ESPN insider: Big Ten, Tony Petitti 'in no rush to judgement' in Michigan sign-stealing decision
The college football world now awaits the Big Ten’s decision, as Michigan responded to the conference’s notice of discipline on Wednesday and will now await a punishment handed down by Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti.
Following the Big Ten’s notice, it was expected that the conference would take its time and due diligence in its assessment of Michigan’s response before handing down a punishment, which ESPN college football insider Heaether Dinich confirmed and expounded on Thursday morning on ‘Get Up’.
“Well I spoke to a Big Ten source and they are in no rush to judgment,” Dinich said. “They are taking this in a very methodical manner, as I said earlier on the show, Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti is not in Dallas this morning, there’s a College Football Playoff meeting there to talk about the 12-team format. He’s not there, the other commissioners are there.”
It’s clearly all hands on deck for the Big Ten as they try to find a proper punishment for the Wolverines given the information they have regarding the Wolverines alleged sign-stealing and the program’s response.
Petitti and the Big Ten are allowed to and expected to hand down a two-game suspension to Wolverines head coach Jim Harbaugh and a $10,000 fine according to standard policy, with the number of games potentially increasing with permission from an executive board which could also likely to happen.
There’s been plenty of discourse surrounding Michigan’s ongoing investigation regarding what a proper punishment should look like and how much the Wolverines’ sign-stealing could have potentially led to their success. But with all the information now in the Big Ten’s hands, the conference will now take its time to get to the bottom of this.
“I was also told that this is about a rule, Michigan broke a rule in a systemic way and whether or not it impacted them positively or negatively on the field is irrelevant. So our discussions about how much the sign stealing actually helps Michigan, that’s mute,” Dinich explained. “The Big Ten’s point is they’e taking this information, they have the facts, they have Michigan’s response, they’re going through it, and again there’s no rush to judgement right now.”
The expected suspension of Harbaugh would come during the most critical stretch of the season for the Wolverines, as they face the only two ranked opponents on their schedule in two of their last three games starting with a matchup this Saturday against Penn State.