Michigan claims there’s insufficient evidence that alleged sign stealing broke Big Ten policy

The University of Michigan has sent a response to the Big Ten in advance of a potential discipline in the ongoing saga in which their football program has been accused of illicit advance scouting for the purposes of sign-stealing.

The Wolverines have been accused of running a sophisticated sign-stealing scheme that was helmed by former U.S. Marine Connor Stalions, who resigned from Michigan last week.

According to Dan Wetzel and Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports, the letter indicates that there has not been sufficient evidence that the program has violated the conference’s sportsmanship policy, that Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti does not have the authority to punish Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh under the policy, and that punishment of Michigan would be disproportionate considering other programs in the conference have allegedly stolen signs.

On Tuesday, an ESPN report alleged that Ohio State and Rutgers had shared Michigan’s signs with Purdue.

The Michigan letter to the Big Ten also reportedly claims that the Big Ten would be prematurely punishing Michigan based not on tangible evidence but on “summaries and descriptions of evidence.”

“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,” Michigan’s letter said.

Harbaugh’s attorney, Tom Mars, also wrote a letter to the Big Ten.

“When other teams had been legally acquiring Michigan’s signals with 100% percent accuracy for at least two years by studying Michigan game films, there was no reason for Coach Harbaugh or anyone else to believe that [Stalions] had not acquired his information about other team’s signals by using the same methodology,” Mars’ letter said in part, according to Yahoo Sports.

Sign stealing is not technically illegal in college football, but in-person advance scouting has been banned since 1994, and Stalions was accused of traveling to a number of Michigan’s opponents for the purposes of doing so.