Did Connor Stallions just go rogue?
This entire affair has me shaking my head for two big reasons. First in disbelief at how stupid and inept it was, and secondly from disappointment at how reckless and flat out inexcusable it all is. Stipulated that the rule is fairly silly and that the advantage gained is minimal. But that just points to how idiotic it was to do this in the first place. If it is all so dumb and unimportant, why was it important enough to risk getting caught and tarnish the program and the potential championship seasons when this has been happening? What's more, what kind of idiot blatantly schemes and suborns cheating like this and uses his own name and involves so many people that it is bound to come back on you? It's just stupidity on stilts, and not only shows the program to be willing to cheat for no good reason, but that it hires idiots to boot!
With that said, I don't want to give the impression that I think the problem is just that Michigan has gotten caught and looks dumb. The problem is that this was reckless and a blatant violation of the rules. All of the information gleaned by this moronic scheme can be gleaned without cheating. And by most accounts, the cheating offers very little advantage. So that raises the question, if Michigan is willing to take a risk to gain such a pointless edge as this, what are they willing to do for a real advantage? Now, if other questions pop up, it's much harder to just wave them away as baseless or the ravings of jealous opponents. What if rumors about Ben Herbert crop up and people start wondering if the results he gets from three star athletes is really on the up and up? Will you still just immediately give the program the benefit of the doubt? Can you reasonably expect people who aren't fans of Michigan to give credence to any denials?
Now, if it can be shown that this really was just one stupid staffer that went rogue, maybe a lot of the reputational harm can be mitigated, but not entirely. And honestly, this whole operation required some serious money that a low level staffer isn't just funding out of pocket. What's more, if the information he was gaining wasn't being used by the program, why would it go on for multiple years? The answer is that of course the information was being used, and of course Stallions wasn't doing this on his own with his own money. So, I find any argument that claims that people fairly high up the ladder weren't in the know to be naive or disingenuous. Andy Staples today reported that people had been posting on a Tennessee message board last season, well before any of these allegations came out, that family or friends had been given money by Michigan to do this type of scouting, and that they were to make sure that the information couldn't be connected to Harbaugh. We don't have some big rivalry with Tennessee. Why would a rando make that up? I would have dismissed it before all the other evidence came to light. Now I am willing to believe it could be true.
Bottom line, this is a bigger deal than most here are willing to believe. The fact that it probably has very little to do with the wins the program has had over the last few years doesn't lessen that fact, it actually makes the cheating worse because it was so unnecessary. And don't be surprised to discover that people higher on the totem pole than Connor Stallions get in trouble for this.
October 25th, 2023 at 10:12 AM ^
Even the unearthed message board postings said 'Harbaugh can never hear about this'. If this was this Stallions dude going rogue and getting money for it from some shady booster, it's a bad look, but it won't shake my faith in the program. It would have to go up to the coordinator level or above for me to be really be concerned.
October 25th, 2023 at 10:43 AM ^
where was it posted "harbaugh can never hear about this" ?
October 25th, 2023 at 12:09 PM ^
Last night a couple posts showed up on my "For You" page on Twitter that were message board posts from different schools last year. One of them said, my friend gets everything paid for but they can never let Harbaugh know.
October 25th, 2023 at 10:13 AM ^
All of the posts repeating the finger wagging at how unnecessary my post is are hilarious and a testament to the self-awareness of the board scolds here. LMAO
October 25th, 2023 at 10:17 AM ^
Keep telling yourself this.
October 25th, 2023 at 10:27 AM ^
At least spell ‘Stalions’ correctly in your OP title. Then GTFO.
October 25th, 2023 at 10:30 AM ^
hey, you got exactly the reaction you wanted. congratulations, i guess.
October 25th, 2023 at 10:54 AM ^
Your own self awareness could be much improved, Mike.
October 25th, 2023 at 12:30 PM ^
Clean your keyboard and hands mikey that’s a good boy
October 25th, 2023 at 10:19 AM ^
"The problem is that this was...a blatant violation of the rules."
I know people want to be hysterical, but no it wasn't. It was in a grey area of a vague, outdated rule. Reckless, maybe, and morally, not great. But if you're looking for concrete, legislated morality across college football, I have a bridge to sell you.
October 25th, 2023 at 10:28 AM ^
I can even argue that it's hardly immoral to try and obtain information that's readily available to tens of thousands of people that go to every single football game
October 25th, 2023 at 10:47 AM ^
Yep that's a reasonable take too, these are public events we're talking about at the end of the day. And it's not practical to enforce that scouting rule for all third parties at the game. The rule doesn't even mention taping. The Forever Saturday podcast addressed this scenario well: if a coach buys a family member a ticket for another game and that family member tells them that they had a good time and Team X played well, and shared some cell phone videos of themselves at the game, does that violate it too? If a coach talked to their friend who attended a game independently, does that violate it too? I know some have made the point that Connor Stalions directing these people to the games is what made the difference. But the rule doesn't get into that kind of detail. If someone wants to argue that the free tickets were compensation and hence opened the door for these third parties to qualify as "staff" or a commercial entity, that's fine. But you're right, not even the moral angle is completely clear.
October 25th, 2023 at 10:29 AM ^
I mean it’s absolutely a clear violation of a rule. It might not hold up in a court of law but the ncaa is not a court of law. To avoid getting a punishment Michigan would have to go full scorched earth and sue the ncaa and completely stonewall everything.
And even that is risky if you get into the courts and the sportsbooks get involved like there are rumors they might.
October 25th, 2023 at 10:42 AM ^
I disagree, I think you can make a reasonable argument on either side of it. The legislative notes for the no in-person scouting rule contemplated making the exceptions (for the same event or championship events) only for coaches, but then settled on "institutional staff." Because it would be ridiculous to make the Director of Operations leave an NCAA tournament session after his or her team's game finishes. So that implies that the main rule should stop there as well (nor is it practical to enforce the main rule very far beyond that). The "spirit of the rule" was probably violated, however you want to define it. But that is a giant can of worms to open if it becomes the enforcement standard.
If you're saying the NCAA will hammer us at any opportunity and this grey area gives them an opening to do so, I'm with you. But I don't think it's a straightforward rule violation.
October 25th, 2023 at 10:28 AM ^
IARAL IHFUT OSTH
October 25th, 2023 at 10:21 AM ^
I read it all. There are some good points but others that are kind of out there.
Two of the more prominent points from the post:
-Does this mean that going forward all accusations of impropriety or cheating or illegality can be dismissed easily? No, which the point makes and I agree with.
-Is it likely that it reaches above Stalions and that other, possibly important coaches are connected to it? Unsure, but doubtful as it would be very hard to prove, just as it’s hard to prove if the infraction actually resulted in any meaningful advantage for UM.
October 25th, 2023 at 10:21 AM ^
I don't even know what his cousin Connor Stalions did, much less this guy. Maybe he went rouge.
October 25th, 2023 at 10:21 AM ^
Probably not worth it's own thread but Bacon said on radio its Stapleton leaking from the NCAA
October 25th, 2023 at 10:23 AM ^
Frankly that would be a better thread topic than 80% of the self-therapeutic thread topics we're getting these days.
October 25th, 2023 at 10:29 AM ^
If you google Jim Stapleton the first page still has the deleted message board post from a couple of days ago. The link doesn't open of course and all you can see is the title and the first half-sentence, but that's enough to get the gist.
Just another example of how hard it is to delete something.
October 25th, 2023 at 10:22 AM ^
I'm so glad you made a post about this...
October 25th, 2023 at 10:23 AM ^
I'm not following this scandal all that closely, mostly because I don't see any way it could impact this season. The Notice of Allegations hasn't even been delivered yet, which will start the 90-day clock just for a response. Then the NCAA has to review the response, decide to proceed with a hearing, and so on. In other words, any competent defense should be able to drag this out for years (see Kansas's 6-year NCAA investigation).
However, I find it hard to believe this guy went rogue on his own. He was making $55k per year yet buying a ton of tickets on the secondary market? I'm guessing he had some financial backing, though I have no idea from whom.
The rule is dumb, and I don't think any of our success has been based on "sign stealing." However, that's irrelevant. The rule is on the books, and so far, this doesn't look good (at least, based on what I've seen). If the NCAA decides games were impacted, it could lead to serious violations. But likely not this season, if ever. So I'm going to enjoy the ride for now.
October 25th, 2023 at 10:30 AM ^
everybody keeps making this stupid 55k / year point. Seriously, no one has any idea how much money this guy has, how he spends his money, etc. Any claim of "that ain't possible on 55k / year" is just plain dumb.
October 25th, 2023 at 10:30 AM ^
His Michigan salary was listed at $55K but it has been established he had other side hustles. We don't know his family situation or personal debt situation. Also how much do people think tickets cost? If we assume he scouts 15 games per year for an average ticket cost of $300 (trying to balance garbage games and high end ones) he still wouldn't crack $5K in expenses. That is not that much in the right circumstance.
October 25th, 2023 at 10:25 AM ^
This could have been communicated in a shorter post somewhere else. Or not.
October 25th, 2023 at 10:26 AM ^
You have to be a massive homer to believe he just went rogue. It would also take a very large amount of ignoring by the coaching staff.
There is talk right now of the sportsbooks getting involved. This is a lot worse than this blog is making it out to be. The level of impact on game outcomes is meaningless, the cheating falls in an “integrity of the game” bucket. That opens the door to a lot of bad punishments
October 25th, 2023 at 10:40 AM ^
Meh. I don’t think we know enough to say that much. This was a superfan who hustled his way onto the staff somehow. He had a lot of incentive to bend the rules to get to where he wanted to be
October 25th, 2023 at 10:45 AM ^
Talk from Aaron Torres? The guy who needs clicks on his little YouTube show with Fox?
October 25th, 2023 at 11:11 AM ^
Well I am a massive homer so that works out well.
But, in all honestly, this guy going rogue is not far fetched at all. He did the same job as a volunteer before he was even paid.
October 25th, 2023 at 11:29 AM ^
I'm not naive enough to say I'm sure he went rogue. You can't rule anything out. But again, I think it's a decent possibility. The coaches would have to be massively stupid to officially sanction this tactic and/or officially reimburse any expenses. Grey area of the rule or not, you're inviting trouble by allowing this in any traceable way. I'm sure they raised an eyebrow when they saw how good he was at stealing signs, but "don't ask, don't tell" is the more likely scenario and it's hard to prove and punish that. I know the NCAA has the weird rule that head coaches should somehow know everything, but we're not even sure it was a rules violation.
October 25th, 2023 at 12:56 PM ^
You are a pitiful concern troll.
October 25th, 2023 at 10:27 AM ^
The day I care about NCAA violations is a cold day in I don't know 1998? I don't give a shit about 'reputational damage' and neither should you.
October 25th, 2023 at 10:27 AM ^
Dang there are 13 or possibly 12 teams of tickets/teams that have already posted this new thought if yours. Just let the BIG10 go to AA they'll let,"you" know soon!!!
October 25th, 2023 at 10:27 AM ^
In the words of the great Dude Lebowski, "that's like your opinion man".
October 25th, 2023 at 10:30 AM ^
Downvoted for too many words; upvoted for using "raising the question" instead of "begging the question."
Stance: neutral.
October 25th, 2023 at 10:31 AM ^
The one upside on this is that it's going to be really obvious what the truth is when it comes out. Literally nothing about this seems to have been done with any care for secrecy; if there's anything to be found there it will be. It's going to be a matter of FOIA-reachable record exactly what was going on.
There's going to be penalties because you can't just let people in your programs break rules, but there's clearly enough of a compliance effort going on that Stallions knew he had to go outside the bounds of the program to gather this information. That side of LOIC is not likely; the only other way it comes down to that is if the program was directly aware of how Stallions was stealing signs. And that should become very clear without much difficulty.
I have reason to hope because, so far as I can tell, every other aspect of this investigation has leaked like a fucking sieve but there's been literally no evidence of that going public as of yet.
October 25th, 2023 at 10:39 AM ^
The OP is so spot-on. And imho, the reason they were so cavalier about this is because they viewed it as a "work around" or loop hole of the rule rather than as a violation of the letter of the rule.
October 25th, 2023 at 10:42 AM ^
Thanks for the post. I feel similarly. Hope you enjoy Bolivia
October 25th, 2023 at 10:44 AM ^
You underestimate the fire with which Tennessee fans hate UM because of Woodson beating Peyton out for the Heisman,
October 25th, 2023 at 10:45 AM ^
I think Tennessee is still mad at us over Woodson intercepting Payton's Heisman, though not really a rivalry and not enough to accuse them of making it up, the certainly would believe a rumor quicker than say LSU, and possibly enhance it from "asked someone and gave them tickets" up to "paid for scouting"
I do find it believable that Stalions was such a super fan and wanted to impress the coaches with his ability so much that he did it all on his own if all it took was to buy tickets. The guy reportedly lived in his living room and rented out all of his bedrooms just to be at all away games before he made his way into the program.
October 25th, 2023 at 10:45 AM ^
I refuse to believe that an officer in the United States Marine Corps knowingly "went rogue."
There is no way this plan was not vetted thoroughly. By whom is the question though.
October 25th, 2023 at 10:45 AM ^
Andy Staples today reported that people had been posting on a Tennessee message board last season, well before any of these allegations came out, that family or friends had been given money by Michigan to do this type of scouting, and that they were to make sure that the information couldn't be connected to Harbaugh.
"Tennessee message board" is not exactly a sterling source, but I hope the Harbaugh statement is true. It shows that this was not program-wide, that "everybody in the program knew about it" is not true, that enough compliance was done that people knew it was wrong, and that it was therefore indeed a rouge operation.
Now was it one rouge or two rouges or more rouges? We'll see.
Also, what does family or friends had been given money by Michigan mean? Who or what was "Michigan?"
October 25th, 2023 at 10:57 AM ^
Every hater is piling on with false allegations trying to tie this to higher Michigan brass based on "sources" knowing that throwing mud gets even the cleanest of the clean permanently dirty in the process. I.e,. don't care.
October 25th, 2023 at 12:40 PM ^
I saw that post. It's dumb. I wouldn't worry about it. Whatever it's about has nothing to do with the ops Stalions was running.
The posts they're talking about allege someone from Michigan offered to pay them to sit "directly behind the Tennessee bench," which is the last place in the stadium you'd sit to observe hand signals from the team on that sideline.
You could argue you'd be closer to the placards being held up, except (1) they're facing away from you and (2) none of this is about placards. The hand gestures are the only things that matter.
October 25th, 2023 at 1:21 PM ^
On top of that, if guys like Andy Staples are going to start reporting message board rumors as the only source, we should really step up our game here. We could be famous and really do some damage.
October 25th, 2023 at 10:49 AM ^
I think the biggest question is will Stallions become the Bartman of Michigan Football?
October 25th, 2023 at 10:50 AM ^
This seems like a post more suited for a diary? A very, very bad diary?
October 25th, 2023 at 10:53 AM ^
People are dumb and do dumb things for minimal risk. I heard there was a coach with a guaranteed $95M contract, that lost it all to do stuff on a virtual phone call. Stupid.
My guess is, this guy did act Rogue, but Michigan probably didn't think much of it and it did provide a small advantage of a rule that most thought was dumb, so didn't stop him, and now we are in a mess where sports journalists and opposing fans are looking for views and anything to bring down Michigan.