Big Ten declares martial law, rest of college football wonders if they can do that

The handling of the Michigan sign-stealing scandal has been a debacle from the start, and it culminated Friday with the Big Ten suspending coach Jim Harbaugh for the final three games. U-M filed a temporary restraining order against its own conference that it hopes can be expedited before kickoff at noon EST. Two of those contests Harbaugh is slated to miss are the Wolverines’ only against top 10 teams in the regular season so it’s no surprise that one last-second heave was met with another.

You know an investigation was botched when it makes Roger Goodell look like a seasoned judge. The bulletin board material, for a team that started the season without its head coach for four games, was readily acknowledged with members of the Wolverines tweeting “Bet” after the ruling was handed out.

As far as infractions are concerned, I’ve never seen one meted out midseason. Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti’s decision to go ahead with a punishment that was so obviously going to be challenged felt like something Donald Trump would do just to flex his authority/be a dick.

The end of this college football season now revolves around Ann Arbor, or wherever the Wolverines are playing, which today is Happy Valley. Prayers up for James Franklin and the Nittany Lion offense.

The one thing that can’t be overlooked is the unintentional comedy the Harbaugh ban has sparked. No one is louder than a slighted college football fan base, including Desmond Howard and Charles Woodson. Where you stand on the issue’s morality depends on how you feel about Michigan (or the NCAA).

Opportunity, or eternal embarrassment, awaits Franklin and Ryan Day. Imagine the backlash if they lost to a Harbaugh-less Michigan team? Actually, don’t imagine that; it’s bad karma if that’s the outcome you’re rooting for.

This is further evidence that of all the institutions without control, the NCAA is 1A. Petitti showed up to the crime scene and big boyed the sport’s “governing body” like agents Johnson and Johnson did Paul Gleason outside Nakatomi Tower. There’s a reason B1G schools went to their commissioner, and not the NCAA.

What I’ve learned from living in “Big Ten country” the past two years is Michigan hates Ohio State, Ohio State hates Michigan, and the rest of the conference hates them both. Wait, wait, wait … did Petitti galaxy brain this entire situation?

It’s better to ingratiate yourself to the other 35 Big Ten teams, including one of the power brokers. So Petitti, knowing that his ruling would be thrown out almost immediately, levied it anyway in hopes that Michigan fans would forgive him, or at least deem him a harmless buffoon, and move on.

Yeah, I don’t believe it either, but reading my stream of consciousness in real time is fun, right? The only accurate statement in the last paragraph was Petitti is a harmless buffoon.

We’ll see how Michigan responds — on the field. I’m not smart enough to know where this goes in the courts.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before (or continue if you like to laugh at James Harden)

The Los Angeles Clippers have three Los Angeles natives, and a guy from Palmdale. Between them, they have two MVPs, two finals MVPs, and two NBA titles. Granted one player is responsible for two-thirds of those accolades, it doesn’t make the Clippers less tragic.

After a 22-point loss against the Dallas Mavericks in a much-ballyhooed in-season tournament game, the Clips are now 0-3 when new addition James Harden plays, and 3-5 overall. It’s early, but if we can’t laugh at the Clippers, what’s the point of the Clippers?

A lot of, if not all of, the marquee players feel redundant. The same goes for the B-squad guards. None of the bigs space the floor other than 38-year-old P.J. Tucker. The upside is they have 74 more games to reprogram everything about the way they approach the game.