A joke about the University of Michigan football program’s cheating history has drawn Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed into a public spat with Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy, pulling his Republican rival into the fray as well.
The exchange began after a clip circulated of El-Sayed, a Michigan graduate, joking about his alma mater’s football program. “Is Michigan going to win a game without cheating? I say this as a Wolverine,” El-Sayed said.
Portnoy responded on social media, “This guy really is a terrorist.” El-Sayed’s Republican opponent, former Rep. Mike Rogers, shared Portnoy’s post and wrote that Portnoy “is exactly right.”
El-Sayed fired back at Portnoy on Saturday with a comment about his body and athleticism, posting over a clip of Portnoy sprinting on a turf field: “Meanwhile, here’s [Portnoy] committing an act of athletic terrorism. Less pizza, more gym, habibi.”
Asked by The Detroit News whether Rogers actually believed El-Sayed was a terrorist, Rogers spokeswoman Alyssa Brouillet said, “Parroting Ohio State talking points is a bridge too far.”
Michigan’s Cheating History
El-Sayed’s jab followed years of NCAA trouble for Michigan football. In August 2025, the NCAA announced multimillion-dollar financial penalties, recruiting restrictions and four additional years of probation after finding an impermissible scouting scheme involving former staffer Connor Stalions.
In 2024, the program acknowledged impermissible recruiting contacts during the COVID-19 recruiting dead period, improper tryouts and unauthorized coaching by noncoaching staff. The NCAA separately found that former coach Jim Harbaugh provided false or misleading information to investigators.
Michigan’s athletic department has a longer record of sanctions. Under former coach Rich Rodriguez, the school received three years of probation in 2010 and a 130-hour reduction in practice time over violations involving excessive practice and training activities. Its basketball program also faced penalties over improper loans from booster Ed Martin to four players, including Chris Webber, resulting in forfeited victories, scholarship reductions and four years of probation.
Broader Scrutiny of El-Sayed
The social media clash comes as El-Sayed faces separate criticism over his answers on Iran and Islamist organizations. At a September town hall, Iranian-American student Iman Dashti described his family’s alleged mistreatment by Iranian authorities and pressed El-Sayed to condemn the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Islamic Republic. El-Sayed responded by opposing American-led regime change and arguing that Iran’s people should determine their own government, a response critics said avoided a direct condemnation.
In an Oct. 5 interview, Fox News host Martha MacCallum repeatedly asked El-Sayed whether he supported terrorist designations for Muslim Brotherhood organizations in Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon. El-Sayed said he would support designating organizations engaged in political violence, without explicitly naming the Brotherhood. Rogers renewed criticism of those answers during their Oct. 8 debate. El-Sayed also declined to say whether Iran or Israel poses the greater threat to the United States, saying both have proven dangerous in their own way.
El-Sayed has publicly condemned Hamas. During an August appearance on “The Jim Acosta Show,” he said, “I think they’re wrong. I think they committed war crimes,” while also accusing Israel of war crimes and genocide.
The Barstool exchange is not El-Sayed’s first commentary on football culture. In an October 2021 essay, he wrote that “toxic masculinity at the heart of America’s most popular sport” ran deeper than the emails that prompted then-Raiders coach Jon Gruden’s resignation, recalling racist taunting he experienced in football locker rooms and arguing coaches needed to address the underlying culture.
