Ohio State Football: Michigan charged with huge infractions

The Ohio State football program is still stinging from their loss in the Peach Bowl to Georgia. They aren’t the only Big Ten team licking their wounds from a loss in the College Football Playoff though. Michigan is doing so as well, but TTUN looks like they might have bigger problems.

Jim Harbaugh has been rumored to be interested in NFL jobs. He came out yesterday with a statement that did anything but say he was definitively staying at Michigan. Now we might know why his statement was vague enough to leave him some outs.

According to the Athletic, Michigan has been given a notice of allegations against the football program, including a Level 1 infraction of Harbaugh not cooperating with investigators. A Level 1 infraction is the highest level of infraction a program can receive.

The Ohio State football program knows all about that. That’s what the NCAA charged them with during the tattoo scandal that led to the firing of Jim Tressel. But that was a decade ago. The NCAA had real actual power back then that schools were afraid of.

Now, the NCAA is completely neutered. Quite frankly, I don’t know why any program at any level cooperates with them. They bungle every investigation and don’t dole out any real consequences. If a program doesn’t cooperate with them, they can’t gather enough evidence to validate any charges.

That exact fact is why I’m dubious that anything will actually happen from these allegations. But it could explain why Harbaugh didn’t definitively say that he was staying at Michigan next season. He could bolt before he would have to suffer any sort of consequences that would be levied.

From an Ohio State football standpoint, this can only help them. NCAA violations against TTUN give the Buckeyes a recruiting advantage and it might help push Harbaugh out the door. Both would make them a weaker team in 2023. That makes Ohio State stronger.

We’ll see what kind of details unfold in the next few days.