Late last week, smoke signals from both national and Michigan outlets indicated the most likely immediate outcome of the Wolverines' ongoing scouting scandal would be a suspension for head coach Jim Harbaugh.
This made sense on a number of levels.
The Big Ten, which could act under the conference's sportsmanship laws, is in an impossible spot. The conference office risks alienating 13 of its 14 member institutions by failing to intervene as Michigan pursues a third straight title while allegedly violating the spirit of the game in the process. If the B1G sits on its hands until the NCAA drops the hammer some time next year, the 13 other schools would rightly be outraged if Michigan wins the conference title while essentially being caught red-handed. So, the Big Ten can't do nothing.
On the flip side, Michigan would rightly be outraged if the conference office declares them ineligible for the conference championship and then the NCAA exonerates them next year. Michigan has argued for due process, and it's hard to fault them. We are a nation of laws, after all. So, the Big Ten can't do too much, either.
And so a suspension of Harbaugh made sense as a middle ground.
If that were to happen, the Big Ten would hold the man at the top of the org chart accountable while not directly intervening into the games themselves. It seemed to be a compromise that Michigan and the other 13 schools could grudgingly live with. After all, Michigan managed just fine without Harbaugh for the first three games of this season.
(My solution, which is both totally fair yet sadly unrealistic: Michigan can continue playing unimpeded, but it must tell the opponent which play it's running for the remainder of the season. Hey, still gotta stop 'em, right?)
However, on Monday, ESPN's Pete Thamel reported that Michigan is threatening legal action if the conference suspends Harbaugh.
"Don’t expect any action by the Big Ten in the Michigan sign stealing case for at least the next 48 hours, as the league’s sportsmanship rules allow for a 'reasonable' chance to respond to an institution or individual," Thamel tweeted. "Sources have told ESPN that they’ll be a legal battle if there’s a punitive suspension by the Big Ten to Jim Harbaugh."
If I'm the president of one of the 13 other Big Ten schools, the threat of a lawsuit would make me push harder for a suspension of Harbaugh, for two reasons:
1) The fact that Michigan is apparently pushing back so fervently against a Harbaugh suspension means that such an action would draw blood, and there's a human urge to draw blood when one has been wronged in the way that Michigan has allegedly wronged the rest of the conference over the past few seasons.
2) If Michigan sues, the Big Ten would have the right to defend itself, and considering everything swirling around that program right now, I would welcome the opportunity for discovery.
There's plenty more chapters to this novel still to play out. In the meantime, No. 3 Michigan prepares to visit No. 11 Penn State (noon ET, Fox) on Saturday.
Stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.