The Michigan Wolverines went 15-0 and won the College Football Playoff National Championship Game earlier this week, which to many would seem like a great success.
Head coach Jim Harbaugh, his players and his staff are certainly celebrating the achievement. Michigan’s “true blue” fans have obviously been pretty excited as well. There will be a strong contingent of skeptics who will be looking to put an asterisk next to Michigan’s incredible season, though.
They have reason to disbelieve due to the sign-stealing allegations that led to a three-game suspension for Harbaugh and the resignation of the man reportedly behind the scheme, recruiting analyst Connor Stalions. Oh, and there was also linebackers coach Chris Partridge, who was “relieved of his duties” and allegedly tried to cover up Stalions’ actions.
There’s plenty of fire behind the smoke surrounding Michigan, but don’t count NCAA president Charlie Baker among the skeptics. This, even though his organization is still investigating Michigan, and earlier in the year, he felt the situation dire enough to reveal parts of the investigation to both Michigan and the Big Ten conference.
That same man is now praising Michigan’s national championship victory. Why?
Baker recently told reporters that he feels the NCAA investigation into the program as well as the disclosures from the investigation made Michigan’s path legitimate.
“I don’t regret doing it, because sitting on that information given the comprehensiveness of it, I think we would have put everyone, including Michigan, in an awful place,” Baker said, per Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger. “As it was, it was out in the public domain and people either made adjustments or didn’t. At the end of the day, no one believes at this point that Michigan didn’t win the national title fair and square.”
Baker called his decision “unusual,” but he also thinks it was the right thing to do because it exposed Stalions’ scheme and, in a sense, allowed the Wolverines to win things the right way moving forward.
To that point, Michigan still went 8-0 after the Stallions story became public.
“Part of the reason I thought it important to talk to the Big Ten and Michigan about this was it might affect the outcome of games. I don’t believe at the end of the season, that it did,” Baker said.
