by Travis Normand
August 18, 2025

In case you haven’t been paying attention, the NCAA’s infraction report on the University of Michigan was released on August 15, 2025. You can read the whole report HERE.

Whether you read the official NCAA decision, or any of the numerous articles (see below) that have been posted about it, you will see that the punishments handed down by the NCAA include some heavy monetary penalties and several “show-cause” orders.

However, what is missing from the list of punishments was any kind of post-season ban, vacating of wins, or anything else of that nature. This appears to be a fundamental shift in how the NCAA will regulate and punish football programs going forward as while NCAA has given monetary punishments and “show-cause” orders before, I don’t remember seeing any that were this big.

The lack of post-season ban makes some sense considering the punishment is for “acts” that occurred almost two year ago. So, a post-season ban would only serve to punish current Michigan players, many of who were not even on campus at the time. Instead, the NCAA relied on “show-cause” orders that aim to punish the coaching staff and monetary penalties which punish the school. In other words, the “fundamental shift” that I was referring to might be that the NCAA is simply more cognizant of who their punishment actually punishes (whereas, in the past, they were arguably not).

Articles

U-M gets major fine, add to Moore ban for sign stealing; will appeal
Pete Thamel and Dan Wetzel, posted August 15, 2025, at 10:58 AM ET on ESPN.com

ESPN analyst doesn’t hold back on Michigan’s punishment from NCAA
Jeff Hauser, posted August 15, 2025, at 12:34 PM CDT on Yahoo.com and originally at The Sporting News

Petitti letter calls for no new penalties in Michigan sign-stealing scandal
Dan Wetzel, posted July 21, 2025, 07:00 AM ET

To be honest, I would not have opposed a post-season ban although I think the current punishments are more appropriate for what Michigan has done. My reasoning for this is, generally speaking, I have never had a problem with the NCAA punishing a school or institution as a whole (and thus also punishing the fan base and/or donors). I have always seen college football as a sport for everyone at a specific school from the players, to the coaches, to the students, faculty, alumni, etc. For this reason, I never had a problem with a punishment that actually punished fans and alumni (like a post season ban would do), as it is sometimes the fans and alumni that are the problem. However, in this particular instance with Michigan, I don’t see the fans and alumni as being the ones that the punishment needed to target, so again, not imposing a post season ban makes sense.

Of course, the cynical side of my head is telling me that the NCAA left out a post-season ban as a tacit recognition of the fact that the post-season is not what it once was. As we know, there was a time in the not-to-distant past that missing a bowl game was a big deal (from both a prestige and monetary standpoint). However, in the playoff era, being banned from a non-playoff bowl game doesn’t carry the same weight that it did a few years ago. In fact, I would be willing to bet that if Michigan were to make a non-playoff bowl in 2025, a large number of players would “opt out” and a large number of fans would not bother traveling to the game. In other words, it would look almost like a self-imposed post-season ban.

On the other hand, getting banned from the playoff is a huge deal, and it is my cynical suspicion that there is too much money at play to actually ban a team from the playoff (especially for acts that occurred almost two years ago).

Speaking of the college football playoff, I am a little shocked that they let Michigan keep their national title from 2023. Going forward, there will be very few that view the 2023 national title as having been won legitimately or without some form of “cheating.” I understand that today’s college football game is more about money than it has ever been before, but it is also about winning championships. I think we are all a little accepting of the fact that a team could theoretically “buy” a championship using NIL money, but I would also like to think that cheating to win a championship would still be repugnant to anyone who enjoys competition. In fact, if the NCAA doesn’t govern or regulate the fairness of the game and/or the outcome of the competition, then why regulate anything at all?

Side Note and bizarre twist:

I recall having read an article several years ago about how a couple of Michigan ball boys saved Michigan’s 1997 season (and National Title) when they noticed that Northwestern had stolen their signals and reported it to the coaching staff (preventing Northwestern from upsetting Michigan). I have searched for that article and have found a few references to it. I believe it was titled “How 2 ball boys stopped opponent’s signal stealing, save UMs 1997 title” and it was published in the Detroit Free Press. While I can’t find the original story, I have found the following:

Stolen Signals: A Football Saga Comes Full Circle
Posted on NPR.org on July 9, 2008, at 7:00 AM ET; and Heard on The Bryant Park Project

From the NPR.org link: “In 1997, Jonathan Datz was a ball boy for the University of Michigan football team, and David Hansburg was Northwestern University’s director of football operations. The two didn’t know each other, but they both played key roles in the course of a dramatic confrontation between the two teams.”

Northwestern Steals Michigan Signs; Ball Boys to the Rescue
Clay Travis, published on Wednesday July 9, 2008 at 10:45 on DeadSpin.com

From the posting on DeadSpin.com (emphasis added): “In 1995 and ’96, Hansburg said, all he had to do was watch U-M center Rod Payne, a one-handed snapper who apparently placed his opposite hand on the ground for a running play and on his thigh for a passing play. When the Northwestern coaches pointed at the ground or the sky, All-America linebacker Pat Fitzgerald spread the word on the field.”

Also, according to the Deadspin.com article, the names of the ball boys were Jonathan Datz, from Philadelphia, and Mike Youtan, from Southern California. At the time of the Detroit Free Press article, Datz was apparently working for the Broomfield, Colorado District Attorney’s office.

How Two Ballboys Saved Michigan’s ’97 Title
Posted June 18, 2008 at TheWizardOfOdds.com

I find it somewhat ironic that Michigan’s last two national titles (1997 and 2023) had an association with sign stealing.