The Michigan Wolverines were thousands of feet in the air Friday afternoon on their way to play the biggest game of their season when the Big Ten announced a three-game suspension of coach Jim Harbaugh.
Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti, a Harvard-educated attorney with a TV background, received Michigan’s 10-page response to the conference’s evidence relating to now-former staffer Connor Stalions’ sign-stealing operation on Wednesday.
But Petitti waited until less than 24 hours before the third-ranked Wolverines — the best collection of Michigan football players since the 1997 national championship team and possibly ever — play a defining road game against 10th-ranked Penn State to levy a suspension he clearly has been mulling for weeks.