Report: Big Ten hasn’t begun own Michigan sign-stealing investigation, has enough info to discipline

The conundrum in Ann Arbor is only growing more dramatic by the day. Even though Michigan is set to play its biggest game of the season to date this weekend, the Wolverine football team is hardly a talking point right now.

After weeks of continued leaks about a scandal involving Michigan stealing signs, there’s been momentum this week towards a potential punishment of some kind for the Wolverines and head coach Jim Harbaugh. A couple of days ago, the NCAA shared some findings from their investigation into the sign stealing with the Big Ten and the league then alerted Michigan that a punishment could be on the way.

In response to that move by the conference, Michigan dug its heels in and sent a 10-page letter back to the Big Ten explaining that sign stealing may be “far more prevalent than believed” across the conference. The letter also warned Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti not to rush to “premature” discipline on Michigan’s coach or program since the league’s evidence is “grossly insufficient” in their estimation, per Yahoo Sports, who obtained the letter.

With this quarrel between the Big Ten and Michigan, Petitti has missed important meetings to stay in town to try and figure this mess out, according to ESPN’s Heather Dinich. She joined GetUp Thursday morning to explain the battle going on over how to punish Michigan or whether to punish them at all yet.

“Well, the conference commissioner is not at the College Football Playoff meetings in Dallas where all of his commissioner peers are, because he has some other things to attend to. What’s going on right now is Michigan’s letter, the ten-page letter that it sent back urging due process, one source told ESPN that ‘Michigan is not bringing a knife to a gun fight on this.’ There’s also Michigan state legislatures, lawmakers, who have told Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti, urged him to follow due process.”

Dinich confirms that Michigan is fighting back hard on this matter. As for the Big Ten, they’re still leaning on the NCAA for information since they are not currently running their own investigation into the scandal.

“Now, there are two separate things going on here. One, the NCAA is doing its own investigation. My understanding is that the Big Ten has not initiated its own investigation,” says Dinich. “It’s relying on information it has gathered from the NCAA, in part, and following other reports that have come out.”

Based on what the NCAA has shown them, Dinich says the Big Ten can prove Michigan did violate the league’s sportsmanship policy, however, there is not evidence to suggest that Jim Harbaugh was involved.

“But the sense is that the Big Ten has enough information to prove Michigan broke its sportsmanship policy by illegally stealing signs. My sources are telling me that no evidence has come through yet that shows Jim Harbaugh knew about this or orchestrated it.”

Even if Jim Harbaugh was truly in the dark and Connor Stalions ran a rogue one-man operation as the Michigan letter laid out, Heather Dinich says that Harbaugh would still be held responsible in some capacity as a head coach who allowed such a scandal to happen under his watch.

“The Big Ten will point to the NCAA rule that says: Even if a coach doesn’t know about it, he is responsible for the actions of his staff. Michigan is expected to really push back on this and they are working with a pricy law firm in D.C. to have some legal action if necessary.”

Don’t expect this showdown between Michigan and the Big Ten to end anytime soon.