The rare punishment of a national championship contender in the final stretch of its season and one of college football’s most successful coaches by its own conference has become one of the biggest stories in sports. Conference rivals have been angry and frustrated as evidence mounted that a former low-level staffer was buying tickets to the games of Michigan’s opponents and sending people to record video of sideline signals. The Big Ten noted that Michigan is only arguing procedure and process and had conceded the impermissible conduct went on. Michigan leadership insists conference bylaws require the NCAA investigation to play out and that Petitti overstepped his power by doling out punishment.

The conference disciplined the school Friday for an elaborate, in-person scouting scheme that is also being investigated by the NCAA. Manuel raised a hand to acknowledge the fans but otherwise Michigan entered the stadium with little fanfare. One fan yelled out to Manuel: “Let’s join the SEC!” On Friday, hours after the Big Ten banned Harbaugh from coaching the rest of the Wolverines’ final regular-season games as punishment for an in-person-scouting and sign-stealing operation, the coach and his alma mater filed a request for a temporary restraining order against the Big Ten and Petitti.

“Not liking someone or another university or believing without any evidence that they knew or saying someone should have known without an investigation is not grounds to remove someone from their position before the NCAA process has reached a conclusion through a full NCAA investigative process,” Manuel said. He called it “an assault on the rights of everyone (especially in the Big Ten) to be judged by a fair and complete investigation.” Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel issued a statement about 50 minutes before kickoff saying the Big Ten and Commissioner Tony Petitti acted “unethically” on Friday when they banned Harbaugh from the team’s final three regular-season games.

We wanted to do this for Coach Harbaugh.” They’re going to be hating on us and we just want to prove them wrong. “We got a very hungry team, a lot of leaders and guys that just want to prove the haters wrong. “Obviously, everything that happened yesterday, we just want to use that as fuel and motivation,” offensive lineman Trevor Keegan said.

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