On Saturday W/ Mike Regan – The Michigan Sign Stealing Scandal
Signs, signs, Harbaugh’s Stealing Signs
Last Wednesday The Big Ten and The University of Michigan were notified that the NCAA was conducting an investigation into the #2 ranked team in the country. Not the still unresolved investigation regarding potential COVID dead period recruiting violations. This is a new one. Something even more sinister. Stealing signals. Queue the dramatic chipmunk.
Did I date myself with that reference?
Sign stealing and the accusations that can sometimes be made are always open to a lot of conjecture. It’s a known practice that happens in college football, so doing it isn’t a problem, nor is it prohibited by the NCAA. It’s how you do it.
For example, if a team is sloppy and their opponent is able to figure out what a sign means, that’s fair game. It is also completely within the rules to take the time and effort to study a team’s All-22 film or TV broadcast in an attempt to decipher their signals.
What is considered a violation of NCAA Bylaw 11.6.1, is sending someone to scout in person. That’s what Michigan has allegedly done. They’ve been accused of sending people to games in order to get the signals used by their future opponents. After being made aware of the situation, the Big Ten notified all of Michigan’s future opponents that they had been made aware of evidence that suggested the Wolverines had been stealing signals. Their opponent this past Saturday, 25-point underdog Michigan State, told the Big Ten they might refuse to play the game due to concern for the health and safety of its players. The Spartans did end up playing the game. Michigan won 49-0. Something tells me Michigan State isn’t the caliber of foe that Michigan would be so worried about as to steal signals. But if they were, I guess those stolen signals were worth 24 points.
One staff member who is at the center of the NCAA’s investigation is Connor Stalions, who is listed as a member of Michigan’s recruiting department specializing in analytics. Stalions is a longtime Michigan superfan who had volunteered in multiple capacities prior to joining the staff and is a former member of the US Marine Corps. According to The Athletic, on his now-deactivated LinkedIn, Stalions’ bio said that his military background is useful in “identifying the opponent’s most likely course of action and most dangerous course of action” and “identifying and exploiting critical vulnerabilities.” Sounds a bit over the top. Like a guy who takes Krav Maga classes and then talks about how he could kill a man with his bare hands. It was announced this past Friday that Stalions had been suspended with pay.
Information regarding the evidence against Michigan and Stalions has begun to come out this week, and it doesn’t look great for Michigan. Over the past three seasons, Stalions has allegedly purchased tickets to over 30 football games, including games to at least seven Big Ten schools, and four SEC schools. These tickets are always at the 50-yard line behind the sideline. One school has claimed to have video surveillance footage of a person in a seat purchased by Stallions recording the team’s sideline with their phone.
Most recently, he had purchased tickets on both sides of the stadium for this past weekend’s showdown between Penn State and Ohio State. The funny part about this information is that Stalions purchased all these tickets under his own name. The tactical military mastermind behind this operation didn’t think to not use his own name, or use apps such as Venmo when purchasing tickets off the secondary market.
The timeline of things does show an interesting coincidence. Harbaugh became the coach of the Wolverines in 2015 with a ton of fanfare after a successful stint in the NFL with the 49ers, and being a successful head coach at Stanford prior to that. People expected him to immediately take UM football back to being a championship-contending powerhouse.
Early on, his teams were good but not great. The Wolverines lost 3 or more games in his first six seasons as coach, and he continually failed to beat the one team Michigan coaches were hired to beat Ohio State. It wasn’t until 2021 that Harbaugh finally got over that hump. UM defeated their biggest rival, won the Big Ten, and went 12-1 as Harbaugh’s team reached the College Football Playoffs for the first time.
2021 is also the first year that Connor Stalions allegedly began this operation of in-person scouting and signal stealing. Last season the Wolverines once again defeated Ohio State en route to an undefeated regular season as they made their second straight playoff appearance.
Self-proclaimed sleuths of the internet have begun compiling their evidence. Going full CSI with zoomed-in shots of Michigan’s sideline. Images and videos where Stalions can clearly be seen staring down the other sideline while communicating with The Wolverines coordinators in between plays. There are even shots that show him holding a sheet that is full of various signals and images. It was plain to see. Even local-level news outlets are releasing their own found footage.
In a story published by Yahoo Sports, unnamed Big Ten staff members talk about knowing exactly who Conor Stalions was and what he was up to. He was the guy who knew the other team’s signals. The last smoking gun of evidence the NCAA is likely working to obtain is some of the actual footage that was taken from people in the Stalions seats. Along with the aspect of in-person scouting, the use of electronics by one team to record another is also expressly prohibited per the bylaws.
Many fans, especially one of Michigan’s rival teams, are seeking a pound of flesh. However, they are going to be left very unsatisfied.
The reason is timing. NCAA investigations are never a swift process, as a matter of fact, they usually reach the levels of taking unreasonably long. If the NCAA was the supreme court we would still be awaiting a verdict in the case of Marbury v. Madison. Even if this did get sorted out in surprisingly quick fashion, Michigan could tie the ruling up in appeals so the end result wouldn’t happen anytime soon.
The second reason is, how bad can a punishment be for something all teams are doing to some extent. Maybe Michigan was the first to take it to this level, or maybe they were just the first to be sloppy and get caught? College football is an extremely competitive and high-pressure ecosystem. Teams are always looking for ways to get an edge. There’s a reason why teams put up different forms of barriers around playcallers. There’s a reason they hold up signs with random images. Why do you think teams will have four different people all throwing up random hand signals like somebody poorly pretending to sign language? It’s to combat the things they themselves do. They are house burglars being tasked with installing a home security system. It’s the same reason Clarice sought the help of Hannibal Lecter to catch Buffalo Bill. To counter a criminal you have to think like one.
Coaches are paranoid because they know how the nature of college football can push teams to go to great lengths to find something to give them a leg up. They are on guard during open practices or spring games for potential wandering eyes. If you see a Power Five college team actually practicing outdoors, go stand by and watch. Then see how quickly a security guard arrives telling you to move it along.
This whole “scandal” has taken on a life of its own because Michigan is such a historic program that once again, is one of the best teams in the country, and there are many people who would like to see them knocked down a peg. It’s similar to deflategate. Every QB has their little quirks as to how they like a football to feel. Tom Brady preferred them on the underinflated side. In one game, maybe that ball went outside of the approved range. However, it was rather interesting that the Indianapolis Colts decided to scream foul on the matter after getting embarrassed 45-7 in the AFC Championship.
No matter, the media ran away with it because it involved the most successful NFL organization of the 21st century. The same way the media has run away with a story involving a team with back-to-back conference titles and playoff appearances, who is on pace to do the same this year. This is coming from someone with no reason to defend Michigan.
I’m a Notre Dame fan. If there was an opening I would take it.
This whole situation serves as a reminder of the truth about college football. It’s a cynical truth, but a truth nonetheless. Many college football programs like to prop themselves up and present an image that they do things the right way. Their college doesn’t take shortcuts, they put in the work that leads to virtuous success.
They are all either lying, or in denial. No matter how egregious an act, every football program that has found success at some point, has skirted the rules in one way or another. Even if it’s just an act that pushes what the NCAA allows to its very limits and into that gray area of, “I’m not sure you’re allowed to do that.”
There are varying degrees of skeletons in everyone’s closet buried under championships, conference titles, and winning records. For anybody still clinging to the notion that there are teams that hold the integrity of the game to its purest standard, I have one question. Why do you think not a single coach has come out on record saying anything negative or accusatory of Michigan? It’s because they all live in glass houses, and can’t risk a stone coming back the other way.
