INDIANAPOLIS — In a sport rife with shady actors and scoundrels willing to do whatever it takes to win, Jim Harbaugh went out of his way to present himself as a principled man determined to follow the letter of the law.
At the outset of his Michigan football coaching tenure, he told reporters he took the rules “very seriously.” Years later, he grumbled to an author that it was “hard to beat the cheaters” lurking elsewhere in the polluted waters of college football. Harbaugh wanted everyone to believe he was more ethical than his competitors, that he won the right way when others cut corners and blew past stop signs with willful disregard.