Report: Big Ten Coaches Push for Jim Harbaugh, Michigan to Be Punished amid Scandal

Jim Harbaugh's Big Ten coaching colleagues reportedly want his Michigan program to be punished this year amid its ongoing sign-stealing scandal.

According to ESPN's Pete Thamel, "a vast majority" of those coaches expressed as much during a video call with Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti on Wednesday. The coaches were candid about the issue after Harbaugh hung up following discussions about other scheduled conference business.

"Collectively, the coaches want the Big Ten to act—right now," a source told Thamel. "What are we waiting on? We know what happened."

At this point, the only punishment involving the Wolverines was Michigan's decision to suspend staffer Connor Stalions, who has been at the center of the entire ordeal.

Yet the coaches in the Big Ten are looking for wider punishments as Michigan has undergone quite the turnaround while going 33-3 overall and 22-1 in the conference in the three years with evidence of Stalions purchasing tickets to opponents' games to facilitate the scouting network in place.

By comparison, the program was 21-11 overall and 16-8 in the Big Ten the previous three years.

"People don't understand the seriousness of it," a source told Thamel. "How it truly impacted the game plan. To truly know if it's a run or a pass, people don't understand how much of an advantage that was for Michigan."

Thamel noted the coaches used words such as "tainted" and "fraudulent" to explain Michigan's on-field advantage that contributed to wins.

While Harbaugh himself has denied any knowledge of the scheme, there has been no shortage of pictures and videos of Stalions interacting with the head coach and coordinators on both sides of the ball as opponents signaled in their plays.

It is notable the Big Ten coaches were reportedly so adamant that Michigan should face punishment because the timing of the public release of information about it makes it unlikely the team will face NCAA sanctions before the 2023 season ends.

The Wolverines are undefeated and No. 3 in the College Football Playoff rankings. While they still have to play challenging games against Penn State and Ohio State, they control their own destiny to reach the Big Ten Championship Game and CFP for the third consecutive year.

NCAA investigations typically take months or even years to reach a full conclusion. What's more, CFP chairman Boo Corrigan said, "It's an NCAA issue, it's not a CFP issue," when discussing the scandal during an appearance on ESPN.

That leaves the Big Ten punishing Michigan as the only realistic option if there are going to be sanctions during the 2023 campaign that may prevent the team from reaching such heights.

It seems like the sentiments expressed by Big Ten coaches on the video call are shared by many in the profession across the country.

In a survey of head coaches, coordinators, assistants, analysts and staffers from teams in all 10 FBS conferences, Bruce Feldman and Max Olson of The Athletic found 94 percent believed Michigan should be punished, 74 percent think the sign-stealing scandal is a contributing factor to the program's recent turnaround and 70 percent do not believe Harbaugh's insistence he was unaware of it.

"I mean, you're shooting fish in a barrel," one coach said in the survey. "If I was able to do what Michigan was doing, that would be the difference between big-time winning and losing. If you filmed all the signals from a game, you'd take that and put it into the film system and match up the play-by-play with what the opponent is running. And then, I mean, it's over. Having a steady film of the signals during a game would be mind-blowing."

Big Ten coaches clearly feel the Wolverines had an unfair on-field advantage during the past three years.