Yahoo Sports’ Jason Fitz examines whether the Wolverines’ accomplishments this season will forever be tainted due to the ongoing sign-stealing investigation.

Video transcript

JASON FITZ: Should Michigan's season have an asterisk next to it when the season comes to an end? It's one of the biggest questions we've been asking throughout the course of this college football season. But the question has already been answered, and the answer is yes. Hear me out before you get into my menses and tell me why I'm wrong. Understand that once the asterisk conversation has started, it never stops. Just asking the question, should it be there, puts it there, right or wrong, for the rest of time. Look at what we've dealt with in history recently from champions. We've dealt with the Astros stealing signals. And many baseball peers have said, yeah, but everybody's doing it. Doesn't matter. Whenever we talk about the Astros, the asterisk is there.

Look at the Patriots, Deflategate. Sure, plenty of teams play with footballs at different levels of air, right? Doesn't matter. Once we establish the asterisk conversation, it never went anywhere. This holds true across all of sports. And it's a reason why once the conversation starts, you can't do anything about it. Now, this isn't about one scandal, this is about multiple scandals. Remember, at the beginning of the year, Jim Harbaugh faced a suspension for recruiting violations. That wasn't even including the sign-stealing scandal that took over so much of the conversation in the college football season. And we must remember that even though the Big Ten has ruled on this, the NCAA hasn't. We still have no idea what additional information the NCAA might have and what additional punishments they might come down with in the future.

So you could say maybe all of this works itself out. The history is never that kind. Find me a champion in any sport in history where an asterisk conversation started and then went away. It's not going to happen. Even with the bubble, even with the bubble, with the Lakers championship still resonate or does it need an asterisk? Are we supposed to respect the Dodgers World Series in a COVID year? Today, on sports talk radio, those are still debates happening about how much value we give them. Because once Pandora's box is opened, you can't shut it. Nothing will change the fact that controversy is part of the story of Michigan, and nothing will change the fact.

This year that Michigan fans will say it's stupid, everybody else is doing it, and it never should have gotten to this point. Michigan fans will play the victim and the rest of college football will do the same. Fans of every other fan base will say you shouldn't be there because you cheated. Everybody's already made up their mind, and no matter what happens moving forward for Michigan, this year, this season will be mired in controversy. The question is, will all of it be worth it? And the only real answer to that is only if they win a championship.