Trevor Keegan shuts down "cheating" allegations, says "fuel to the fire"

Michigan Football backed up the talk in 2023, winning the National Championship in a season they called "Natty or bust."

Citing "unfinished business," the Wolverines were led by a group of veterans who chose to return to Ann Arbor instead of pursuing the NFL. Battle-tested by adversity, Michigan knew they had a team capable of winning it all, but nothing compared to the adversity they faced in 2023.

Head coach Jim Harbaugh had already served a three-game suspension at the start of the year, but then, in October, Michigan players were caught off guard by reports of "sign stealing" allegations. Trevor Keegan, a captain of Team 144, said it was difficult because they found out information the same way everyone else did: from the almost daily media leaks and assertions.

"Being in a leadership role was hard. We found everything when everybody else did," Keegan told M&BR in an exclusive interview.

"We come out of practice, and we were like, is this going on, is this not going on?"

Despite reckless allegations, Connor Stalions' scheme was not a team-wide conspiracy. Players were unaware, and as of today, the NCAA and Big Ten have not presented any evidence showing any coaches were involved either.

Michigan had to deal with the constant media campaign and moments of surprises inside the program.

"You can tell guys it was hitting them during the week. Seeing our linebacker coach get pulled out of practice on a Friday can hurt some guys. Landing in Penn State and figuring out their head coach isn't going to be there with us."

Michigan fired Linebackers coach Chris Partridge after the NCAA showed he had discussed the NCAA investigation with a player, violating the terms of his employment. Head coach Jim Harbaugh was suspended three games by the Big Ten ahead of their game against Penn State. The team found out after the plane landed in Pennsylvania the day before the game.

"There are definitely things along the way that could have shifted our course on our goal of winning a National Championship. We didn't let everything affect us."

As a long-time starter and captain, Keegan was a leader in a difficult spot. But the team had stuck together through so much, going back to 2020, the resurgence of 2021, and the loss to TCU in 2022, and they chose to run it back in 2023.

"I think that's just the collective group we had, the vets on our team that stuck together. You know you have to say the right things at the right time when you are a leader. I feel like all the guys on our team did a great job of that. When that stuff happened we just relied on each other."

For Keegan, the talk of cheating and questioning the team's success was less of a distraction and more of a motivator. The years of hard work and preparation were why Michigan won football games, and the players were going to prove it.

"We knew we what we do, we prepare like no other. I'd see something on Twitter like, 'Oh, they knew they were bringing field pressure here.' No, man, it's because we watch films. The amount of checks that we have in our offense, based off of fronts, if a safety is in the box, if they are rolling down weak or strong, like we know that, that's not us cheating. That's just what a common person who doesn't know that much about football or doesn't know our schemes thinks. Our offense was crazy good and had answers to every single thing possible."

Michigan would beat Penn State without Jim Harbaugh, then Maryland, and then Ohio State again. With their head coach back, Michigan won a third straight Big Ten Championship and third straight berth in the College Football Playoff. Michigan proved doubters wrong again with an all-time classic win over Alabama in the Rose Bowl and a dominating win over Washington to secure their first National Championship since 1997.

In a way, those who looked to make the story bigger than it was or had motives of taking Michigan down and tried preventing them from winning off the field because they couldn't stop them on the field gave Michigan the last bit of motivation they needed to complete their ultimate goal. The moments were challenging, but Michigan embraced the adversity as they had done before.

"It definitely hurt. We added fuel to the fire and just ran with it."

Ran with it, they did.

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