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 finals, the program found itself embroiled in the sign stealing scandal. Michigan was alleged to have broken the NCAA Bylaw 11.6.1 that mentions “Off-campus, in-person scouting of future opponents (in the same season) is prohibited.”

The allegations point that they committed in-person scouting of opponents’ games through their recruiting analyst, Connor Stalions. More specifically, allegedly illegally scouted 13 future opponents, 58 games between 2021 and 2023, 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 the current HC Sherrone Moore, the then-OC/OL coach. 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 Connor. They even filed a 137-page document that contained a strong denial of NCAA allegations. Now, the Big 10, on its part, stopped pursuing the matter. But NCAA? Well, they are still determined to make an “example” out of Michigan.

Even before the controversy could have boiled over, Jim Harbaugh, who was suspended for the last few games of the regular season without any proof against him, landed NFL HC stint for the LA Chargers. Moreover, the head coach repeatedly denied all the allegations and has even done so up to this moment. He even released a statement on Oct 19 that claimed, “I do not have any knowledge or information regarding the University of Michigan football program illegally stealing signs.” But the former Ohio State wide receivers coach, Zach Smith, came out with a scathing reply for Jim Harbaugh.

“Here’s the kicker, swift action upon learning of a violation. And that’s why ‘Did Harbaugh know?’ matter so much. But not only did he know, the other side of it is ‘Should he have known?’ Their swift action was to push-back. We’re not suspending… They fired Connor Stalions. 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 no… 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.”

Back then, per Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports, the Big 10 had stated, “These were not isolated or haphazard incidents. Violations were pervasive, systemic, & occurred over multiple year that “compromised the integrity of the competition & violates one of the most fundamental elements of sportsmanship.”

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-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. As for Moore, he might

More trouble for Sherrone Moore in a recent verdict?

Now comes the actual part, all the above allegations and ‘punitive measures’ lack teeth when Jim Harbaugh and the other coaches are in the NFL. But Moore could face a different penalty altogether for his alleged involvement in deleting the chats between him and Connor Stalions. Craig Shemon, 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 Stalions 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 Stalions. 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.