The handling of Michigan’s sign-stealing scandal has been a debacle from the start, and it culminated Friday with the Big Ten suspends coach Jim Harbaugh for final three games. UM has filed a temporary restraining order against its own conference that it hopes can be expedited before kickoff at noon EST. Two of those games Harbaugh is expected to miss are the Wolverines’ only ones against top-10 teams in the regular season, so it’s no surprise that one last-second heave met another.
You know an investigation has been botched when it makes Roger Goodell look like a seasoned judge. The message board material, for a team that started the season without its head coach for four games, was easily recognized by members of the Wolverines tweeting “Bet” after the decision was made.
As far as offenses go, I’ve never seen one mid-season. Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti’s decision to move forward with a sanction that was so obviously going to be challenged felt like something Donald Trump would do just to show authority/be an asshole.
The end of this college football season now revolves around Ann Arbor, or wherever the Wolverines play, which is now Happy Valley. Pray for James Franklin and the Nittany Lion offense.
The one thing not to be overlooked is the unintentional comedy that the Harbaugh ban has triggered. No one is louder than a despised college football fan base, including Desmond Howard and Charles Woodson. Where you stand on the morality of the issue depends on what you think of Michigan (or the NCAA).
Opportunity, or eternal embarrassment, awaits Franklin and Ryan Day. Imagine the reaction if they lost to a Michigan team without Harbaugh? Actually, don’t imagine that; It’s bad karma if that’s the outcome you’re looking for.
This is further proof that among all non-controlling institutions, the NCAA is 1A. Petitti showed up at the crime scene and shook up the “governing body” of the sport like Officers Johnson and Johnson did with Paul Gleason in front of the Nakatomi Tower. There’s a reason B1G schools went to their commissioner, not the NCAA.
What I’ve learned from living in “Big Ten country” the last two years is that Michigan hates Ohio State, Ohio State hates Michigan, and the rest of the conference hates them both. Wait, wait, wait…did the Petitti galaxy think about this whole situation?
It’s best to curry favor with the 35 other Big Ten teams, including one of the Power Brokers. So Petitti, knowing his decision would be overturned almost immediately, imposed it anyway in the hopes that Michigan fans would forgive him, or at least view him as a harmless buffoon, and move on.
Yeah, I don’t believe it either, but reading my stream of consciousness in real time is fun, right? The only accurate statement in the last paragraph was that Petitti was a harmless buffoon.
We’ll see how Michigan responds – on the field. I’m not smart enough to know where this leads in court.
Stop me if you’ve heard this before (or keep going if you like laughing at James Harden)
The Los Angeles Clippers have three Los Angeles natives and one guy from Palmdale. Between them, they have two MVPs, two Finals MVPs and two NBA titles. Granted, one player is responsible for two-thirds of those accolades, that doesn’t make the Clippers any less tragic.
After a 22-point loss to the Dallas Mavericks in a highly publicized tournament game during the season, the Clips are now 0-3 when new addition James Harden plays, and 3-5 when total. It’s early, but if we can’t laugh at the Clippers, what’s the point of the Clippers?
Many, if not all, of the A-list actors feel redundant. The same goes for the guards on Team B. None of the bigger guys occupy the floor other than 38-year-old PJ Tucker. The upside is that they have 74 more games to reprogram everything in their approach to the game.