The Big Ten championship trophy presentation Saturday was hilariously petty and a bit of a disappointment if you were hoping for an awkward moment between Jim Harbaugh and conference commissioner Tony Petitti.
The pair appeared to largely avoid each other after the game, and college football fans loved it and unloaded jokes.
After No. 2 Michigan crushed offenseless No. 16 Iowa, 26-0, in the conference title game in Indianapolis, it was time for Petitti to present the trophy to the Wolverines. The same Wolverines whose coach Petitti and the Big Ten suspended for three games at the end of the regular season over Michigan’s sign-stealing scandal.
Harbaugh’s suspension was controversial in itself, but it also came with the possibility that Petitti would still have to hand Harbaugh the Big Ten championship trophy just one week after the suspension ended.
It looked like that’s exactly what would happen at Lucas Oil Stadium after the Wolverines won their third straight Big Ten title. But then, according to Fox Sports’ Joel Klatt, Harbaugh tapped injured offensive lineman Zak Zinter instead: “Coach Harbaugh wanted it to go to Zak Zinter.”
Zak Zinter raises the trophy for Michigan @UMichFootball pic.twitter.com/MWu73rzryJ
— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) December 3, 2023
Petitti didn’t offer any congratulatory comments on stage to the Wolverines after — though per ESPN’s Tom VanHaaren, the pair shook hands before the presentation.
It wasn’t the awkward moment many excepted from this title game. But some fans loved it and had jokes.
