yards for a first down and that pass interference isn't an enforceable penalty.

 

You have to have an injury and a case for remedy to have a suit. As I understand it, Michigan's case, which may or may not have merit, is that the Big Ten did not follow its own rules in punishing Harbaugh. That's certainly a case where judicial scrutiny would be warranted, with the understanding scrutiny does not equal a positive judgment. In effect, Michigan is arguing that the conference decided it took 20 yards for a first down, but only for Michigan.
If the cheap fucks at these programs would spring for radio helmets as does the NFL, all this crap could be avoided. As usual with college sports "scandals," what at first is highly amusing quickly turns highly tedious.

 

I honestly don't know if the Big followed its rules for punishment or not. What I know is if Michigan gets its way, then they've cut the punishment because of the number of games left in the season.
Therefore, make it worse than if they'd just have sat Harbaugh out for a couple of Saturdays.

Michigan is just trying to run out the clock on the season to avoid any penalty. Harbaugh is probably gone at the end of the year, so then Michigan will cry not to doing anything to the team because the bad guy is gone.

 

The problem with that is, the majority of football programs lose money. Those radio systems aren’t cheap. And you need a supply because they break all the time. And how quickly would teams just start monitoring frequencies? Somehow high school teams can get in plays without radios, signals or signs just fine.