Michigan football should fight any punishment from Big Ten

There is a reported meeting between President Santa Ono and Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti to discuss Michigan football sign-stealing allegations. 

After Big Ten coaches took their turn trying to be as dramatic as possible regarding the Michigan football scandal, athletic directors took their turn on Thursday evening.

Michigan State athletic director Alan Haller had the gall to say that Michigan football was putting player safety in jeopardy which is flat-out absurd.

Let’s not forget, that his program had a player ejected for a dirty hit against Michigan football two weeks ago, let alone he had players commit assaults with helmets last year in the tunnel in Ann Arbor, which players faced criminal charges for I might add.

Regardless of that insane bit of hypocrisy, it’s clear that Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti is feeling pressure to act from the Big Ten coaches and Athletic Directors — who he doesn’t answer to by the way — he answers to the school Presidents.

Now, the Athletic is reporting that Santa Ono, Michigan’s President, will meet with Petitti who was supposed to be in Ann Arbor on Friday anyway.

Michigan football has to push back on any Big Ten punishment

Many people are speculating that a suspension for Jim Harbaugh could be the result of this meeting. It seems like that might be a way of satisfying some of the Big Ten coaches and athletic directors.

But honestly, I don’t think that makes sense for anyone. Big Ten opponents of Michigan football, it doesn’t seem, will be satisfied unless the Wolverines are banned from playing for the rest of the season.

You know James Franklin and Ryan Day would love that and you can bet they were the most vocal coaches on the Big Ten coaches call on Thursday. Let’s also remember Michigan football has won every Big Ten game this season by at least 24 points. The Wolverines also beat Penn State by 24 last season and Ohio State by 23.

A Harbaugh suspension also shouldn’t make Michigan happy at all. The Big Ten has no precedent to do this. It also doesn’t have its own investigative process and since we basically know the Private Firm was connected to Ohio State, there are lots of questions to be answered.

At any rate, how could Michigan accept a penalty from the Big Ten, with another penalty looming from the NCAA down the road? That seems ridiculous and if the Big Ten tries to act, Michigan needs to go to court.

Caving to the pressure of a coordinated PR campaign would be a rookie move by Petitti. It would also be a dereliction of duty as Big Ten commissioner.

If this wasn’t all orchestrated — why didn’t the firm hand the information over to the NCAA and let them investigate? It’s all been about trying to make Jim Harbaugh look bad and if the Big Ten falls for it, and acts without having all the facts, it will lose a lot of credibility.

And who knows, maybe it will lose Michigan. All options need to be on the table at this point and the Wolverines, for once, need to play hardball.

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