The Columbus Dispatch's Rob Oller has seen many things throughout a 50-plus-year career. One of the more shocking things the long-time Ohio State Buckeyes reporter hadn't seen until Friday was a team cheat as blatantly as TTUN did without getting properly disciplined for it.
The Connor Stalions sign-stealing scandal directly led to the Wolverines winning the 2023/2024 College Football Playoff National Championship. Still, the worst thing TTUN will have to do is pay $20 million.
Oller called the Wolverines cheaters and warned the maize and blue that the football program's legacy in Ann Arbor is forever tainted in the eyes of many.
"If you bleed maize and blue, you’re probably riding high in the saddle," Oller wrote. "A mere scratch instead of a knockout punch? We’ll take it. But if you follow college football, you have to be asking, 'If Michigan got off with a wrist slap, what’s to keep other schools from breaking the rules?'
"A fair question, with an answer that may not appease those who wanted the NCAA to deliver a vicious uppercut that sent the Wolverines to the canvas. Michigan escaped defeat by judges decision, but it will feel the effects of this fight for decades. The school and football program, if not the entire athletic department, exits the ring with a nasty cut in the shape of a C, a scarlet (and gray?) letter symbolizing the cardinal sin of athletic fair play: CHEATERS."
The blood is undoubtedly on Warde Manuel, Jim Harbaugh, and, to a lesser extent, Sherrone Moore's hands.
As long as Manuel is around, this current regime cannot be seen as anything but opportunistic at best, and exploitative at worst.
They got away with minimal penalties to the program, but the court of public opinion may forever hold judgment about how the Wolverines won their last title.