Michigan under NCAA investigation for stealing signs
- Thread starter mshelton33
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Not really. Generally you have multiple guys signing and maybe only one is legit. Pretty hard to do that during a game. And don't often see cameras on the signers long enough for pattern to be determined, But going to a game and filming exactly than and then being able to deconstruct it to determine what is actually happening gives a tremendous advantage, Always being able to put up the exact right D on a play (or only using it at critical points in game) Same with Defensive signals. Given the unlimited resources some programs have and very big advantage. Wait till AI is being used
There will be a lot more of this kind of thing that comes out, but… a couple of the more interesting tweets I’ve seen of late:
A couple things:
1) The video is from the first series of the game, no way you have that level of preparation and conviction in your call unless you have done a TON of work pre-game
2) He’s standing about 5 feet away from Harbaugh, who continues to plead ignorance publicly. Interesting.
3) The photo pretty clearly shows a series of signals on a laminated sheet. You don’t have a laminated sheet unless you’ve done a ton of work pre-game.
4) The guy holding the laminated sheet is a) definitely not Stallions (pretty easy to tell when one is white and the other is black) and b) with about 99% certainty Chris Bryant, who’s Director of High School Relations… which means he’s a former UM player who would also have no other in-game responsibilities but is holding a sheet to steal signals and is on the headset. This complicates things TREMENDOUSLY for Michigan, because the sign stealing was pretty clearly spread amongst multiple staff members.
Michigan is probably actually pretty screwed here.
A couple things:
1) The video is from the first series of the game, no way you have that level of preparation and conviction in your call unless you have done a TON of work pre-game
2) He’s standing about 5 feet away from Harbaugh, who continues to plead ignorance publicly. Interesting.
3) The photo pretty clearly shows a series of signals on a laminated sheet. You don’t have a laminated sheet unless you’ve done a ton of work pre-game.
4) The guy holding the laminated sheet is a) definitely not Stallions (pretty easy to tell when one is white and the other is black) and b) with about 99% certainty Chris Bryant, who’s Director of High School Relations… which means he’s a former UM player who would also have no other in-game responsibilities but is holding a sheet to steal signals and is on the headset. This complicates things TREMENDOUSLY for Michigan, because the sign stealing was pretty clearly spread amongst multiple staff members.
Michigan is probably actually pretty screwed here.
I understand my opinion doesn't really matter, but...
1. He probably did it. I mean, come on.
2. If we knew/know that schools cheat when it comes to things like recruiting and academics, WHY ON EARTH WOULDN'T WE ASSUME WELL-RESOURCED PROGRAMS GO THE EXTRA MILE TO STEAL SIGNS FOR A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE WHEN THEIR OPPONENTS ARE BARELY HIDING THEM IN PLAIN SIGHT?!
3. If we accept that he did it and that schools pretty much know/knew it was happening...anyone expecting serious NCAA sanctions are living in a fantasy world.
4. Maybe the NCAA should make the art of sign stealing 100% legal...which maybe then leads to programs sending in plays differently(?) - would that be such an awful thing?
1. He probably did it. I mean, come on.
2. If we knew/know that schools cheat when it comes to things like recruiting and academics, WHY ON EARTH WOULDN'T WE ASSUME WELL-RESOURCED PROGRAMS GO THE EXTRA MILE TO STEAL SIGNS FOR A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE WHEN THEIR OPPONENTS ARE BARELY HIDING THEM IN PLAIN SIGHT?!
3. If we accept that he did it and that schools pretty much know/knew it was happening...anyone expecting serious NCAA sanctions are living in a fantasy world.
4. Maybe the NCAA should make the art of sign stealing 100% legal...which maybe then leads to programs sending in plays differently(?) - would that be such an awful thing?
A lot of additional information might be available in the sideline and end zone views teams have access to. Even if the home team's signals aren't shown, perhaps the sideline view, which must include the entire 22 on the field and show offensive and defensive shifts, has opponent's signals.
I'll also note that a viral tweet showing Michigan clearly signaling to their defense (maybe even the one above) was of a play that resulted in a touchdown.
Lots. Coaches get pretty fired up when it comes to actually messing with the in-game product on the field. Not like off-field recruiting violations where a good portion of the coaching community would rather they be swept under the rug so nobody starts poking around about what they’re up to.
Seems like he was a bit of a character. https://www.si.com/college/2023/10/25/michigan-connor-stalions-texts-stolen-signals
This Michigan sign thing is a sad situation that is getting wackier. Really, with the schedules they had, Michigan could have probably straight up beat everybody they played except possibly Ohio State, Penn State, and maybe sometimes Michigan State. Michigan didn't need this elaborate sign stealing operation. They could have narrowly focused on the most competitive opponents and maybe gotten away with it instead of beating up Indiana 52-7 instead of 45-17 Now we're talking about the "Michigan Manifesto" and it feels like a mix of Jeff Gillooly/Tonya Harding and Watergate.
Now we know why. That place is loaded with scumbags - the biggest one is their HC
Apparently, sign stealing bit UM in their rear; TCU was aware of it, so they used their old signals as dummy signals.
Unfortunately, if it started in 2021, then we can't use it as an excuse for any of those times we lost to Harbag prior to that.
Maybe they suck now, but they did not suck in 2021. If MSU hadn't blown their game against Purdue, they would have won the Big Ten East, and would have likely won the Big Ten Championship.
“My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with a girl who saw Ferris pass-out at 31 Flavors last night. I guess it's pretty serious.”
The Columbus gossip today is as follows:
Weiss's computer was confiscated by law enforcement due to concerns over child porn. No child porn was found. What was found was 50+ hours of OSU practice off the cloud (implication is that it was hacked or stolen) along with other B1G team practice footage. The digital footprint says that these files were accessed by Weiss, Connor Stallions, and Jay Harbaugh.
I am merely parroting the Columbus scuttlebutt. I have no Sir Yacht level insight into this evolving story.
The Columbus gossip today is as follows:
Weiss's computer was confiscated by law enforcement due to concerns over child porn. No child porn was found. What was found was 50+ hours of OSU practice off the cloud (implication is that it was hacked or stolen) along with other B1G team practice footage. The digital footprint says that these files were accessed by Weiss, Connor Stallions, and Jay Harbaugh.
I am merely parroting the Columbus scuttlebutt. I have no Sir Yacht level insight into this evolving story.
El Gato: I am curious about any updated perspective you may have. I hope Mr. Stalions is not scapegoated and sacrificed to avoid full disclosure of what really went on.
Michigan analyst Connor Stalions resigns amid NCAA investigation into sign stealing
Michigan analyst Connor Stalions resigns amid NCAA investigation into sign stealing
Stalions was previously suspended on Oct. 20
www.cbssports.com
So was he fired or did he resign?Michigan analyst Connor Stalions resigns amid NCAA investigation into sign stealing
Michigan analyst Connor Stalions resigns amid NCAA investigation into sign stealing
Stalions was previously suspended on Oct. 20
Santa Ono should change his last name to Claus because Stallions will absolutely be sacrificed for Hardballs.
He apparently was offered the chance to resign rather than being fired, which tells me he had some leverage in the situation. My guess is that he was engaging in activities where he went over the line to prove his worth but kept Harbaugh in a bubble, and Harbaugh was smart enough never to ask.
But I don't take any of the reports about evidence of this or that at face value, because this has all been positioned by people who want to see Harbaugh fail. He might, probably did, go over the line with some of his activities. I can't defend that, but he's a young man, and the coaching world is often not one that cultivates responsibility and maturity.
The public's reaction is about what I expected. At this stage he's being belittled and portrayed as some Rupert Pupkin, a weirdly obsessed superfan. That isn't the young man we know, and there are plenty of people jeering him who live in glass mansions. Sports tends to bring that out of people.
I've learned over the years not to judge people's enthusiams. Your thing is your thing. I spent years after my parents died listening almost exclusively to classical music because it was the only music they listened to.
I'm going with Michigan State, Ohio State, and Penn State.
Harbaugh: Nobody told me sign stealing was a group project
Harbaugh: Nobody told me sign stealing was a group project
Reports are Rutgers and ... OSU. Purdue had the aggregated signal chart before last year's Big 10 championship game. According to the SI article, coaches claim they often share signals of upcoming opponents and there's no rule against it.
Isn't the source coming from Michigan claiming a Purdue person informed them about this? Sounds like someone is trying to rope others into the situation so they don't go down by themselves. It may ease the punishment if it includes several teams.
It's a case of Johnny getting caught by his mother, but he is telling on his sister for something she did weeks ago
A former Purdue coach told the Athletic he gave Michigan the information because he liked some of Michigan's coaches and wanted to show that other teams had the same information Michigan had. I don't know whether it will save Michigan any trouble, but it points to the absurdity that the NCAA hasn't adopted the NFL's approach.
David Elson worked for Harbaugh’s dad at Western Kentucky. He seems to be trying to score points with Harbaugh in an attempt to cling onto whatever Harbaugh’s next steps are.
David Elson - Football Coach - Purdue Boilermakers
David Elson is in his first season coaching the Purdue linebackers. Elson, who served as the head coach at Western Kentucky for seven seasons (2003-09),...
His resignation marked the latest jarring turn in Stalions’s brash attempt to crash into college football at the highest level. He grew up in a small town just north of Detroit and was quickly indoctrinated into Michigan fandom by his alumni parents. In a January 2022 interview for the blog of Soldiers to Sidelines, a nonprofit organization for veterans, he said that researched how to break into the coaching industry in high school.
He said that he decided there were two paths to his goal: play football at a high level and stick around as a graduate assistant; or hone leadership skills in a military setting, as Duke former basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski, a West Point graduate and former Army officer, had done. Stalions set his focus on attending the U.S. Naval Academy and successfully gained admission in 2013. One of the first things he did was offer his services to the football team, then coached by Ken Niumatalolo, as a student assistant. It was an unpaid role he held for five seasons, according to Scott Strasemeier, spokesman for the Navy football team. According to a person involved with Navy football during this period, Stalions worked with the video and recruiting departments, primarily handling administrative tasks for director of player personnel Sean Magee. He also talked constantly of the Wolverines. “He only cared about one school and that was Michigan,” said the person. “He was an obsessive fan.”
It was at Navy that Stalions seemingly started decoding opponents’ play-signals. According to a person who later worked with him at Michigan, Stalions “bragged and was proud of the fact that he could discern what was taking place from the offense in a relatively short period of time.” Stalions offered his skills to the Navy coaches, but he was brushed aside, said the person familiar with the team. A few months before graduating in May 2017, things took a fortuitous turn for Stalions’s ambitions when Michigan hired Magee to be their new director of player personnel in February. At the time of his hiring, Wolverines coach Jim Harbaugh praised Magee’s “military experience, leadership skills and organizational talents.”Stalions wouldn’t be able to capitalize on this connection for several more years, however, due to his obligation to the U.S. Marine Corps. His official military personnel file provided by the Marines shows that he attended basic training in Quantico, Va., from March to September of 2018, then trained at Logistics Operations School at North Carolina’s Camp Lejeune from October 2018 until January 2019. He eventually was stationed at Camp Pendleton in southern California.
He attended a handful of Michigan games as a fan while he was training, but appeared to take on a more visible presence during the 2019 season, even while he was serving in the Marines. Photos posted by Stalions’s relatives on Instagram and Facebook show him on the sidelines in team apparel at three games: a road game at Wisconsin, homecoming against Iowa and the 2020 Citrus Bowl.
It is not known if Stalions attended games during the pandemic-modified 2020 season, but his role seemingly expanded again in 2021. Photos and videos place Stalions on the sidelines, often in prominent places, for at least five games. He stood behind Harbaugh at the end of a close road win over Nebraska and during the Big Ten championship game. After Michigan defeated Wisconsin, he celebrated with players in the visitor’s locker room. It’s unclear what Stalions was doing for the program during this period. Stalions said in the blog post that he was an offensive analyst at Michigan during the 2021 season. A spokesman for Michigan said that “Connor was hired in May 2022 as a recruiting analyst, anything prior to that was done as a volunteer.”
Property records indicate that he purchased a $485,000 house near the Michigan campus in Ann Arbor in March 2022, shortly before his stint with the Marines ended. Not long after he moved in that spring, dozens of old vacuum cleaners appeared on his front porch. The unsightly stash peeved neighbors and sparked the interest of the homeowners association, which sued Stalions for allegedly operating an appliance refurbishing business out of his home in violation of its bylaws.
Stalions fought back and represented himself in Washtenaw County Trial Court. In a letter written in response to a summons in October 2022, he wrote:
“I suspect that whoever has chosen to sue me either 1. doesn’t like the fact that I am a veteran; or 2. is a Michigan State fan and knows I am a Michigan football coach and wants to draw my attention away.” He had one Spartans fan in mind—“someone named Jeff” who lived down the street and had a son attending Michigan State. “He uncomfortably questioned me about Michigan football and what goes on in our building, giving me a bad feeling about him. He definitely seemed like someone who wants to distract me with unnecessary time-consuming things like this,” Stalions wrote.
The real question is who on our sideline keeps giving our OL the sign to not block!?!
