The Wolverines coach was suspended for three games, but you would’ve thought he met a far worse fate by observing Michigan’s reaction to his absence Saturday.
Second Quarter: Melodramatic Michigan
Regardless what happens hereafter, Michigan has already won one national title: most melodramatic program in America. The Wolverines are setting records for overwrought emotions in response to various suspensions of Jim Harbaugh (11).
Saturday it was interim head coach Sherrone Moore (12) alternately sobbing and swearing on national TV after Michigan blunt-force trauma’d Penn State into submission. Moore’s heaving salute to Harbaugh almost felt like a parody. It gave the impression that the coach was on his death bed, being held hostage or perhaps trapped in an underground mine. In reality, he was suspended (again), and watched the game from the team hotel in State College, Pa.
Last week, Harbaugh was sidelined by the Big Ten for the final three games of the regular season for former staffer Connor Stalions’s alleged espionage ring, which performed impermissible, in-person scouting of Michigan opponents. Harbaugh and Michigan requested a temporary restraining order that would allow him to coach but it will not be heard until Friday. So he sat out the Penn State game, which follows a school-mandated suspension for three games to start the season for another ongoing NCAA investigation.
When the first suspension happened, Michigan responded in florid fashion. Quarterback J.J. McCarthy wore a “Free Harbaugh” shirt before the season opener against East Carolina—perhaps overlooking the fact that this was a school suspension. The Wolverines also took the field for their first offensive play in that game in the “centipede” formation Harbaugh fancied, initially lining up all 11 players in a row behind the center before shifting into something more conventional.
So it would stand to reason that a program which treated that suspension as a life sentence at San Quentin would be even more overwrought this time around, when Harbaugh really might be sidelined for meaningful games. Without question, the institutional outrage has been communicated, with president Santa Ono writing to Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti before the suspension and athletic director Warde Manuel (13) sounding off afterward.
Manuel’s statement could succinctly be described as a declaration of war against the conference. Will Michigan throw more mud, the way it did last week, when Sports Illustrated and other outlets reported that multiple Big Ten teams sent Michigan’s play signals to Purdue ahead of the Big Ten championship game last year? We’ll see what the week brings.
