Before the National Championship Game, Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh and his Wolverines had more pressing issues than accusations of sign-stealing.
In the Rose Bowl game on Monday night, the Maize and Blue defeated No. 4 Alabama 27-20 to go to their first-ever National Championship Game. Jim Harbaugh, the head coach of Michigan football, addressed the possibility that his team will have to forfeit victories due to the NCAA’s investigation into sign-stealing as the two teams prepare to meet in Houston the next week. Harbaugh promptly refuted this claim.
Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh fires back at ‘vacated wins’ speculation
In advance of the Wolverines’ national title game against Washington on Monday, Jim Harbaugh refrained from discussing any possible tampering of the wins on Wednesday. According to Harbaugh, there are more pressing concerns and a “one-track” mentality within the Michigan football program.
The Michigan football coach responded, “Yeah, as I said, getting ready for (the National Championship Game), one-track mind.” We simply don’t have enough room to be living in speculative or rumorville right now, so I’m not sure if that’s what you want to do. That is carried out somewhere else.
JJ McCarthy responds as well
Michigan football quarterback JJ McCarthy was asked a similar question in regard to potentially vacated wins amid the sign-stealing investigation. McCarthy described the possibility as “unfortunate,” though seemed largely unconcerned with the idea given the task at hand and all that his Michigan football program has accomplished as of late.
“You know, obviously from an outside perspective, it would be very unfortunate just to not get recognized for all
the year’s worth of work we’ve put in and all we’ve done,” he remarked. “But in the end, it won’t alter the degree of pride and accomplishment we have for being a part of this football team and all that we have accomplished because we are aware of the effort and time we have put in, as well as the knowledge that we performed our roles as players correctly.
We have no control over the external controversy in any way, and we have no say over what the NCAA decides to do. We will be grateful for the things we were able to control and the accomplishments we made.
Michigan football has bigger fish to fry than sign-stealing fiasco and NCAA investigation
Jim Harbaugh’s two suspensions, the NCAA probe, and other setbacks weren’t enough to stop Michigan football from rising to the challenge this autumn. The Maize and Blue will have a chance this coming week that no other Michigan team has ever had: winning a National Championship Game. Jim Harbaugh and his squad obviously don’t care about what the NCAA might do months or years from now, if at all, because there is so much on the line.
