Perhaps the real mockery of Michigan is the jokes made along the way.
The Wolverines escaped their elaborate three-year impermissible advanced scouting scheme and ensuing scandal with a fine – albeit an unprecedentedly large one – as the harshest of their penalties. No postseason ban, no wins vacated, no reduction in scholarships.
But the investigation and ensuing findings by the NCAA Committee on Infractions still provide the "overwhelming evidence," in their words, of Connor Stalions' elaborate network to help Michigan cheat.
That, as many columnists across the country sounded off about yesterday, is perhaps Michigan's greatest punishment of the Stalions scandal. There is now a 74-page NCAA report that overwhelmingly states the Wolverines cheated to help them win football games for two-and-a-half seasons. We're combing through that document for all the evidence and what we've learned about the case. And perhaps to crack wise here or there.
The Consistent Lies of Connor Stalions
As the man who orchestrated Michigan's impermissible advance scouting scheme, Stalions is the main witness to the extent and nature of the Wolverines' wrongdoing. Being that he's also the top – though far from the only – voice trying to downplay and sidestep and deny all the allegations throughout the NCAA's investigation, it's important to establish just how unreliable he is as a witness.
Stalions got caught in several lies during a documentary told from his perspective in August 2024. He first claimed he guessed he was in trouble for sending his mother to a Michigan State game and similar hookups for relatives and friends with tickets. Then he was presented with evidence that he sent Michigan staffers and non-Michigan coaches to 30 Big Ten games and 12 Ohio State games. His story changed to saying he was paying his success forward; the success of a low-level recruiting staffer (really the lead sign stealer, as Stalions has admitted), that is.
The NCAA investigation uncovered a phone call in which Stalions told an unidentified Michigan student-athlete that he could "lie your ass off" to the Committee on Infractions.
Stalions also asked student-athlete 1 to provide false information to the enforcement staff related to his role in the scheme, the source of Stalions’ stolen signals, and any knowledge of Stalions’ hard drives containing film. Specifically, Stalions told student-athlete 1, "Again, if you just stick to that story, you’re good. Whatever you say is your story and that’s going to be what the truth is. This is also not the court of law. You can technically lie your ass off."
Stalions is clearly a man willing to say anything to paint his favorite school's football program and himself in the best light possible. And to dodge punishment for said favorite program. Now that that's established, let's dive into some of the other evidence he tried to downplay to investigators.
56 Instances of Advanced Scouting
The NCAA found that Stalions used his network to scout 13 future Michigan opponents at a total of 52 games, with 56 separate instances of advanced scouting. His network included a fellow Michigan staffer, current and former Michigan interns and their friends and student-athletes and their friends. He referred to his network as "the KGB."
"You don't put together a network of individuals called 'the KGB' that records what they call 'dirty film,' where the cost of doing this is in the tens of thousands of dollars over three seasons, unless you intend to gain a competitive advantage, a substantial competitive advantage," COI chief hearing officer Norman Bay said in a press conference after Michigan's penalties were announced on Friday.
Using phones, often ones that Stalions purchased for them, attendees would film opposing sidelines so he could decipher opposing signals. The evidence of this network in the report is, as the NCAA put it, overwhelming. Investigators obtained the following to prove the scheme:
- Corroborating testimony from "KGB" operatives who Stalions sent to games
- A "Master Chart" with a full schedule of the games Stalions planned to scout and the people he was sending to scout them
- Ticket receipts and ticket transfer data
- Photographs and videos of people in Stalions' network at games, filming sidelines
- A recorded phone call where Stalions referred to the footage he received from his scouts as "dirty film"
- An instructive document for the KGB titled "How to Steal Signals"
The report additionally found a document on Stalions' computer totaling the cost of the tickets at $35,000, which he claimed he funded himself by renting and then selling his home in California. There was no evidence found of reimbursement from Michigan.
It Was Stalions on the Central Michigan Sideline
In the first month after the Stalions scandal hit Michigan in October 2023, photos were uncovered of a man thought to be Stalions in a hat with sunglasses on the sidelines of Central Michigan's game at Michigan State on Sept. 1, 2023. The NCAA investigated those photos alongside its overarching Michigan investigation. Sixth-year Chippewas head coach Jim McElwain retired after a 40-year career amid the probe.
During the "Untold: Sign Stealer" documentary, Stalions tried to play coy and sidestep the NCAA about whether the man on the sidelines was him, only to be outed by Barstool Sports founder and notorious Michigan fan Dave Portnoy.
Connor Stalions: I dont recall attending a specific game
— Unnecessary Roughness (@UnnecRoughness) August 27, 2024
Dave Portnoy: Yeah that was Connor on the sidelines he told me
pic.twitter.com/Uf5lSX9q0K
An interview with a Central Michigan staffer confirmed to the NCAA that Stalions obtained a bench pass, put on a full set of Chippewas attire and deciphered Michigan State signals. Central Michigan has been issued a Notice of Allegations for its role in the illegal scouting by the NCAA, with its penalties still to be determined.
Jim Harbaugh Oversaw a Culture Unconcerned With Compliance
If you think you're constantly at odds with your boss, you haven't spoken with Michigan chief compliance officer Elizabeth Heinrich about her relationship with Jim Harbaugh, Michigan's head coach during the Connor Stalions scheme.
Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel observed a "tension" between the Wolverines' coaching staff and its compliance staff. Heinrich testified that she, a now 15-year veteran in her role, and her staff were constantly questioned about their authority by coaches.
During her interview, Heinrich told the NCAA that she was "perceived as a thorn in (Harbaugh's) side." She also stated Harbaugh was "very aggressive about exploiting advantages."
The COI also interviewed former Michigan linebackers coach Chris Partridge, who was fired amid the advanced-scouting scandal in November 2023. The NCAA report stated that "questions remain" about his knowledge of the scheme, but he did testify to the program's lack of diligence when it came to following rules. Partridge said that football staffers saw compliance staff as a "roadblock." Text messages were found from another football staffer who called compliance “shitty at their jobs and actively working against us from the inside. True scum of the earth.”
When it came to Stalions, specifically, Harbaugh stated in his response to the NCAA that his sign-stealing raised no "red flags" that warranted questioning his faculty. Stalions was quoted as saying, "No one really cared ... how you got it done as long as you got it done.”
A student-athlete told the NCAA that Michigan coaches “went out of their way to not know” what Stalions was up to. Testimony from Partridge and another Wolverine assistant affirmed that fact.
An intern reported that, in June 2023, Stalions asked him to use Stalions’ driver’s license to rent a car under Stalions’ name. Intern 2 refused and went to Partridge because he no longer wanted to work with Stalions. According to intern 2, when he brought up “the signal stealing,” Partridge told him that he did not want to hear any more about that.
Additionally, an assistant coach received a call from a conference opponent raising concerns about Stalions’ signstealing methods. In his interview, that assistant coach stated that he was upset by the accusation, went to Minter’s office and said “if you guys are going further than the rules you need to stop….” The assistant coach recalled that Minter said “I don’t know if that’s going on.” Minter denied that this interaction occurred.
Stalions, Harbaugh and Sherrone Moore Obstructed NCAA Investigators
Honestly, the number of shenanigans Stalions got up to trying to cover his tracks – it requires some theme music. Listen as you read.
The day that news of his scheme went public, Stalions roped an intern and a student-athlete into his office and told them to remove a bunch of items from Michigan's football facility in backpacks. He told said intern to "clear out" any emails, videos, texts or images related to the scheme on Stalions' devices. The intern had to grab another friend to help him.
Stalions smashed his personal phone "into 1,000 pieces" and tossed it into a pond like a murder weapon, then threw the hard drives containing his "dirty film" into the same body of water. Of course, he had the sense to admit it to a student-athlete in a recorded phone conversation.
"They don't have hard drives of the film. My film is at the bottom of the pond," Stalions said in the call.
It was the same recorded call where Stalions told said student-athlete he could "lie your ass off" to investigators. Stalions admitted to disposing of his phone in a pond to the NCAA, but insisted it was for "mental health" due to the backlash of the story breaking and the upsetting texts he was getting. Pressed on whether documents relevant to the advanced scouting scheme were destroyed with his phone, he answered, "I can't say no to that."
Typically, interviews during NCAA investigations are kept confidential, but Stalions and his legal team insisted on filming theirs with NCAA enforcement staff. It produced such gems for the public as Stalions saying "I don't recall attending a specific game" when asked whether he was on the Central Michigan sideline.
Stalions called the enforcement staff's entire investigation "fruit of a poisonous tree," stating that he believed information was obtained illegally from his Google Drive. The COI findings dismantled this argument in four different ways.
First, although Stalions alleges that illegal activity may have taken place, he never contacted law enforcement. The panel will not speculate on the reasons for declining to do so.
Second, there is no information in the record to suggest that the enforcement staff was complicit in the origin of the outside investigation or how the investigative firm obtained its information. Rather, as Stalions’ counsel characterized it, the enforcement staff simply received “gift wrapped” documents in the investigative report.
Third, Stalions gave the student interns access to his Google drive and calendar. Specifically, multiple members of the “KGB” stated that they had log in access in order to view documents like the Master Chart and Google calendar. In short, Stalions willingly gave football interns access to the information that he now claims was obtained illegally. By doing so, the number of individuals who could have shared and acquired that information is unquantifiable and does not lead the panel to believe that illegal activity occurred.
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, Stalions had a duty and obligation to produce the documents that he alleges were illegally obtained and others that have never been produced. Stalions has never taken any steps to produce the requested documents. Instead, he has represented that they are destroyed.
Ah, if only the data Stalions claims was hacked wasn't at the bottom of a pond. He'd have been 25% of the way to being believed.
Stalions continued to anger NCAA investigators by breaking confidentiality agreements via tweets and the Sign Stealer documentary. He constantly painted himself in the worst light possible. He thought himself MacGyver but was the embodiment of MacGruber when it came to hiding nefarious plots. And, against NCAA bylaws, obstructing an investigation.
"The scope and scale of Stalions’ failure to cooperate is one of the more significant and serious failures the COI has seen," the report said.
Harbaugh's legal counsel and NCAA enforcement staff exchanged messages over several weeks, attempting to collect device imaging records of his phone for the investigation. After he left for the NFL in January 2024, he never submitted those records. He also never responded to requests for an interview from enforcement staff.
Sherrone Moore, then the offensive coordinator and now the second-year head coach for Michigan, deleted 52 text messages with Stalions the day that the scandal went public and another message in a thread that referenced Stalions standing next to him at a game. Moore blamed it on a lack of storage space on his phone before admitting that it was a reaction to the news to the investigators.
The NCAA did manage to recover Moore's texts during its investigation, but did not specify the content in its report. Still, his obstruction by deleting texts is ultimately what landed him a Level-II violation, a three-game suspension and a two-year show-cause order.
Stalions Influenced Harbaugh, Coordinators on UM Sideline
Much like the picture atop this article, the NCAA found tons of photographs of Stalions standing next to Moore, then-defensive coordinator Jesse Minter and sometimes Harbaugh on the Michigan sideline during games. He'd actively decipher signals, which in and of itself isn't against college football rules.
Stalions told the COI that his information was used "closer to never than sometimes," but there he was caught in another lie by investigators when asked why, then, that Harbaugh awarded him a game ball after a win in 2022.
In the Netflix documentary, Stalions discussed receiving a game ball after one of Michigan’s victories in the fall of 2022. According to Stalions, Harbaugh awarded him the game ball for deciphering signals, with Stalions noting that he was the only person who received a game ball with their name on it. Further, Stalions said he took the game ball as Harbaugh’s way of saying, “[W]e see you, you're doing a good job.” At the hearing, however, Stalions diminished that incident, saying that he was only speculating about the reason for receiving the game ball, and that Harbaugh usually gave out 15 game balls per game and tried to rotate them to all staff members.
The extent to which Stalions impacted the results of games is unknown, largely thanks to the evidence that was destroyed. But after Friday's report, the end of the Jim Harbaugh era of Michigan football will be synonymous with cheating in the court of public opinion, even if the NCAA isn't legislating like it used to. Fourteen years of show-cause penalties, 10 from the advanced scouting scandal, will forever hang with Harbaugh as he likely spends the rest of his coaching days in the NFL.
Because the evidence is indeed overwhelming. Michigan cheated. And that's all there's left to say about it.
