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As the Michigan alleged sign-stealing scandal moves into its second full week of a slow drip of new information about the scandal. And, just after midnight Thursday, a new report by ESPN’s Pete Thamel shed light on whether disciplinary action by the Big Ten Conference could be coming and how member coaches feel about it.
According to Thamel, a conference call of all the Big Ten head football coaches along with commissioner Tony Petitti resulted in the coaches forming a consensus that Michigan should be punished “right now”.
Here is an excerpt from the article.
A vast majority of the Big Ten coaches expressed their frustrations with the ongoing signal-stealing investigation at Michigan in a video call with commissioner Tony Petitti on Wednesday, sources told ESPN.
The call, which took 90 minutes, included nearly an hour without Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh, who hung up after the regularly scheduled Big Ten business to allow the conference’s coaches to speak freely about the NCAA’s investigation into Michigan.
According to five sources familiar with the call, a chorus of voices encouraged Petitti to take action against Michigan in a call that was described as both intense and emotional.
“Collectively, the coaches want the Big Ten to act — right now,” said a source familiar with the call. “What are we waiting on? We know what happened.”
I’m not surprised by Big Ten coaches coming out so strongly in favor of punishing Michigan. After all, they have to feel as if their teams were robbed of potential wins by the Wolverines, who they contend were not playing by the rules. Think of how different the discourse around Penn State coach James Franklin and Ohio State coach Ryan Day would be if they won those games the last two years, games they very well may have won if Michigan allegedly didn’t know their plays.
But, I find it unlikely that the Big Ten will act on this and actually ban Michigan from the postseason or Wolverine head coach Jim Harbaugh. I think that it would set a potentially dangerous precedent and I think there’s a chance that Michigan would fight the conference, potentially in court.
The Wolverines are back in action this weekend in their first game since most of the details about the scandal came out, as they host Purdue.