What to expect when Michigan and Jim Harbaugh take on the Big Ten in court
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Dan Murphy
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Dan Murphy
ESPN Staff Writer
- Covers the Big Ten
- Joined ESPN.com in 2014
- Graduate of the University of Notre Dame
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Pete Thamel
The extent of head coach Jim Harbaugh’s involvement in the rest of No. 3 Michigan’s regular season games will be determined Friday in an unprecedented mid-season courtroom battle in Ann Arbor.
Harbaugh said he plans to be inside the relatively small courtroom at the Washtenaw County Courthouse at 9 a.m. on Friday when a judge will hear his plea to effectively eliminate the remainder of a three-game suspension handed down by the Big Ten last week. He will be joined by lawyers representing Michigan and the Big Ten, standing in front of Judge Timothy Connors and six rows full of onlookers, to argue over whether the coach should be allowed on the sidelines for the Wolverines’ two remaining regular season games against Maryland and No. 2 Ohio State.
Harbaugh said Monday he’d like a chance to speak at the hearing, but didn’t know if that would be possible. Lawyers for Michigan did not respond to calls seeking comment about the hearing. Preliminary injunction hearings can include witnesses called to the stand but more often rely on arguments made by the attorneys, according to Donald Shelton, who served as chief judge in Washtenaw County before retiring to teach in law school at UM-Dearborn.
“If there is a dispute about the facts, which I doubt there will be, the judge may require witnesses or documents,” Shelton said. “The conference then has the similar opportunity to present arguments or evidence.”
Rather than disputed facts, the judge’s decision is more likely to hinge on his interpretation of the Big Ten’s authority to punish the coach through its sportsmanship policy and how the conference rulebook overlaps with the NCAA’s enforcement process.
Connors has an ample amount of discretion, according to legal experts, on how he wants the hearing on Friday to unfold and when he will issue a decision.
For Harbaugh to coach again during the regular season, his lawyers will have the burden to convince Judge Connors that: 1) They have a reasonable chance of proving during a trial that the Big Ten is ignoring its own rules in doling out a punishment now, and 2) Harbaugh’s absence from the team on the next two Saturdays could cause irreparable harm to him, the football program and the university.
Based on what both sides have shared in court filings and a volley of heated letters to one another in the past week, their arguments are likely to focus on two specific parts of the Big Ten rules.
The first is Rule 32, which says when the NCAA initiates an investigation of a Big Ten school, the conference can decide to hand out additional sanctions after the NCAA takes action. In this case, the conference learned of the cheating allegations against Michigan after the NCAA opened an investigation in October. Michigan’s lawyers contend in court documents that the Big Ten and commissioner Tony Petitti “threw out the procedure” in a rush to punish Harbaugh due to pressure from other coaches and athletic directors around the league.
Petitti wrote in a letter explaining the suspension last week that Rule 32 does not exclude him from using a different part of the Big Ten rulebook — the Sportsmanship Policy — to issue punishments when he believes the integrity of competition has been compromised.
Petitti wrote that the evidence he saw from NCAA investigators and other members of the conference provided enough information for him to conclude the in-person scouting operation orchestrated by former staff member Connor Stalions did impact the integrity of competition in Michigan’s games. He said it was up to his discretion on whether to use the sportsmanship policy or the “slower-moving procedures set forth in Rule 32.”
“This language could not be clearer,” Petitti said. “When sportsmanship issues, including the integrity of competition, are implicated by the offensive conduct, the Commissioner is authorized to use the procedures and authority prescribed by the Sportsmanship Policy, even if that offensive conduct also may involve a violation of NCAA or Conference rules.”
Michigan’s lawyers also argued in their motion for a restraining order that the Big Ten’s sportsmanship policy doesn’t give the league the authority to specifically punish Harbaugh. The policy says the Big Ten commissioner can hold accountable either someone “found to have committed an offensive action” or the institution responsible for that person.
“Coach Harbaugh is neither,” his attorneys wrote in their legal filing last week.
Petitti said in his letter Friday the conference did not have any evidence that suggested Harbaugh was aware of the impermissible conduct. Instead, he attempted in delivering his sanction to make a distinction between punishing the institution by removing its head coach from the sidelines and specifically punishing Harbaugh. He said he felt it was an appropriate penalty that avoided harming players by taking away their ability to compete in games while also noting that “the head coach embodies the university for purposes of its football program.”
“This is not a sanction of Coach Harbaugh,” Petitti wrote.
Judge Connors will be asked to parse the semantics of those rule interpretations presented by both sides on Friday. There is no deadline for a decision, but it’s unlikely he would rule directly from the bench during Friday’s hearing. Because the underlying complaint in this case is a civil lawsuit in which Michigan and Harbaugh are seeking damages, the two sides could also agree to a settlement outside of court at anytime including before a restraining order decision is made.
Mitch Marner was traded to the Vegas Golden Knights — with an eight-year extension in place, sources told ESPN on Monday. Forward Nicolas Roy will go to the Toronto Maple Leafs in return.
Marner’s new deal has a $12 million average annual value, according to sources. Marner, 28, was the biggest name entering Tuesday’s NHL free agency, and multiple teams were hoping to make pitches. Marner was the NHL’s fifth-leading scorer last season with 102 points — 36 more than the next-closest free agent. The winger was drafted by his hometown Maple Leafs with the No. 4 pick in 2015.
The Maple Leafs knew that Marner was looking to test free agency at the end of the season. Over the past few days, Toronto worked with Vegas, which was Marner’s preferred destination, on a trade. The Maple Leafs held Marner’s rights until just before midnight Tuesday.
Had Marner become an unrestricted free agent, he couldn’t have signed a deal for more than seven years.
Marner finished a six-year deal that paid him $10.9 million annually. Marner, who played for Team Canada at Four Nations and likely will make their Olympic team, has 221 goals and 741 points in nine NHL seasons.
Toronto general manager Brad Treliving has stayed busy this week, re-signing John Tavares and Matthew Knies while trading for Utah forward Matias Maccelli earlier Monday.
Roy, 28, is a center who is entering Year 4 of a five-year deal that pays him $3 million annually.
Ahead of the Marner trade, the Golden Knights created cap space by sending defenseman Nicolas Hague to the Nashville Predators on Monday.
The deal makes Marner the highest-paid player on Vegas, however, center Jack Eichel ($10 million AAV) is entering the final year of his contract and is eligible to sign an extension this summer. The Golden Knights might not be done this offseason. According to sources, defenseman Alex Pietrangelo is expected to go on long-term injured reserve, which could create more flexibility.
Sign-and-trades ahead of free agency are becoming a trend for NHL teams that know they will not sign their coveted player; last season, the Carolina Hurricanes dealt Jake Guentzel‘s rights to the Tampa Bay Lightning before he signed a seven-year deal.
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Ryan S. Clark
Hours after re-signing Aaron Ekblad, the Florida Panthers kept another integral piece of their Stanley Cup team by re-signing Brad Marchand to a six-year contract extension, sources told ESPN’s Emily Kaplan.
Marchand’s deal has an average annual value of $5.25 million, sources told Kaplan.
Coming to terms with Ekblad on an eight-year extension worth $6.1 million annually left the Panthers with what PuckPedia projected to be $4.9 million in salary cap space.
There was the possibility that Marchand, 37, could have left the Panthers for a more lucrative offer elsewhere considering there were teams that had more than enough cap space to sign him.
Instead? Marchand, who arrived ahead of the NHL trade deadline from the Boston Bruins, appears as if he will remain in South Florida for the rest of his career.
Acquiring defenseman Seth Jones from the Chicago Blackhawks and then adding Marchand were two decisions made by Panthers general manager Bill Zito with the intent of seeing the Panthers win a second consecutive Stanley Cup as part of a run that now has included three straight Cup Final appearances.
Marchand, who was a pending UFA entering the final day before free agency begins Tuesday, used the 2025 postseason to further cement why the Panthers and other teams throughout the NHL would still seek his services. He scored 10 goals and finished with 20 points in 23 playoff games.
For all the contributions he made, his greatest came during the Cup Final series against the Edmonton Oilers.
Marchand, who previously won a Cup with the Bruins back in 2011, opened the series with a goal in the first three games. That includes the two goals he scored in the Panthers’ 5-4 double-overtime win to tie the series with his second being the game-winning salvo.
He scored two more goals in a 5-2 win in Game 5 that allowed the Panthers to take a 3-1 series lead before returning to Sunrise, Florida, where they closed out the series with an emphatic 5-1 win.
Capturing a consecutive title created questions about whether the Panthers can win a third in a row. But there was the understanding that it might be difficult given there was only so much salary cap space to re-sign Conn Smythe winner Sam Bennett, Ekblad and Marchand.
Knowing there was a chance they could lose one, or more, of them, Zito laid the foundation to retain the trio. He began by signing Bennett to an eight-year contract worth $8 million annually on June 27 before using Monday to sign Ekblad and Marchand.
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Ryan S. Clark
Ivan Provorov decided to forgo free agency, with the veteran defenseman finalizing a seven-year extension Monday worth $8.5 million annually to remain with the Columbus Blue Jackets, sources told ESPN, confirming earlier reports.
With free agency slated to start Tuesday, the 28-year-old was one of the most notable defenseman who had a chance to hit the open market.
Provorov’s decision to stay with the Blue Jackets comes shortly after it was reported that Aaron Ekblad also avoided free agency by agreeing to an eight-year extension to remain with the Florida Panthers. That now leaves players such as Vladislav Gavrikov, Ryan Lindgren, and Dmitry Orlov among the more prominent pending UFAs who could be available should they fail to strike a deal with their current teams.
Retaining Provorov comes months after a season that witnessed the Blue Jackets shed the title of being a rebuilding franchise to one that could challenge for the playoffs in 2025-26.
Four consecutive seasons without the playoffs created the idea that the 2024-25 campaign could be another challenging one. But a six-game winning streak in January saw Columbus post a 22-17-6 record to create the belief that a turnaround could be in order.
The Jackets closed the season with another six-game winning streak but fell short of the final Eastern Conference wild-card playoff spot, which went to the Montreal Canadiens by two points.
Provorov would finish with seven goals and 33 points in 82 games while his 23 minutes, 21 seconds in average ice time was second behind Norris Trophy finalist Zach Werenski.
Re-signing Provorov comes in an offseason that saw the Blue Jackets also strengthen their bottom-six forward corps by adding Charlie Coyle and Miles Wood in a trade with the Colorado Avalanche.
PuckPedia projects that the Blue Jackets now have $20.957 million in cap space ahead of free agency.
TSN was first to report news of Provorov’s decision.
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