Michigan football warns Big Ten of potentially prevalent cheating

Today, the University of Michigan football program and school leadership responded to the Big Ten Conference, which issued a formal notice of potential punishment earlier this week due to the sign-stealing allegations. Jim Harbaugh and Santa Ono have been fighting day and night to merely let the investigation play out the way that it was meant to, and in their response to Commissioner Tony Petitti, they warn of setting a precedent that the Big Ten cannot uphold.

Michigan football warns Big Ten of potentially prevalent cheating

With Michigan football being slammed with allegations of cheating and sign-stealing, the Wolverines are finally starting to go on the offensive. On top of bringing in some of the nation’s top litigators, Santa Ono finally responded to the Big Ten Conference earlier today. One thing that Michigan pointed out in its response is that the conference may want to tread lightly, as cheating in many forms may happen more often than it thinks, and setting a bad precedent now would go a long way later.

“The conference should act cautiously when setting precedent given the reality that in-person scouting, collusion among opponents, and other questionable practices may well be far more prevalent than believed,” reads part of Michigan’s response, per Ross Dellenger.

Big Ten Conference may want to walk things back a bit

In short, what Michigan football is saying to the Big Ten is this: don’t overstep your bounds with us unless you’re ready to do it with everyone.

Yesterday, following the Big Ten serving Michigan notice of potential punishment, more reports started coming out, shedding new light on the prevalence of sign-stealing and more among conference members.

Right now, at the very least, the conference has hard evidence that Ohio State and Rutgers stole Michigan’s signs and passed them off to Purdue ahead of last year’s Big Ten title game, putting Tony Petitti in an even tougher spot.

Also, as insiders suggest, Michigan has a lot more bullets left in the clip, meaning the Big Ten Conference may want to take its time in determining how to proceed from here.

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