Jim Harbaugh’s rivals are calling for action to be taken against him.
Pete Thamel of ESPN.com has reported that the majority of Big Ten coaches, during a call with Big Ten commissioner Tony Pettiti on Wednesday, urged the conference to address Michigan’s sign-stealing operation.
Jim Harbaugh, the coach of Michigan, left the call after about 30 minutes. The call continued for about an hour, with coaches from the conference expressing their thoughts on the NCAA’s investigation into the matter.
Thamel describes the call as “intense and emotional.”
“The coaches collectively want immediate action from the Big Ten,” a source familiar with the call revealed to Thamel. “What are we waiting for? We already know what happened.”
During the call, Pettiti was given an explanation of how the sign-stealing operation was carried out. As Thamel reports, the coaches used words like “tainted,” “fraudulent,” and “unprecedented” to describe the situation.
It provided a significant advantage to Michigan, allowing them to anticipate the opposing team’s offensive moves before they happened.
“People don’t grasp the gravity of it,” an anonymous source told Thamel. “They don’t understand how it truly affected the game plan. Having knowledge of whether it would be a run or a pass, people don’t realize the immense advantage it gave Michigan.”
According to Thamel, the Big Ten has the authority to penalize the school and/or its staff under the conference’s sportsmanship policy.
“An unprecedented violation of the rules calls for unprecedented action from the Big Ten,” another anonymous source explained to Thamel.
This entire situation reeks. Harbaugh claims he was unaware of what was happening, but considering the evidence brought to light in published reports, it would be hard to believe that Harbaugh, holding such an important position, had no knowledge of it.
One could argue that not knowing about it is nearly as bad as knowing, given the significance of Harbaugh’s role.
