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Josaiah Stewart didn’t realize at the time.
But when the Coastal Carolina import joined Michigan football last year, he was placed in a crash course on crisis management. Class in this school of hard knocks began in the summer just as the Wolverines embarked on their wild journey toward a national championship. Jim Harbaugh was hit with the first of two separate three-game suspensions as an NCAA investigation loomed over his program. Then a sign-stealing scandal steeped in espionage erupted in late October, thrusting Michigan into a maelstrom of controversy that threatened to send it off track before the team barreled down its final stretch.
To top it off, there were constant rumors suggesting Harbaugh’s return to the NFL was imminent.
“We have been dealing with it all year — all the scandals, all the allegations and whatnot,” Stewart, a rising senior edge defender, told the Free Press last week. “Blocking out all the noise has been our mantra all year.”
Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh celebrates with defensive end Josaiah Stewart (5) after a 27-20 Rose Bowl win over Alabama at the 2024 Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., on Monday, Jan. 1, 2024.
The lessons Stewart and his teammates learned during a tumultuous fall were applied in the frenetic aftermath of Michigan’s first national title since 1997. Harbaugh soon bolted for the Los Angeles Chargers and then took the bulk of the defensive staff with him, leaving his 38-year-old successor, Sherrone Moore, with the unenviable task of hiring a new set of assistants capable of maintaining the schematic continuity within a unit that surrendered the fewest yards and points per game in the Football Bowl Subdivision last season.
The exodus of assistants, led by coordinator Jesse Minter, threatened to destabilize the program’s foundation that Moore desperately hoped…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/why-1-michigan-football-player-110648233.html
Author : Detroit Free Press
Publish date : 2024-02-18 11:06:48
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