Michigan calls out Big Ten, releases statement amid Jim Harbaugh missing Penn State clash
The Michigan Wolverines have released a statement after it was revealed Jim Harbaugh will not coach against Penn State Saturday.
ESPN’s Pete Thamel broke the news that there wouldn’t be a ruling Saturday in Harbaugh’s request for a temporary restraining order, which means he’s sidelined in Happy Valley.
Afterwards, the program released a statement, calling out the Big Ten and adding that they’re looking forward to doing battle, presenting their case later this week.
“We look forward to presenting our case next week where we intend to demonstrate that the Big Ten has not acted legally or fairly,” Michigan’s statement read, shared to X (formerly known as Twitter) by ESPN’s Heather Dinich.
Moreover, 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.
On3’s Nick Kosko and Alex Weber contributed to this report.