UFR tomorrow or Monday; bye week and there's been all… this.

The latest article. Washington Post article. New points of information:

• An "outside investigative firm" approached the NCAA with "documents and videos the firm said it had obtained from computer drives maintained and accessed by multiple Michigan coaches."
• The sources for this claim "spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about an ongoing NCAA investigation," which cool NCAA, just keep doing this.
• A "detailed schedule" of Stalions's plans was submitted with an annual cost of 15k.

Plenty of vague words the article, particularly "a computer drive maintained and accessed by Stalions as well as several other Michigan assistants and coaches." Unless an outside investigative firm was happy to take a case founded on hacking into Michigan servers, here is what this means, in all likelihood:

• One of Stalions's recruits flipped on him.
• He/she provided a link to a Google Drive or equivalent.
• That's where the documents came from.

So yet another piece of evidence that indicates Stalions is an idiot: he gave virtually unknown strangers access to his CommitCrimes.docx.

This article does clarify some things. One: the steady drip, drip, drip of one story after another that barely changes the overall picture is indeed the work of a firm hired to damage Michigan's reputation as badly as possible. Michigan is executing exactly zero PR in response.

One thing it does not clarify is what the nature of the "drive" is, a detail seemingly left blank intentionally to let people fill in the worst case scenario. "A computer drive maintained and accessed by Stalions as well as several other Michigan assistants and coaches" could be Jesse Minter reading CommitCrimes.docx and giving his enthusiastic approval, or it could be just another folder on a cloud drive that no one else goes into.

I could even assert that Stalions might have password protected his portion of the drive, or limited access, but no, that doesn't appear to be how this guy rolls. 

I do think this might end up being wrong. I can't imagine Michigan has an internal shared drive that Stalions could give someone else permission to access, especially after the Michigan IT disaster this August. I mean, I guess I can because WHY NOT but surely at some point we will throw a stone and hit a reasonably professional individual. If this was a stand-alone google drive anyone inside the program who accessed it will be turbo-fired. 

[After THE JUMP: oh good a manifesto]

Another latest article. SI, Richard Johnson. This one is sourced from "a then student at a Power 5 school who was looking to break into the college football industry" who texted back-and-forth with Stalions. Most of it is just the kind of stuff a mid-20s dude trying to impress someone would say(“I’m close with the whole staff", etc.) The two main bits of interest are thus. One:

“Pre-covid, stole opponent signals during the week watching tv copies then flew to the game and stood next to [then Michigan offensive coordinator Josh] Gattis and told him what coverage/pressure he was gettin,” Stalions continued.

This is doesn't excuse the hiring folks to watch games bits, but does provide some explanation about how Stalions managed to worm his way into the athletic department. The guy probably had some natural talent for figuring these things out.

Two:

Stalions, now 28, revealed that he was part of a small group of people—two of whom he said were at low-level positions on different college football coaching staffs—who were putting their heads together on a long-term plan to run the Michigan football program. Stalions claimed to have a Google document between 550 and 600 pages long that he managed daily, containing a blueprint for the Wolverines’ future. He referred the document as a movement more than a plan, dubbing it “the Michigan Manifesto.”

“Any idea you could ever have,” he wrote, “there’s a place where it belongs in the document. It’s super organized.”

Ah. So it's one of those guys. This bit makes me feel much—much—better about the idea Stalions was calling his own number, unencumbered by the idea anything he was doing was wrong. He is a lunatic.

What the hell, Warde? Obviously Jim Harbaugh should not be hiring lunatics off the street. But he is Jim Harbaugh, a supremely talented football coach who does things like hire lunatics off the street, or Shemy Shembechler. What in God's name is Warde Manuel doing? You are seriously not vetting Harbaugh's hires after the Shemy incident? The constant stream of embarrassing but ultimately inconsequential news is one thing. This is another. 

This should be the end of his tenure as athletic director. Job one is fix all the shit Harbaugh's going to blow past. Job one. 

What about the money? The Post article cites that spreadsheet claiming that the operation was going to cost 15k a year. This naturally leads to questions about where that money is coming from for a guy who makes 55k a year. I have one dollar that answer is "mom and dad."

Video posted publicly from the father of Connor Stalions shows Stalions and his father on the sidelines of Michigan’s 2017 away game at Indiana wearing sideline passes.

Story on key questions of the NCAA’s probe into UM’s alleged sign-stealing operation https://t.co/Ynhx6nU8Q0 pic.twitter.com/LpMQwEh3e4

— Matt Fortuna (@Matt_Fortuna) October 24, 2023

Sideline passes are hard to come by.

Meanwhile 95% of the time there's an article in the newspaper about how This 25 Year Old Bought A House In A City there's a paragraph that says "mom and dad are loaded." A lot of Stalions backstory makes more sense in that context. My dude can drive back to Ann Arbor when Navy is on the road because he doesn't have to care about money. Devin Gardner remembered him as the guy at every road game:

Devin Gardner on Connor Stalions for the @michiganinsider podcast:

"(Connor Stalions) used to be just a fan. He would be at every away game we went to. Like when we got off the bus, go in the hotel, he would be there waiting, just cheering us on. I was like, 'This dude is so… pic.twitter.com/sEFYPMcq9e

— Jim Weber (@JimMWeber) October 23, 2023

Gardner was at Michigan from 2010-14. Stalions would have been 15-19 in that span. One doesn't show up at every Michigan road game for a period of four-five years as a teenager unless your parents are well off. There is literally a post on MGoBlog from 2012 in which a "cstalionsuofm" says Frank Clark gave him his gloves. I don't think Stalions was saying "hello dad I need money for Crimes"; I do think it's likely the prospect of a parental backstop is all but mandatory if you're going to live your life like Stalions apparently was.

Noise. If you've been on Twitter the past week you've probably noticed various Ohio State fans breathlessly relating facts like "Stalions stood next to the defensive coordinator" and "Michigan knew a pass was coming on third and goal from the four and then gave up a touchdown." All of this is meaningless. Yes, obviously Stalions was the sign-stealing guy. Therefore he got put next to the people who wanted to know about signs. You're allowed to steal signs. All that matters is Stalions going outside the bounds of the rules to steal said signs. Not one thing an OSU fan has posted is evidence of anything other than Stalions being the sign-stealing guy, which no one denies.

Silver lining. Hoo boy, some of these quotes coming out make OSU's program sound dumber than dirt:

Former Ohio State OL Dawand Jones says the Buckeyes suspected that Michigan had stolen their signs and made some changes, but “couldn’t change everything.” pic.twitter.com/Md2aCT4fey

— The Silver Bulletin (@tSilverBulletin) October 25, 2023

You mean to tell me that you thought Michigan had your signs in 2021 and didn't have a plan for 2022? That you were caught off guard for the freakin' Game? That you couldn't just use wristbands? At some point it's on you, right?

Also, obligatory:

Young guys take note. This is how you fire through a guy! ( via @aidanhutch97 ) pic.twitter.com/fjwCVtLZ5P

— Europe's Elite (@EuropesEliteEE) December 11, 2021