Wojo: In Jim Harbaugh’s NCAA mess, arrogance and stubbornness on display

No one looks good in this. Not Michigan, which considers itself above college football’s messy fray, and just got lumped with the miscreants. Not Jim Harbaugh, who faithfully espouses honesty, integrity and accountability, and just got his reputation smudged.
And no, not the NCAA, an arcane structure that finally found a powerful coach obstinate enough to get caught in its sticky, outdated web.
In the wide scope of college football, the NCAA’s expected four-game suspension of Harbaugh for allegedly misleading investigators falls short of a sordid scandal. Harbaugh and three assistants — Sherrone Moore, Grant Newsome, and Mike Macdonald (now with the Ravens) — were charged with four Level II violations, including impermissible contact with prospects during a COVID-19 recruiting dead period in 2021. Harbaugh was accused of lying when asked about it, a more-serious Level I violation. The school said it wouldn’t comment while the sides work on a negotiated resolution.
The NCAA Committee on Infractions will rule on the final draft within the next 30 days, and I suspect Harbaugh will say he didn’t lie, only that he didn’t remember the specific incidents when first questioned. I assume the NCAA has evidence to support its charges, otherwise UM and Harbaugh wouldn’t have been willing to negotiate.
It’s not a nothing burger, as UM fans would like to believe. But it’s certainly not a triple cheeseburger oozing with excess, wrapped in greasy paper. It’s ridiculous that it came to this, frankly. Either Harbaugh and staff members knowingly committed the violations, which weren’t considered major infractions by themselves, or they didn’t take them seriously enough. If the deeds were as minor as they thought, why give investigators more grist by denying or lying?
As far as football, this doesn’t change much. Harbaugh’s standing as an elite coach of a top-five program is unaffected. His team is favored to win its third straight Big Ten championship and has wrested control of the Ohio State rivalry. But the controversies and pitfalls since last season are significant, and it’s fair to wonder how it will affect the team, even one as experienced and talented as Michigan.
Familiar territory
As we’ve learned in his eight years, there’s always something with Harbaugh, even as he’s taken Michigan to spectacular heights. The Wolverines are 25-3 the past two seasons, yet the glow gets dulled by his offseason dalliances with the NFL. Harbaugh’s new contract has been held up partly to let the NCAA negotiations conclude, but it’s fair to wonder if this spat will spur him to reexamine the NFL at some point.
For now, it’s a hindrance only if the Wolverines allow it to be. Harbaugh will speak at Big Ten Media Days on Thursday in Indianapolis, but I doubt he’ll be allowed by the school to address this. He’ll talk about J.J. McCarthy, Blake Corum, Donovan Edwards and his latest stacked offensive line. Then he’ll prepare for the season with a fresh chip and reignited fervor. He dislikes being questioned but lives to provide defiant answers.
Harbaugh is expected to sit out Michigan’s first four games, all at home against lesser foes — East Carolina, UNLV, Bowling Green and the Big Ten opener against Rutgers. The suspensions likely will be enforced only on game days, allowing Harbaugh to lead the team during the week, then turn over control to assistants on Saturdays. Essentially, it’s four 24-hour bans.
There’s no sense trying to decipher the NCAA’s historically haphazard enforcement tactics. There are ugly scandals everywhere, from hazing at 0Northwestern, to 18 Level I recruiting violations at Tennessee, which resulted in no suspension because the coach, Jeremy Pruitt, was already fired. There are wild tales of corruption in the NIL world, where schools and conferences make up their own rules and the NCAA abdicates responsibility.
College football is in chaotic transition, no doubt, and thankfully it’s too big and popular to fail. Yet while the game’s traditions and standards are looted by greedy commissioners, boosters and coaches, the NCAA dutifully writes parking tickets at the expired meter. It institutes unyielding and confusing rules, then randomly enforces at its discretion, or cites lack of resources. The NCAA’s greatest flaws are arrogance and stubbornness.
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Pushing the limits
You could argue Harbaugh is afflicted with the same traits. He came thundering back to his alma mater and immediately started pushing limits, testing gray areas. He infuriated the NCAA and other coaches by conducting satellite summer camps in the South, bending territorial guidelines, and new rules were enacted to stop it. It was brilliant, but at a cost.
Harbaugh was one of the primary voices pushing for loosened transfer rules to benefit players. He long advocated athletes be compensated for their Name, Image and Likeness. He has pushed diligently for many causes and withstood the pushback.
Is that partly why the NCAA fought hard in this case? Possibly. But if Harbaugh truly was uncooperative, or changed his story about allegedly buying a hamburger for a recruit at a campus diner during COVID, he invited the fight. Maybe he relished the idea of standing up to the NCAA’s house of hypocrisy. More likely, I think he was careless, even cavalier, with how he ran things and who he hired. With more and more success, there’s less and less pressure to tread lightly.
For instance, Harbaugh hired Matt Weiss as co-offensive coordinator and quarterback coach in 2021, possibly without extensive vetting. Weiss was fired in February amid an investigation by the UM Police Department into alleged computer crimes, a case that’s ongoing. In May, Harbaugh hired Glenn “Shemy” Schembechler, one of Bo Schembechler’s sons, to a support-staff role. Schembechler resigned three days later when insensitive posts were found on his Twitter timeline. In the midst of the alleged NCAA violations in 2021, Harbaugh’s recruiting director, Matt Dudek, resigned.
Michigan’s football profile has never been glossier for a two-year stretch, and the program’s first national title since 1997 is attainable. That doesn’t change now. Harbaugh and the Wolverines indeed could reach the highest goal. It just won’t be easy anymore to claim the highest ground.