The Big Ten Conference did something few expected.
They did discipline Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh in season, when few expected them to do so.
Harbaugh, the coach of the third-ranked Wolverines, is suspended from coaching for Michigan’s final three regular season games (Jim Harbaugh banned for rest of Michigan football’s regular-season), discipline dealt out over an ongoing sign-stealing scandal.
According to ESPN, in a 13-page letter sent from the conference to the university:
“In a 13-page letter sent to Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel, Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti said that, in an effort to sanction the university, he decided to suspend Harbaugh because it would allow the team to play out the rest of its season while still providing substantial consequences for the team violating the Big Ten’s policies.
“This is not a sanction of Coach Harbaugh,” the conference said in its report. “It is a sanction against the University that, under the extraordinary circumstance presented by this offensive conduct, best fits the violation.”
To say the university was taken aback – and upset – would be an understatement.
“Like all members of the Big Ten Conference, we are entitled to a fair, deliberate and thoughtful process to determine the full set of facts before a judgment is rendered,” Michigan President Santa Ono said in a statement released Friday. “Today’s action by Commissioner Tony Petitti disregards the conference’s own handbook, violates basic tenets of due process, and sets an untenable precedent of assessing penalties before an investigation has been completed.”
The Wolverines are obviously in a battle to get into the College Football Playoff. They’re 9-0, and are getting ready to play 8-1 Penn State in Happy Valley on Saturday, an 11 a.m. kickoff on FOX – here to date, that’s far and away Michigan’s biggest game of the season.
In fact, President Ono warned the battle is just started, and said a court order may come into play, and Harbaugh may very well be coaching anyway.
“To ensure fairness in the process, we intend to seek a court order, together with Coach Harbaugh, preventing this disciplinary action from taking effect,” Ono said.
All of this, of course, because a low-level assistant, Connor Stalions, was purchasing tickets to Michigan’s opponents’ games, and NCAA officials apparently have evidence that Stalions was indeed engaged in stealing signals. Stalions has since resigned, and the investigation is obviously going to extend into the offseason, since we’re already into November.
Don’t forget Harbaugh has already served a university-imposed four-game suspension this season, the first four games, for NCAA recruiting violations.
