COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — Per NCAA rules, Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) deals for student athletes are not supposed to be used as recruiting inducements. That sentence alone reflects how out-of-touch the NCAA currently is. 

The modern NCAA is as weak as it’s ever been, consistently hoping for Congressional intervention to save it from antitrust lawsuits that would threaten to bankrupt the exceptionally profitable non-profit organization. 

For Michigan football and its infractions case involving the “sign-stealing” operation, the NCAA’s weakness will likely be Michigan’s strength. And if I were Michigan, I would fight back, too. 

The NCAA used to bully schools that violated rules into confessions and then hammer them with punishments. Many of us remember the so-called “Death Penalty” handed down to Southern Methodist football in 1987. It took SMU off the field for two seasons and shattered the program for decades. Since then, the NCAA has never issued a punishment as severe, but it still swung a heavy hammer in infractions cases. 

However, in recent years, schools seem far more willing to take on the NCAA. The organization still has an active enforcement wing, but investigations drag on for months and years, and quite often when an eventual punishment for an infraction is announced, the people who actually broke rules are no longer at the institution. The NCAA has no subpoena power, so often times investigations are incomplete at best and will not stand up to legal scrutiny. 

These days, the NCAA is overwhelmed with former athletes filing antitrust claims. Just this week, former Kansas star Mario Chalmers led a group of 15 former basketball players filing suit over the NCAA’s continued use of their likenesses well after their careers. The NCAA’s key argument seems to be the players’ statute of limitations has expired, not that it was wrong to continue to use people’s likeness well after their careers. 

It’s important to note that antitrust cases and infractions cases clearly are not the same, but they tell the story of the constant scrutiny the NCAA now faces. 

And that brings us back to Michigan football. It was the scandal that rocked college football: An elaborate, orchestrated plan to bypass NCAA rules and give Michigan football a real, on-field advantage. If you watched the Connor Stalions “documentary” on Netflix, you learned about Stalions’ obsession with Michigan returning to the top of college football and finally overcoming their chief rival.

His commitment to study opponents’ hand signals was perhaps the most elaborate operation of its kind ever. On the surface, some of the operation was completely within NCAA rules. Pretty much all teams study TV coverage and their own game video to crack the code of their opponents.

The problems became Stalions’ own appearance on the sideline of a Michigan State game, and how he provided game tickets to people across the country to shoot video of opposing teams’ sideline communications. 

On Tuesday, Yahoo Sports reported on Michigan’s plans to push back on NCAA allegations of rule-breaking. Michigan issued a lengthy response to the NCAA’s notice of allegations, insisting that the NCAA “overreached” in its accusations without credible evidence. Michigan goes on to say the alleged infractions do not rise to a “major” case level but rather more of a minor level. 

Michigan aims to make the NCAA prove that any rules were broken, aiming to unveil unnamed sources. Allegedly, the main source of the information came from the Michigan campus, which certainly perked up some ears in old Columbus town. Even in the Netflix documentary, Stalions seemed to subscribe to the theory that he was just smarter than the opposition, and that former head coach Jim Harbaugh was not a party in any rule breaking. 

When you dig into the Michigan case, at least what we know from the outside, there’s a medley of actions that reek of impropriety. Several assistants were fired, including linebackers coach Chris Partridge. According to the Yahoo report, current head coach Sherrone Moore deleted a series of 4 dozen text messages sent on the day in 2023 that the original Stalions story was published. 

Most Ohio State fans know the public details of the case, and it can be thoroughly debated whether that scheme had anything to do with Michigan beating Ohio State in 2021 and 2022. Because the case became public before the 2023 game, it’s hard to argue that it had much of an effect on the result in Ann Arbor. And of course, in 2024, Ohio State was mostly responsible itself for its fourth straight loss to the Wolverines. A report on the fight that followed that game can be seen in the player above.

Did it really matter on the field? Well … I don’t know that it made Michigan better. But it certainly did not make them worse, and opponents are angry about it. Illinois coach Bret Bielema fired off a response to Harbaugh Tuesday on X.

And this, to me, is the argument that Michigan should follow with the NCAA. Michigan has admitted in its response to the NCAA that some minor rules were violated. The program did respond with terminations, including Stalions, and Harbaugh served suspensions. 

By no means is the NCAA going to drop the hammer on Michigan, even if they hold firm that all of the alleged violations actually happened. But Michigan appears willing to fight this case legally as long as it can and force the NCAA to continue to pay billable hours to its ever-growing legal team.

Deny and delay appears to be the strategy, and Michigan is betting on it as a winning strategy. And there’s no “sign” that the NCAA will ultimately win the fight.