Jim Harbaugh will not coach vs. Penn State, no ruling on restraining order vs. Big Ten expected today

Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh will not coach against Penn State Saturday, according to ESPN’s Pete Thamel.

“There will not be a ruling today in Jim Harbaugh’s request for a temporary restraining order, according to a person familiar with the court filings,” Thamel wrote on Twitter. “This means Jim Harbaugh will not coach at Penn State today.”

Thamel also joined College GameDay to provide the full scope of the situation.

“We were just alerted through the email filing systems in the judicial part of this in Ann Arbor, Jim Harbaugh will not get a hearing for a temporary restraining order today,” Thamel said. “November 17th, 9am, ext Friday, Jim Harbaugh will get his hearing.

“He’ll get his day in court whether or not he can get an injunction to return to the sideline on the Big Ten’s rulings. So this is fresh just in the last few minutes. The various lawyers have been notified: Jim Harbaugh will not get his hearing for a TRO today.”

Without a temporary restraining order in time, Harbaugh will be ineligible to coach Saturday. There was hope from Michigan it would be in time so he’d be on the sidelines.

Harbaugh even travelled with the team to Penn State. But, the head coach won’t be working in a vital top 10 showdown for the Big Ten and College Football Playoff race.

The ex parte motion is the latest act in a flurry of legal moves by attorneys representing Michigan and Harbaugh. They must be working in overdrive, because just hours after the Big Ten first announced the suspension for Harbaugh on Friday, those defense teams for Harbaugh and Michigan were able to draft up 20 pages worth of documents to file for motions.

They first filed a breach of contract complaint to the Big Ten for violating their own due process rules in punishing Harbaugh prematurely. Then, they tacked on a temporary restraining order request allowing for Harbaugh to remain on the sidelines for now, since his absence in any game would cause “irreparable” harm to the team.

In those legal filings, Thamel says Michigan used some pretty testy language.

“Obviously, yesterday, the Big Ten ruled that Harbaugh could not coach the remainder of the regular season. They used the word ‘integrity’ 24 times in their ruling. Last night, in the filing to get the temporary restraining order, Michigan fired back with some pretty salty language. They called the Big Ten’s actions… ‘fraudulent, unlawful, unethical and unjustified.’”

That matches up with what the school had said earlier in the week. The Big Ten initially warned Michigan of potential punishment several days ago and the school immediately fired back, issuing their own warning back to the conference that they’d be breaking some of their own rules by punishing the program or Harbaugh prematurely.

Alex Weber contributed to this report