Michigan football culture under Jim Harbaugh crossed a line, ex-staffer told NCAA

Amid the NCAA probe into the Michigan football program, a former Wolverines staffer says the team's recruiting culture broke the rules.

The culture around the Michigan football program went too far under Jim Harbaugh, according to a former staffer. / Kyle Robertson/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK

As the NCAA hits Jim Harbaugh with a four-year show-cause penalty for recruiting violations, and with the Michigan football program facing another probe into alleged sign-stealing, one former Wolverine staffer says things got out of hand when Harbaugh was head coach.

A former recruiting director at Michigan told the NCAA that Harbaugh created a culture in which staffers were urged to "go up to the line and cross if you ha[ve] to," during the Covid-19 dead period, according to revelations from MLive.com

The staffer's remarks were included in the report issued by the NCAA as it revealed the punishment for Harbaugh's recruiting actions during the pandemic.

Harbaugh urged the staffer and others to "get guys on campus" in early 2021, the staffer claimed, at a time when the NCAA enforced a strict recruiting dead period amid the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

The unnamed staffer claimed that "the football staff had no process in place to alert the athletic compliance staff when prospects were planning to visit campus."

They added: "the football staff took no precautions during the visits to avoid in-person contact with the prospects," and that the "culture wasn't to be safe, the culture was to go to the line and cross it if you had to."

In its decision, the NCAA said that Harbaugh "violated recruiting and inducement rules, engaged in unethical conduct, failed to promote an atmosphere of compliance, and violated head coach responsibility obligations."

Now head coach of the NFL's Los Angeles Chargers, Harbaugh denied any wrongdoing during his time as head coach of Michigan.

Despite the punishment handed down to Harbaugh, the NCAA is still yet to announce the final decision into its investigation into allegations former staffer Connor Stalions conducted improper, in-person scouting of football opponents.

Speculation around that probe has aroused speculation that the Michigan football program could face a postseason ban, or that first-year coach Sherrone Moore could be suspended.

A ruling on that investigation is unlikely to be made public until after the start of the 2024 football season, according to insiders.

(MLive.com)

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