The Big Ten punishes Michigan, and the absurdity is only getting started
The Big Ten punishes Michigan, and the absurdity is only getting started
It’s Michigan vs. Everybody, Ohio State Against the World and the Big Ten at the center of college football controversy.
Michigan could win the national title this season with Jim Harbaugh coaching in only half of his team’s regular-season games.
Considering the Wolverines once won a natty in a revenue sport with a coach (Steve Fisher) who led them for zero regular-season games, this is business as usual in Ann Arbor.
Hell, how else are you supposed to boil down this entire sign-stealing scandal, this entire Michigan campaign and even this entire Big Ten season into a one-line description?
The latest unprecedented headline came Friday afternoon, when the Big Ten announced that Harbaugh would be suspended for Michigan’s final three games of the regular season, a suspension that the conference characterized as a sanction of the school and not of the coach.
Surely, this is a symbolic move more than anything. The Big Ten said in its 13-page written notice to Michigan that it had yet to receive information that Harbaugh himself was aware of the impermissible sign-stealing scheme. And Harbaugh has already missed three games this season as part of a separate suspension for a separate alleged NCAA rules violation in a case that was also contentious, with a negotiated resolution between the sides falling apart back in August. (That investigation, much like the current sign-stealing investigation, has yet to be completed by the NCAA, which means we are all in for some more fun down the road.)
Miss three games to start the season, miss three games to finish the season.
Anyone want to predict how awkward it might be if Harbaugh is handed the Big Ten championship trophy by commissioner Tony Petitti in four weeks?