Back during the Connor Stalions saga, the University of Michigan kept insinuating that it would fight back against the NCAA and the Big Ten, yet, at every turn, it capitulated.
Well, not anymore, according to Yahoo Sports.
The University of Michigan athletic department formally responded to the NCAA notice of allegations (NOA) it had received in late summer, just before the 2024 college football season, after getting a lengthy extension. And it appears that the response to the NCAA is robust, according to Ross Dellenger.
In its response to the association sent earlier this month, the university refutes many of the alleged rules violations and accuses the NCAA of “grossly overreaching” and “wildly overcharging” the program without credible evidence that other staff members knew of Stalions’ illegal in-person scouting system.
In the 137-page document — a portion of which Yahoo Sports obtained — Michigan makes clear that it will not enter into a negotiated resolution with the NCAA over the alleged wrongdoing, vigorously defending its former head coach, current head coach, several staff members and even Stalions, the low-level assistant who orchestrated one of the most elaborate sign-stealing systems in college football history on the way to the school winning the 2023 national championship. The school purports that the sign-stealing system offered “minimal relevance to competition,” was not credibly proven by NCAA investigators and should be treated as a minor violation.
Dellenger continues, noting that the NCAA’s charges have little evidence, goes beyond the scope of punishment in terms of the charge, and what’s more, Michigan asks: how did the NCAA even receive any word about this to begin with? That insinuation an inside job and perhaps nefarious chain of custody could be interesting moving forward.
In its response, Michigan believes that the notice of allegations, sent to the school in August, makes “numerous factually unsupported infractions, exaggerates aggravating factors and ignores mitigating facts,” the document says. The school requests that the NCAA apply “common sense and commitment to fairness” and treat the case not as a serious Level I infractions case but a “Level II standard case.”
The document details why many of the 11 allegations against the school — six of them deemed as Level I — are without “merit or credible evidence,” the school contends, and that includes allegations against ex-head coach Jim Harbaugh and current head coach Sherrone Moore, who was an assistant on staff during Stalions’ advanced scouting operation and was found to have deleted text messages with him.
However, perhaps most notable in the document is an answer to a long-discussed question: Who originally tipped off the NCAA to Stalions’ scheme?
There’s much more to Dellenger’s article and it’s worth a read. While it’s difficult to say who has the upper hand here, at least we now know that Michigan isn’t going to just lie down and take everything or anything that the NCAA throws at it.
