Michigan football losing the perception battle as fury over sign-stealing scandal mounts

Grant Newsome paused to consider the question and formulate a response. The Michigan football tight ends coach had just been asked whether he felt it was fair to judge the Wolverines differently based on the sign-stealing allegations that have been levied against the program.

“That’s not something I’m going to speculate on,” he replied. “But I just couldn’t be more proud of our guys and what they put on the field every single week and I hope people can see that and appreciate just truly how good this team is.”

That seemed wishful thinking on Newsome’s part because the voices questioning the legitimacy of the Wolverines’ recent success are growing louder and more forceful. An inflection point arrived Wednesday, when the backlash against Michigan reached fever pitch. National pundits took to the airwaves with pointed commentary that changed the tone of the conversation surrounding the mushrooming scandal that has enveloped Schembechler Hall.

“This is a serious matter because it clearly involves cheating,” bombastic ESPN personality Stephen A. Smith said in one breath.

“I think it’s a huge miss and a huge mistake on the part of the Big Ten to let this slide,” he ranted in another. “You need to bring the momentum, the heavy hand of the conference down upon that program to answer questions and to address this.”

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Smith delivered his remarks only hours after The Athletic released an attention-grabbing report based on a survey of 50 anonymous coaches. According to the bold-faced headline, 94% of them said, “Michigan crossed the line.”

The furor intensified as the day continued. A majority of Jim Harbaugh’s Big Ten peers, according to multiple reports, shared their grievances with conference commissioner Tony Petitti during a video call Wednesday and lobbied him to take some kind of action after the NCAA began investigating the controversy last month.

The waves of outrage kept crashing. But they didn’t seem to come out of nowhere. They began to swell on the heels of the College Football Playoff selection committee slotting the Wolverines at No. 3 in its initial rankings released Tuesday.

“Michigan has played well all season,” CFP executive director Bill Hancock explained afterwards. “The NCAA is dealing right now with allegations only. The committee makes its judgments based on what happened on the field, and clearly Michigan has been a dominant team.”

Few would argue with that assessment. The Wolverines are 8-0 and their first five Big Ten victories have been blowouts that have become increasingly more decisive. Michigan boasts the No. 1 scoring defense in the country and Heisman Trophy frontrunner J.J. McCarthy leads the nation in total QBR. By all measure, Michigan has given the impression it is a complete team and a worthy national title contender.

But now suspicion has been raised about how good Michigan really is after one of its support staffers, Connor Stalions, was implicated as the alleged point person in a scheme that sent operatives to the games of U-M’s future opponents where they would video their signals from the stands so their play-calls could be deciphered. Soon after Stalions’ name surfaced publicly, he was suspended with pay by the school as the NCAA launched a probe to determine whether Michigan violated a bylaw prohibiting in-person scouting that has been in place since 1994.

“I think Michigan is an existential fight for survival, at least in the parlance of this college football season,” ESPN personality Paul Finebaum told the Free Press on Thursday. “Because without a strong statement, without some explanation, without some legitimate denial, their move forward in the CFP is going to be viewed by most responsible commentators and fans alike as completely and totally fraudulent.”

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The charged commentary wasn’t surprising considering the source. Finebaum, after all, has long needled Michigan and Harbaugh, developing a reputation as an agitator among the program’s fans. And yet he was initially sympathetic toward Harbaugh after the sign-stealing accusations came to light. He believed then that the NCAA was zealously targeting Michigan’s coach, knowing that he and the Wolverines were already under investigation for impermissible recruiting and coaching activities.

But as the scope of the sign-stealing scandal widened, Finebaum reconsidered his stance.

Earlier this week, Central Michigan began to explore whether a goateed man in dark sunglasses spotted on its sideline during the Chippewas’ Sept. 1 opener against Michigan State was indeed Stalions. As speculation swirled, U-M’s response remained muted. Many assumed that was because Michigan wanted to play nice with the NCAA and abide by the standard-issue gag orders typically enforced during these kinds of inquiries.

But Finebaum wasn’t buying it. He expected the intractable, sometimes rebellious Harbaugh to bang his fist on the lectern with Khrushchev-like panache at his Monday news conference and issue a full-throated denial after he initially claimed in an Oct. 19 statement that he had no knowledge of the alleged improprieties.

“He could say it is the most outrageous thing that has ever happened, there’s not an iota of truth to any of it,” Finebaum posited.

Instead, Harbaugh subtly asked for patience, telling reporters he would “cooperate with the investigation” and “watch how it plays out.”

“I don’t know who is in charge of Harbaugh or the University of Michigan’s public relations campaign,” Finebaum said. “But it’s failing. ... This has been an unmitigated disaster for the school and especially for Harbaugh.”

Finebaum’s voice has long echoed within the ecosystem of college football, where an argument can be made that perception matters there more than in any other sport. Each week teams are ranked in two polls — one by the coaches, the other by the media. Then there is the CFP committee, a 13-member panel which chooses the four teams that compete for a championship based on what Finebaum calls “a subjective formulation.”

“There are human beings involved,” he added.

They hear what’s out there, what has been alleged and the reactions to each development. So does Petitti and other stakeholders who could determine Michigan’s fate. It has left the Wolverines in a vulnerable position, which is rare for a blue-blood program that has often invited positive press.

From the time he took his post in 1968, former athletic director Don Canham was an aggressive salesman, marketing Michigan to the masses and building the Block M into a powerhouse brand that had a weekly presence on TV sets across the nation. The school has often won the PR battle ever since. But it seems to be losing ground in the fight for credibility and legitimacy in wake of the sign-stealing brouhaha.

On Tuesday, defensive tackle Kris Jenkins was asked whether the optics should even matter.

“I mean, that’s a good question,” he said.

Jenkins took a few seconds to further contemplate it.

“I mean I hope the perception would be beneficial for us,” he continued.

But it doesn’t feel that way. Starting Wednesday, it seemed as if the tide of public opinion had turned against the mighty Wolverines.

Contact Rainer Sabin at rsabin@freepress.com. Follow him @RainerSabin.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan football losing perception battle where optics really matter