FUMBLE

Big Ten Suspends Michigan Head Coach Over Sign-Stealing Allegations

Jim Harbaugh will be prohibited from entering the stadium on game days.

The Big Ten announced on Friday that it had suspended University of Michigan football head coach Jim Harbaugh for the rest of the regular season following illegal sign-stealing allegations. Harbaugh is prohibited from entering the stadium on game days, despite Yahoo Sports reporting on Tuesday that the National Collegiate Athletic Association couldn’t link the coach to the violations. Previous reports stated that U-M recruiting analyst Connor Stalions bought sideline tickets to the games of his future opponents and gave them to informants who would capture videos of staffers sending tactical signals to players. They would then report back to Stalions, who would allegedly sync up the plays with the signals to get an idea of how his opponents operated. Stalions resigned last week as, according to the Detroit Free Press, this practice has been banned for 30 years. In a statement, the conference said it found that the school broke its sportsmanship policy by “conducting an impermissible, in-person scouting operation over multiple years, resulting in an unfair competitive advantage.” The Wolverines released a statement of their own, arguing that the conference was crumbling under pressure from other member universities instead of “a desire to apply the rules fairly.” The team later wrote, “we intend to seek a court order... preventing this disciplinary action from taking effect.”