Let’s move on from Michigan sign-stealing drama: Sherrone Moore’s suspension should be end of road in saga

Like a hidden camera you don’t know is there, we cannot escape the sign-stealing saga centered around your 2023 national champion Michigan Wolverines.

Jim Harbaugh is gone. Conor Stalions is gone. Nearly every significant on-field contributor from the team is gone. Yet the punishments remain.

Michigan announced a self-imposed, two-game suspension for current head coach and then-offensive coordinator Sherrone Moore. Moore will not only miss Michigan’s third and fourth games of the season against Central Michigan and Nebraska, but he won’t be allowed to be with the team during the week, either. That’s a difference from Harbaugh, who served multiple suspensions during the 2023 season but was able to lead practice.

Now, it may come as a surprise to you that Michigan would impose this suspension on Moore since, only a few months ago, we learned that Michigan’s response to the NCAA’s notice of allegations featured phrases like “numerous factually unsupported infractions, exaggerates aggravating factors and ignores mitigating facts,” and said the NCAA was “grossly overreaching” and “wildly overcharging the program.” However, Michigan also said in its response that the transgressions, including texts to Conor Stalions from Moore that Moore initially deleted, should be viewed as a “Level II standard case.”

In other words: We may have committed some light misdemeanors, but that’s it.

The two-game suspension is very much in line with the slap on the wrist for which Michigan is looking. I mean, if Michigan were really taking this seriously and was scared of what the NCAA would do, it wouldn’t be allowing Moore the opportunity to pick when he’s suspended, would it?

Yeah, perhaps it raised an eyebrow when you saw Moore was suspended for Weeks 3 and 4 and wondered why Michigan felt it was necessary to have Moore for the New Mexico game. The reason behind it is Michigan’s second game at Oklahoma. Not only is it a difficult game, but Oklahoma is Moore’s alma mater and the school didn’t want to punish their coach enough to force him to miss a game that’s so important to him.

So, he’ll miss the Central Michigan and Nebraska games instead. Which, by the way, that’s a tough scene if you’re Nebraska. You still view yourself as a program capable of competing for national titles, but a team that recently won a national title looks at a road game against you as one it’s willing to go without its coach for. But, I digress.

Whether you think this punishment is too harsh or not nearly enough, I don’t care. I won’t bother trying to convince you one way or the other. Personally, I think Michigan’s done enough. Harbaugh served multiple suspensions in 2023, including the season-ending win against Ohio State. The team won the national title anyway. Now, Harbaugh’s in Los Angeles with a pointless show cause, Conor Stalions is the subject of a bad Netflix documentary, all the players are gone and Moore will serve a suspension this year.

It’s time we move on. College sports are on the precipice of changes most of us couldn’t have imagined only 15 years ago when Ohio State coach Jim Tressel ended up losing his job because five players got free tattoos. I’d bet 15 years from now we’ll look back at Michigan’s sign-stealing scandal in much the same way.

I can see it now. Peyton Manning’s son, Marshall Manning, will be nearing his 30th birthday and playing for the Tennessee Volunteers. They just beat Florida State in the SEC Championship Game (which was played in London) for their fourth consecutive SEC title and the College Football Playoff awaits. Will they get through all six rounds unscathed to claim another national title? And, if they do, will Marshall finally consider giving the NFL a shot or just retire and go into broadcasting like his father? Then somebody will mention the name Conor Stalions, and we’ll all laugh at how stupid the NCAA was.

In all seriousness, if the NCAA decides to punish Michigan further, what purpose will it serve? It’s an institution whose very existence is threatened by foundational changes to college athletics. Would it not be better served to spend its time figuring out how to navigate the sports it governs through the future than wasting time deciding how players who had nothing to do with anything that happened be punished?

Let this two-game suspension be the last of it so we can all get on with our lives.