Link: Michigan Football Hit With Penalties in Sign Stealing Scandal

[selmaborntidefan]

How convenient. “Probation”, pay some benjamins, show causes for guys no longer there, no schollys lost. Oh, and the current head coach who was intimately involved in the scandal isnt banned.

pathetic.

somebody else will look at this and determine it is worth the risk. You have to ban from postseason and ding schollys if you want it to mean anything. Writing big checks is easy.

U-M gets major fine, add to Moore ban; will appeal

Michigan received a significant fine, including the loss of two years of postseason football revenue, but avoided punitive penalties such as a postseason ban from the NCAA Committee on Infractions.

www.espn.com

My favorite has to be this: "no competitive advantage."

Wait.

A team put a team to steal the other team's signals during other games.....but NOT to get a "competitive advantage"????????

Why were they doing it then?
Was Stallions doing community service for a felony?
Did Harbaugh want to increase the attendance at other teams' games by one?
Does Stallions have a mental block that miraculously makes him attend only games of future Michigan opponents?
Did they learn this from when Tom Brady was at Michigan?

 

[editder]

I know how we lost the bowl game... But I don't know why we lost the bowl game. That Michigan squad was awful, but we couldn't do anything.

They were awful before half their team opted out. The team we lost to was sub-awful.

 

[GP for Bama]

Every team that has ever had wins forfeited or vacated should immediately reclaim those wins.

 

[Bamabuzzard]

Unless wins/games (including the national championship) are vacated and scholarships reduced, then nothing happened to Michigan. They'll pay the fine, sit their head coach for the three games, and go about their merry way with their national championship in tow.

 

[tusks_n_raider]

Every team that has ever had wins forfeited or vacated should immediately reclaim those wins.

Yeah it’s kind of laughable now that our forfeited games still stand for signing a napkin, $300K to a lineman who never stepped foot on campus, and players selling textbooks to regular students.

The whole game runs on pay for play now and teams like Clemson and Michigan Blatantly steal signals and it’s all a-ok.

We should at least reinstate all wins at the University level no matter what the NCAA recognizes.

 

[CB4]

Unless wins/games (including the national championship) are vacated and scholarships reduced, then nothing happened to Michigan. They'll pay the fine, sit their head coach for the three games, and go about their merry way with their national championship in tow.

The revenue generated by Michigan in 2023 while cheating to win the national title and “riding the wave” from it in 2024 far surpasses the $20-30 million from the NCAA penalties. The program saw significant revenue increases from season ticket sales alone the past two years. Not to mention increased licensed merchandise revenue, increased booster donations, etc..

Ridiculous…..

 

[arthurdawg]

Yeah it’s kind of laughable now that our forfeited games still stand for signing a napkin, $300K to a lineman who never stepped foot on campus, and players selling textbooks to regular students.

The whole game runs on pay for play now and teams like Clemson and Michigan Blatantly steal signals and it’s all a-ok.

We should at least reinstate all wins at the University level no matter what the NCAA recognizes.

Pretty sure Means played for us in 2000 didn't he? Poorly? And then left for Memphis.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

Pretty sure Means played for us in 2000 didn't he? Poorly? And then left for Memphis.

Yeah, and it was $200K, but what's a six-figure difference between friends?

Tusk is still correct overall. The specific details don't matter, and signing on a napkin is light years from "let's spy on the other team during their games."

The thing I'll never forget (okay, not fair) is this:

We played that horrendous game against the Barn in that AWFUL weather and lost, 9-0. It was a season I'd just been wanting to be over ever since the UCF debacle (and I was cheering for UCF because I wanted Dubious gone). That game was on Saturday, November 18, a day watching the latest debacle in the Presidential election that still wasn't over was a welcome respite.

Finally.....the season is over and we can hire a football coach.

And then that story hit the airwaves and newspapers on Thanksgiving Day, while we were engaged in our search for what turned out to be Fran-Phony. Just the possibility we might get hammered meant we were going to have to take a second-line coach. Name after name pulls the old "I thank Mal for the interest, but I'm happy having extorted my current employer for more money by pretending I was coming to Alabama!"



ETA:
The late, great bayoutider and I were on another site (it's where we met, and he brought me here), and he was predicting the Means scandal was going to torpedo half the schools in the SEC before it ended and the one positive was that Alabama was going to get hit first and be on the path to recovery. I'm guessing he thought Means would be like Hart Lee Dykes.

But it was what the NCAA decided they wanted it to be, I guess.

 

[CB4]

Yeah, and it was $200K, but what's a six-figure difference between friends?

Tusk is still correct overall. The specific details don't matter, and signing on a napkin is light years from "let's spy on the other team during their games."

The thing I'll never forget (okay, not fair) is this:

We played that horrendous game against the Barn in that AWFUL weather and lost, 9-0. It was a season I'd just been wanting to be over ever since the UCF debacle (and I was cheering for UCF because I wanted Dubious gone). That game was on Saturday, November 18, a day watching the latest debacle in the Presidential election that still wasn't over was a welcome respite.

Finally.....the season is over and we can hire a football coach.

And then that story hit the airwaves and newspapers on Thanksgiving Day, while we were engaged in our search for what turned out to be Fran-Phony. Just the possibility we might get hammered meant we were going to have to take a second-line coach. Name after name pulls the old "I thank Mal for the interest, but I'm happy having extorted my current employer for more money by pretending I was coming to Alabama!"



ETA:
The late, great bayoutider and I were on another site (it's where we met, and he brought me here), and he was predicting the Means scandal was going to torpedo half the schools in the SEC before it ended and the one positive was that Alabama was going to get hit first and be on the path to recovery. I'm guessing he thought Means would be like Hart Lee Dykes.

But it was what the NCAA decided they wanted it to be, I guess.

My understanding was it was actually Tennessee that Lang actually approached FIRST about “steering” Means to Knoxville. And they actually “sat on it” initially. They were a willing bidder, but Fulmer realized other SEC schools (UGA, Kentucky and Alabama) were actively talking with Lang.

Letting it play out and possible entanglement of other schools, particularly Alabama, could benefit them more.

My point: why would Lang go to Tennessee first? Because they were in the business of buying players just as much, if not more, than other schools.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

My understanding was it was actually Tennessee that Lang actually approached FIRST about “steering” Means to Knoxville. And they actually “sat on it” initially. They were a willing bidder, but Fulmer realized other SEC schools (UGA, Kentucky and Alabama) were actively talking with Lang.

Letting it play out and possible entanglement of other schools, particularly Alabama, could benefit them more.

What you're saying - and bear in mind that I never was deep into the weeds in the knowledge of the details, as I was both a new father and then headed off the medical school (that's where I was when the sanctions came down on February 1, 2002) - what you're saying is largely the way I recall hearing it.

Bayou's point, which is pretty strong, is that it was illogical at every level to assume that a player in MEMPHIS was up for bidding by college football teams but Tennessee was not involved or even suspected (which was the first reports). At the same time - IIRC, which I may not - Tennessee kept having NCAA investigators show either show up and leave campus in 48 hours or not even show up, suspicious to the point I vividly recall ESPN doing a story on how many suspicious things had been reported about Tennessee but that the NCAA didn't seem overly interested in finding out anything.

(Everyone needs to remember that the Internet was still pretty new to most of us back in 2001; if you lived in Alabama and still got the ancient documents known as "newspapers," you probably know the details of the story much better than those of us who did not).

Plus, most of the case seemed to me to be circumstantial: guy who coaches high school football buys SUV and another guy says he got the money to afford one from an Alabama booster. I mean, he might have said that because maybe they were both selling drugs together, right?

 

[CB4]

What you're saying - and bear in mind that I never was deep into the weeds in the knowledge of the details, as I was both a new father and then headed off the medical school (that's where I was when the sanctions came down on February 1, 2002) - what you're saying is largely the way I recall hearing it.

Bayou's point, which is pretty strong, is that it was illogical at every level to assume that a player in MEMPHIS was up for bidding by college football teams but Tennessee was not involved or even suspected (which was the first reports). At the same time - IIRC, which I may not - Tennessee kept having NCAA investigators show either show up and leave campus in 48 hours or not even show up, suspicious to the point I vividly recall ESPN doing a story on how many suspicious things had been reported about Tennessee but that the NCAA didn't seem overly interested in finding out anything.

(Everyone needs to remember that the Internet was still pretty new to most of us back in 2001; if you lived in Alabama and still got the ancient documents known as "newspapers," you probably know the details of the story much better than those of us who did not).

Plus, most of the case seemed to me to be circumstantial: guy who coaches high school football buys SUV and another guy says he got the money to afford one from an Alabama booster. I mean, he might have said that because maybe they were both selling drugs together, right?

I think Claude Bassett, the recruiting coordinator at Kentucky, was the only other person I recall getting caught up in the Means fiasco, and it was for providing impermissible benefits (lodging and swag) and not pay for play. But Bassett was involved in the discussions as were coaches from UGA ( I could be fuzzy on this but I also think Arkansas, and a couple of schools outside the conference may have been “invited” to the Lynn Lang Sweepstakes).

As to Tennessee, we all know that Tee Martin was getting paid by a booster in Mobile. But somehow the NCAA must have only gone to Knoxville to eat ribs at Calhoun’s.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

I think Claude Bassett, the recruiting coordinator at Kentucky, was the only other person I recall getting caught up in the Means fiasco, and it was for providing impermissible benefits (lodging and swag) and not pay for play. But Bassett was involved in the discussions as were coaches from UGA ( I could be fuzzy on this but I also think Arkansas, and a couple of schools outside the conference may have been “invited” to the Lynn Lang Sweepstakes).

As to Tennessee, we all know that Tee Martin was getting paid by a booster in Mobile. But somehow the NCAA must have only gone to Knoxville to eat ribs at Calhoun’s.

I think you're correct. As I recall vaguely, it was maybe 4 teams, possibly 5, but somehow Tennessee was NOT one of them (as far as the NCAA was concerned).

 

[December05]

They were awful before half their team opted out. The team we lost to was sub-awful.

I know why. We were outscored 13-0 during a first-quarter monsoon and won the rest of the game 13-6. We actually tried to attempt a pass in that mess when we couldn’t even field a snap cleanly.