The Big Ten has spoken. Jim Harbaugh has a regular-season-ending three-game suspension from the league and commissioner Tony Petitti.
Michigan has issued its rebuttal. The full statement, which makes clear Michigan is going to seek legal recourse to keep Jim Harbaugh on the sidelines, is below:
"Like all members of the Big Ten Conference, we are entitled to a fair, deliberate, and thoughtful process to determine the full set of facts before a judgment is rendered. Today’s action by Commissioner Tony Petitti disregards the Conference’s own handbook, violates basic tenets of due process, and sets an untenable precedent of assessing penalties before an investigation has been completed. We are dismayed at the Commissioner’s rush to judgment when there is an ongoing NCAA investigation – one in which we are fully cooperating.
Commissioner Petitti’s hasty action today suggests that this is more about reacting to pressure from other Conference members than a desire to apply the rules fairly and impartially. By taking this action at this hour, the Commissioner is personally inserting himself onto the sidelines and altering the level playing field that he is claiming to preserve. And, doing so on Veteran’s Day – a court holiday – to try to thwart the University from seeking immediate judicial relief is hardly a profile in impartiality.
"To ensure fairness in the process, we intend to seek a court order, together with Coach Harbaugh, preventing this disciplinary action from taking effect."
After the conference on Friday took action in the weeks-long investigatory probe into the alleged widespread, highly orchestrated sign-stealing, in-person scouting program in Jim Harbaugh's Michigan program by entry-level former staffer Connor Stalions, the Wolverines fired back.
In the league's 13-page letter to Michigan, Petitti outlined in no uncertain terms that Michigan's sign-stealing, in-person scouting "scheme" had been proved beyond doubt. Moreover, the league letter shared that the evidence was so overwhelming and with such potential to continue to impact games, the NCAA took unprecedented measures of looping a conference -- in this case, the Big Ten -- into an ongoing investigation.
Noteworthy has been the layers of this investigation -- Big Ten Conference, NCAA, third-party entities -- that comes atop the NCAA's ongoing investigation into Harbaugh's alleged recruiting misdeeds during the COVID-19 pandemic, not to mention the ongoing dive into the dismissal of former Michigan offensive coordinator Matt Weiss.
Harbaugh already opened this 2023 season on the shelf; he served a school-imposed three-game suspension at the onset of September -- only after the NCAA refused to accept the proposed self-penalization of a four-game suspension for Harbaugh due to the alleged COVD-era recruiting violations.
Now, unless a court order is granted that allows Harbaugh to remain on the sidelines, the "Michigan Man" head coach will spend the season's final three games also banned from the stadiums where his team plays its final games.
The Harbaugh-Stalions-Michigan debacle has unfolded with near-daily developments through most of the past three weeks.
Not only has video evidence emerged that has seemed to reflect Stalions spied to aide Harbaugh's Michigan program on a dozen Big Ten programs via in-person visits by Stalions or his helpers, but sources have repeatedly told FootballScoop that Stalions also sought to spy on SEC programs -- specifically Georgia and Tennessee -- as either potential College Football Playoff opponents or hurdles to the Wolverines' own CFP berth.
Additionally, the alleged presence of Stalions on the Central Michigan sideline for that program's season-opening game Sept. 1 at Michigan State has widened the scope of the NCAA's work. CMU officials finally confirmed Monday that the NCAA had begun an investigation into its football program that surrounded the potential presence of Stalions.