Sherrone Moore is out. (And in jail)
It's been quite the wild 24 hours in Ann Arbor and the surrounding communities. Former Coach Moore has been fired with cause, and he's been arrested, accused of assault in a case where the details are still, admittedly, somewhat sketchy.
The alleged affair with the staffer seems to be fairly cut and dried and, if you can believe what some in the media are reporting, somewhat known for some time now? It's possible that a lot in the media knew about this, and remained silent. It's not like it doesn't happen in media across the land. To the point now that the media openly admit it. Then use it after the fact to try and gain engagement bait and clicks. Such is the media landscape in which we live.
And then there is the schadenfreude, other schools' fans pointing and laughing, breathless exclamations that "Michigan is the dirtiest program of the last 5 years" (Uh, OK. Only if you ignore several other goings-on at certain schools) and people just having a good old time pretending that their programs are lily white in an age where almost everyone is covered in a deep-dark layer of soot.
LSU is apparently already tampering. With LSU alum Mathieu openly courting Michigan QB Bryce Underwood to come to his alma mater. And I'm sure there are many other schools approaching Michigan players using back-channels and mutual agents etc. College football these days is the Wild West after all. You might not want to look to closely under the hood of the school you root for is what I'm saying.
Lost in all of this, in the fervor to heap scorn on Michigan, is that Moore's wife and 3 children are being ran publicly out into the square to be displayed as trophy victims. It's horrible for the family that this is going on. They didn't do anything wrong.
And yes, the staffer with whom the alleged affair occurred has been outed and is now a meme, although I will admit to feeling a little less sorry for her, having known full well she was with a married man and all.
But the vast majority of the blame, should all of this be proven true, lies on the shoulders of Sherrone Moore full stop. That's not to say there is some ancillary blame to be passed around. Michigan should take a hard look at Athletic Director Warde Manuel for instance, as he made the decision to hire Moore without interviewing other coaches or, apparently, conducting anything that would constitute due diligence. If nothing else that raises questions of negligence to one's job responsibilities.
Then there are the players, who now have to prepare for a bowl game against UT-Austin under now-interim head coach Biff Poggi (who's been the IHC before, when Moore was suspended for two games due to recruiting violations) and are already receiving (probably) dozens of texts and unsolicited offers to leave the Big House and go play elsewhere next season.
At the end of all of this Michigan Football will be OK. Eventually. Yes, they have some rot that they need to cut out from their program and they need to rebuild some integrity and goodwill with the fan base. Don't worry about rebuilding with the rest of the Nation because, eventually, they are going to have their own scandals to deal with and, to be quite frank, they don't care.
All that the rest of the College Football World cares about right now is that it is not their school in the cross-hairs of scandal. So they're going to keep piling on, even after their school gets caught because that is what people do. Michigan could hire Jesus Christ as their next coach and Ohio State would accuse him of using his omnipotence to illegally predict plays. That's how College Football fandom works.
Michigan DOES need to pick the right coach in this hire however, because not doing so will mean another decade in the wilderness and falling further behind a B1G Conference that is starting to gain some serious momentum. Especially the rival, Ohio State.
College Football is broken. The CFP is as close to a sham as you can get, the Bowl System is wheezing along and looking more and more likely to collapse soon, and the powers that be seem to be clueless on how to do anything about it. Everyone is cheating, only the dumb get caught.
And that is where Michigan finds itself today. They are not the "dirtiest" program over the last 5 years, they are the dumbest. Because they keep getting caught where others are better at hiding their transgressions.
But there's not, and there should not be, any coverup of a coach that, again allegedly, cheated on his wife with a staffer and then got arrested on suspicion of assault. That has little to do with the rot of the program and more to do with the personal failing of the man. A man that probably never should have been the Head Coach of one of the prestige programs in College Football.
That his wife and children have to suffer publicly for this is the greatest travesty of them all.
