Jim Harbaugh attorney Tom Mars addresses pending NCAA discipline for former Michigan coach

Jim Harbaugh’s attorney Tom Mars addressed the pending NCAA discipline for Michigan amid the NCAA’s release of recruiting violations committed by the Wolverines.

There are potential violations and penalties for “the former coach” — who was not named — and is in a pending stage, according to the release. Harbaugh was at the center of controversy in terms of potential violations and alleged rule breaking this past season.

That included a sign-stealing scandal. But as the release states, these violations are over the COVID-19 dead period nearly four years ago.

“I filed a lengthy response to the (Notice of Allegations) on behalf of Coach Harbaugh, which unfortunately hasn’t been made public and will probably never see the light of day,” Mars said in a statement, via ESPN. “That concluded Coach Harbaugh’s participation in the case. I saw from Warde Manuel’s statement that Michigan changed its position for the purpose of ‘moving forward,’ which doesn’t surprise me considering that Coach Harbaugh is no longer Michigan’s head coach.

“I can almost hear the wheels of the bus going ‘whomp, whomp,’ but sometimes that’s the way things go in college sports.”

Harbaugh led Michigan to a national title this past season and eventually left for the Los Angeles Chargers head coaching gig.

According to the announcement, Michigan violated the in-person recruiting rules during a COVID-19 dead period. The agreed upon penalties in the case include three years of probation for the school, a fine and recruiting restrictions in alignment with the Level 1-Mitigated classification for the school.

“Michigan and five individuals who currently or previously worked for its football program have reached an agreement with NCAA enforcement staff on recruiting violations and coaching activities by noncoaching staff members that occurred within the football program, and the appropriate penalties for those violations,” the release read.

“A Committee on Infractions panel has approved the agreement. One former coach did not participate in the agreement, and that portion of the case will be considered separately by the Committee on Infractions, after which the committee will release its full decision.”

The committee elected to not discuss further details in the Michigan case to protect the integrity of the ongoing process.

“The agreed-upon violations involve impermissible in-person recruiting contacts during a COVID-19 dead period, impermissible tryouts, and the program exceeding the number of allowed countable coaches when noncoaching staff members engaged in on- and off-field coaching activities (including providing technical and tactical skills instruction to student-athletes),” the NCAA statement regarding Michigan’s violations read. 

“The negotiated resolution also involved the school’s agreement that the underlying violations demonstrated a head coach responsibility violation and the former football head coach failed to meet his responsibility to cooperate with the investigation. The school also agreed that it failed to deter and detect the impermissible recruiting contacts and did not ensure that the football program adhered to rules for noncoaching staff members.”