Bruce Feldman analyzes Tony Petitti's challenge of enforcing Michigan suspension

The signs stealing scandal is only growing messier for Michigan and the Big Ten as the conference is trying to figure out punishment while the school pushes back, saying the Big Ten has no reason to do so yet.

The Big Ten recently alerted Michigan of potential punishment of head coach Jim Harbaugh amid findings that UM did steal signs, as revealed to them by the NCAA. However, Michigan retaliated with their response, pointing to a slew of procedural rules they perceived to be broken by the Big Ten if they were to prematurely discipline Harbaugh or the school when the conference hadn’t even done the investigation themselves and was working off an NCAA investigation that isn’t yet complete.

During an appearance on the Rich Eisen Show this week, college football insider Bruce Feldman broke it all down, explaining that both Jim Harbaugh and the Big Ten are in a tough spot.

“I think Michigan’s attorneys are going to push back and try to drill down into the NCAA bylaws. It is now written this way where (Harbaugh) is responsible for the people underneath him, and it doesn’t help his cause that there’s another investigation with the NCAA that he’s already been self-sanctioned and suspended for three games, and is still dealing with that. It’s not like that case is done.”

So, Harbaugh’s prior run-ins with NCAA enforcement certainly aren’t going to help his cause in this situation. Meanwhile, the Big Ten is in a pickle because they may not want to rush to judgment but they also feel the need to do something to Michigan to show their authority.

“So, what you hear from other coaches, including guys who are on that head coach’s call about a week ago, was ‘when are they going to punish Jim Harbaugh?’ and, like, ‘if we don’t punish somebody for doing this, you’re basically telling coaches it’s okay to do this,'” Feldman shared.

He added that other coaches across the sport have participated in sign stealing. Probably not with the level of secrecy and rule-breaking as Michigan, but the Wolverines are far from the only guilty sign-stealers.

“But they’re saying they don’t all do that part, the part that was Connor Stalions, to go send people to scout people in-person. Now, I’ve been told some coaches have done it. Did they do it to the elaborate extent that it seemed like Connor Stalions and Michigan were doing, as it’s been reported? I don’t think they do it to that degree. But if they still do it and do it for a couple of games of key opponents, you know, is any of that ever going to come to light in the way that it does here?”

To answer his own question, Bruce Feldman revealed that he’s working on a story involving one coach who claimed to have gone to the NCAA reporting wrongdoing by another team who was ignored, but is now seeing the NCAA act urgently on a similar matter with Michigan.

“There’s a story I’m working on now that’ll probably come up in the next day of another coach kind of venting, saying ‘hey, we complained about something pretty nefarious to the NCAA and it was brought up and the NCAA did nothing about it. So why would you do nothing there, but you care about it there?'”