Inside Jim Harbaugh’s years-long fight with the NCAA – and with Michigan

The following is an excerpt from “The Price: What It Takes to Win in College Football’s Era of Chaos,” a new book set to be released on Aug. 27, 2024. The Price, written by journalists Armen Keteyian and John Talty, dives into the “Wild West” era of college football, including the recent sagas involving former Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh.

The first time Jim Harbaugh spoke with NCAA investigators about impermissible recruiting contact he did so without counsel. By the time Michigan submitted a ten-page memorandum, double-spaced, in 11-point font, as to why neither the school nor its coaches should face serious charges, Tom Mars was at his side negotiating with the association.

“We had some conversations,” Mars said in a September 2023 interview. “We worked out an agreement in principle that would not have been of any significance whatsoever.”

That sentiment changed in June 2022. That’s when the NCAA notified the university and Mars it had come into possession of some new information and wanted to interview Harbaugh again. With Mars in attendance, the two senior investigators assigned to the case, a male and a female, asked some general questions about whether Harbaugh remembered meeting with a couple of prospects and their parents in Ann Arbor on two occasions during a “dead period,” when no contact was allowed. Based on past experiences with the NCAA, Mars’s internal Geiger counter began to tick.

Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh walks on the field for a timeout against Iowa during the first half the Big Ten championship game at Luca Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Ind. on Saturday, Dec. 2, 2023.

They don’t ask these kinds of questions unless they have some credible reason to believe you were there, he told Harbaugh.

“Well,” Harbaugh said, “I would remember that, but I don’t.”

On…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/inside-jim-harbaughs-years-long-100609108.html

Author : Detroit Free Press

Publish date : 2024-08-11 10:06:09

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.