NCAA Concludes "Rod"ergate Investigation

ABCnews.com - University of Michigan officials and embattled coach Rich Rodriguez acknowledged a sense of relief after the NCAA agreed that the school's self-punishment was largely enough. The NCAA added a a third year of probation Thursday for practice and training violations, but didn't decide that Rodriguez had failed to promote an atmosphere of compliance with NCAA rules. "Everybody has accepted responsibility that needed to, including myself," Rodriguez said softly.

Michigan also successfully argued that it shouldn't be labeled a repeat offender, less than 10 years after the NCAA said the basketball program was guilty of having the largest financial scandal in the history of college sports. University president Mary Sue Coleman said she wouldn't put the problems with the football team in the same category as the ones that previously plagued the basketball program.

Like I said back in March, this investigation will be a black eye on the Michigan program but one that will fade quickly. It's not a gaping, infectious wound that Buckeye fans and Rich Rod haters would like you to believe. It isn't the reason our defense gives up 40 points a game and it isn't the reason the goalie on my 2'nd grade soccer team has a better leg than our field goal kickers. Once the whole Rich Rod saga plays out, it will be all but forgotten and will be completely engulfed by the real reason that this entire experiment went to shit, which was the fact that Rich played the Terrell Pyror sweepstakes and lost, and then was completely incapable of adjusting his gameplan/playcalling to suite the talent at hand in his first two years here. And that's ultimately the reason that he'll be considered the worst coach at Michigan in the last 50 years when it's all said and done.

Only way Rich keeps his job at this point, and I don't think he should because this sick little experiment (4-16 in the Big Ten) has gone on long enough, would be to beat up on Illinois and Purdue and then somehow get a win against the Buckeyes. Right now i'm basically cheering against all those things because anything less means Jim Harbaugh is coming to town. Straight book it folks. Oh wait, I already did.