Fortuna Files: Clock is ticking on Big Ten decision on Michigan
What will Tony Petitti do? Plus, more coordinator movement this week has led to some crucial questions for several big-name head coaches moving forward.
Decision day looms for the Big Ten, as amorphous as that concept is right now.
Either punishment will be handed to Michigan imminently or it won’t.
Either Tony Petitti will do what 13 of his 14 current schools want him to do or he will risk becoming the subject of their fury.
Either Jim Harbaugh will coach this Saturday at Penn State or he won’t.
Other options seem few and far between at this point. And there is little time left to make a decision.
Petitti, the first-year Big Ten commissioner, surely knows this. And he has surely heard it from all corners this past week. He had a call with football coaches on Wednesday, a call with athletic directors on Thursday and a meeting with Michigan president Santa Ono on Friday, part of a pre-planned visit to Ann Arbor for the conference’s field hockey tournament.
Petitti was at Wrigley Field for Saturday’s Iowa-Northwestern football game, and he was set to be in Columbus on Sunday for the league’s women’s soccer championship.
Everyone has voiced an opinion to him. Quite a few have even voiced their opinions publicly, from Purdue coach Ryan Walters to normally staid Minnesota AD Mark Coyle, who told Minneapolis radio station KFXN-FM: “There’s no doubt the integrity of the game has been compromised.”