INDIANAPOLIS — Unsurprisingly, Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti received a question about Michigan football and the alleged sign stealing scandal at Big Ten media days on Tuesday.
Apparently taking unilateral action at the time in November when Petitti suspended former Wolverines coach Jim Harbaugh despite the NCAA still being in the midst of its investigation, Petitti now says the process when it occurred was “collaborative” in nature.
“I can say it was a collaborative process within the conference office, first with the team, trying to understand and gather information,” Petitti said. “There was a lot of cooperation with the NCAA in terms of the information we had access to, working with our administrators and ultimately also our presidents and chancellors.
“It was a completely collaborative process. Look, I understand, coming from MLB and watching some of the disciplinary things that have happened there, it’s a difficult process when you’re forced into a situation where you have to decide what to do with a member. That’s part of it. You approach it with a lot of respect and try to understand and do what is fair and protect the entire conference.
“That was the approach we took and I stand by the results of the decision we made.”
A notice of allegations from the NCAA will be released soon, with recent indications appearing like the organization was close to issuing the NOA a month ago. However, the NOA has not yet arrived in Ann Arbor and Petitti says he has no idea when the NCAA will reveal its findings.
“I don’t know a timeline,” Petitti said. “I still don’t know when the NCAA will come to any final decision, whatever it may be.”
