Ohio State And Rutgers Reportedly Gave Purdue Michigan's Signs Before Last Year's Big Ten Championship Game

Michigan's defense to the Big Ten seems to be not that it's innocent of the charges against it, but rather that other schools were engaged in some sort of sign-stealing activity against the Wolverines, as well. The school submitted documents to the conference that Ohio State and Rutgers apparently lent a hand to Purdue before the 2022 Big Ten Championship Game and gave the Boilermakers what those schools had of UM's signs.

We don't know a critical piece of information, however, which is how those signs were acquired. If OSU and Rutgers deciphered Michigan's signals in the normal course of film study and from playing the Wolverines and wanted to give that information to Purdue, I don't believe that's any sort of violation, though it may be frowned upon. So unless those schools had their own Connor Stalions running around we don't know about, this doesn't really seem anything at all like what Michigan is charged with. It is a juicy accusation that's good for deflecting attention, though.

I don't remember the last college football story of this magnitude where I had absolutely no idea what was going to happen next. The other Big Ten schools are pressuring the league to levy a punishment right now up to and including barring Michigan from the conference title game. UM seems ready to fight tooth and nail in any courtroom that will listen. And all the while, the team at the center of all of this has a real chance to win the national championship in two months.

I guess we'll find out what the Big Ten has decided soon enough. Whatever happens, I certainly respect the alignment of everyone at Michigan and their desire to go to the Supreme Court over this if necessary. Nothing is better than college football.