I have zero confidence that the NCAA will deliver a punishment suitable to the sign stealing crime. That said, they do have an opportunity there.
In recent times, they've totally abandoned enforcement where player benefits are concerned. A booster can now give a player a million dollars to come to their school and it's no problem. I mean, technically, maybe that isn't how it works, but practically, there doesn't seem to be much difference. So, via the transfer portal and NIL, they've allowed the sport to foundationally morph into something else in the span of just a few years. There's absolutely no plan or concern for whether this is overall good for the sport. Seems that way anyway.
In my mind, the NCAA has allowed the world of inducements to become the wild west because they've realized they're in danger of being gutted by congressional oversight and civil rights lawsuits. The way the wind started to blow, with the advent of Title IX, they realized they couldn't limit the players' earning potential anymore - not without risking serious blowback. Public perception was that the players were getting a raw deal and the schools and coaches were abusing them while getting rich. The result was that the old days of penalizing schools when a player made some pocket change off their textbooks were over. The NCAA was too risk averse to push back. They just quit and became the toothless and worthless institution we see today. The inmates now run the asylum.
The Michigan case though, doesn't really intersect with any of this. The NCAA could reassert their relevance without any fear of being accused of running a plantation system (like they were when they policed player benefits). In fact, if this angle occurs to them, they'd have an incentive to make the penalties as harsh as possible. The harsher the penalty, the more the NCAA's reputation recovers, all at no risk to them. Aside from Michigan supporters and maybe some Big 10 partisans, the whole college football world would cheer the hammer coming down on them.
To wrap up an overly long post, the NCAA is political and cowardly. It has been for a long time. It will be interesting to see whether they see an opportunity for a free "win" here and totally go for it.
