While Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh and his staff and players are preparing for the start of spring practice later this month, there remains the substantial issue of NCAA allegations against Harbaugh and his football program.
There are four alleged Level II violations, including impermissible contact during a COVID recruiting dead period, but the most significant is an alleged Level I infraction levied against Harbaugh for lying to and misleading NCAA investigators. Those allegations were outlined in a draft of the NCAA Notice of Allegations (NOA), which Michigan acknowledged receiving on Jan. 6.
The Detroit News immediately filed an open-records request for the draft NOA through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The University of Michigan FOIA office, after an extension, denied The News’ request on Jan. 27.
“The material you have requested contains draft allegations,” the UM FOIA office said in an email. “As such, these are not considered final and as presently stated are not allegations to which the University is required to respond. Therefore, your request is denied.”
Harbaugh will not admit on or off the record, a source has told The News, that he was untruthful to NCAA investigators about what he knew regarding those infractions. This has, The News reported on Jan. 19, brought a potential negotiated resolution with the NCAA to a standstill. Under NCAA rules, there can't be a negotiated resolution unless all parties participate.
It also has paused discussions between Harbaugh and Michigan for a contract extension coming off a second-straight Big Ten championship and College Football Playoff appearance.
What’s next regarding Harbaugh and the NCAA could be a number of paths, but it is unlikely this will resolve quickly. He has hired high-profile attorney Tom Mars, noted for his successful track record in cases against the NCAA.
“I think Coach Harbaugh hiring Tom Mars, No. 1 best move he could do,” David Ridpath, professor of sports business at Ohio University, and an expert on the NCAA, said.
Stu Brown, an Atlanta-based attorney who represents schools with NCAA cases, said it is vital for coaches facing allegations to have legal representation.
“Any individual coach who does not have their own legal counsel has crossed the line from bravery to foolhardiness,” Brown said. “The school's interests are sometimes aligned with the coach or maybe partially aligned, but they are not the same. Many coaches, particularly at lower levels, folks who can't necessarily afford it and who are naive about the process, think that either they don't need a lawyer or that the school is going to protect them. That is wrong more often than it is right.”
Harbaugh, with a Level I violation, possibly could face a suspension of six games or more, and/or stiff restrictions on recruiting. Coaches also have been given show-cause penalties that can be problematic for coaches trying to get another job in college athletics. If this case goes to the Committee on Infractions (COI), it could take a year or longer for a resolution.
Most schools and coaches, as well as the enforcement staff, would prefer the process of a negotiated resolution and avoid the more-involved hearing.
As Brown outlined, once an NOA is issued, Harbaugh would have 90 days to file a response to the allegations. Brown referred to the process as a “bureaucratic pain in the ass.”
Then, the NCAA enforcement staff has up to 60 days to file a reply. A hearing is scheduled, typically, about two months after the reply has been filed. After the hearing, it’s another two or three months before the public infractions report is released. There could be an appeal, which could last six months or more.
“You could reasonably be looking at the spring of 2024,” Brown said of a possible resolution timeline in Harbaugh’s Level I case.
The process is mostly handled privately.
“Under the NCAA rules, the NCAA does not have to publicly show its cards and the rules say nobody else is supposed to divulge it,” Brown said. “And then, the hearing is held in secret. And the names of the enforcement staff, people who are prosecuting the case, are not made public. And then if allegations are found to be not proven, there's never a statement by the NCAA that says, ‘Our bad.’
“It is frustrating, because you hear the NCAA frequently say, ‘Oh, we don't have subpoena power. And we don't have this, and we don't have that.’ No, they've got a lot of leverage, and they've got a private, secretive process that prevents people from really publicly defending themselves. You know that whoever is recruiting against Michigan is using all this as much as they can, of course. And Harbaugh is restricted from what he can say about it because if it comes out that Jim Harbaugh met with the top prospect in Michigan and told that kid and his coach and family members, ‘No, I didn't lie and here’s why, here's the specifics,’ and then that kid puts it on the kid’s social media, now, the NCAA is going to accuse Harbaugh of violating the confidentiality of the investigation and add another Level I allegation.”
A precedent
Alicia Jessop, a lawyer and associate professor at Pepperdine University and an academic director for the Institute for Entertainment, Media, and Sports, cited the case of former Connecticut men’s basketball coach Kevin Ollie while discussing Harbaugh’s situation.
In September 2018, six months after UConn fired Ollie, the NCAA levied an unethical-conduct charge against Ollie. The NCAA alleged he provided false or misleading information, but Ollie denied he intentionally committed any NCAA violations. He was hit with a three-year show-cause penalty, which essentially banned him from coaching in college. An arbitrator in January 2022 ruled UConn improperly fired Ollie, who was sanctioned for NCAA violations that occurred between 2013 and 2018, and said the NCAA’s decision was “erroneous and unfounded.”
Jessop said with this case in mind, she understands why Harbaugh refuses to acquiesce.
“On the one hand, this is a man who — from all appearances — really takes ethics and his integrity very seriously, so to be accused of lying, if you either didn’t lie or don’t believe you lied, you’re gonna dig your heels in on that,” Jessop said of Harbaugh. “So, that’s one side of the coin. The second side of the coin is we’ve seen some pretty damning results recently for cases involving allegations that a coach lied to the infractions committee.
“There’s a lot of similarities between the Kevin Ollie case and this case. I think the reason you’re seeing Jim Harbaugh do what he’s doing is, on the one hand, maybe he didn’t lie, and on the other hand, he’s pretty smart and he probably has pretty good advice where if he did lie, he knows what the track record is in this type of situation where even though these infractions are pretty minor — we’re not talking pay-for-play, we’re not talking abusing players, they’re really just minor competitive advantages — we’ve seen coaches lose their career over this. It’s pretty serious stuff, so I don’t blame him for taking the stance he’s taking. It makes a lot of sense. He knows what happened to Kevin Ollie.”
What types of penalties Harbaugh might face varies depending on whether it’s a negotiated resolution, whether Michigan self-imposes penalties, and if this goes before the COI. The NCAA has a convoluted penalty matrix, Brown said. If the NCAA decides it’s Level I “aggravated,” he could be suspended for up to half the regular season and possibly more. If it’s a Level I “standard”, he might have to miss two to four games.
Ridpath, however, believes the Harbaugh situation will resolve fairly quickly and not so painfully with a one- or two-game suspension this season if there is no COI hearing. If it does go to a hearing, it could be months before the process concludes.
“I'm virtually certain that the end result is not going to be that damaging for Michigan,” Ridpath said. “They might lose a few official visits, they might lose some time with coaches on the road, and there’s even an outside chance that they would take away a couple scholarships. But again, that doesn't really damage a Michigan and then Coach Harbaugh misses (the first two games this season against) East Carolina and UNLV — whoop dee doo.
“But, I do think the wrong approach is to say that this is nothing. And then on the other extreme, I've got Ohio State fans here, saying, ‘Boy, I can't wait till Michigan gets the death penalty.’ I'm like, OK, hold on a second. It's somewhere way on the other side of that, because, again, if you did provide false, misleading information, then absolutely, he deserves to have a sanction. But, it's not going to be anything that's going to be hugely damaging to Michigan. It might be a small little embarrassment that, quite frankly, we'll probably forget about by the end of the season.”
Spring game
Michigan football will play its spring game on April 1 at Michigan Stadium, the program announced Friday.
The Wolverines, coming off a 13-1 season that included a second straight Big Ten championship and College Football Playoff appearance, will begin spring practice on Feb. 20. They will then have spring break later this month with a return on March 6.
