There won’t be an asterisk on this Michigan season, but there will be a stain

You know what fuels the finest rivalries in college football? Not victory. Superiority. The unshakable, intractable belief that no matter what happens on the field, you know, deep down, that your school is simply better than their school.

Whether you’re talking white-column elites vs. land-grant blue-collars (see: Alabama vs. Auburn), jocks vs. nerds (see: Georgia vs. Georgia Tech) or a belief in divine favor (see: Notre Dame vs. everybody), the message is always the same: We’re right, and we’re better than you.

It’s all absurd, of course. Every college football program pushes the envelope, or even tears it completely to shreds. “Everyone else is doing it!” isn’t much of a defense, but it’s a damn good explanation. No program has any real claim on moral superiority over its rival. (No, not even yours.) Michigan is learning that the hard way this season.

As Yahoo Sports first reported in October, Michigan executed a wide-ranging if clumsy off-campus sign-stealing operation over a period of years. In practical terms, the scheme wasn’t all that different from the usual exchange of information and intense observation that happens all the time in college football — coaches with a common opponent share their findings on that opponent; in games, coaches pay close attention to the signs used in the first half and trade on that information in the second half.

But by the letter of NCAA law, Michigan cheated. Plain and simple. When you’re attending opponents’ games in other stadiums — and actually getting onto the sidelines of other games dressed as a coach — it doesn’t much matter whether the information you’re getting is useful or not, or whether the team needed that information to win games. A violation is a violation, the only question left is whether the punishment will fit the crime.

Michigan…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/there-wont-be-an-asterisk-on-this-michigan-season-but-there-will-be-a-stain-161947647.html

Author : Yahoo Sports

Publish date : 2024-01-05 16:19:47

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