The first Conner Stalions lackey to speak
--"a couple hundred dollars" and a ticket to a Michigan home game
--former Division 3 football player and coach
--uploaded the videos he took on his personal cell phone to a shared iPhone photo album
--was wary of Stalions' plan "to a degree" when he was first approached... but felt that if someone from Michigan's staff was asking him to do this that it must fall safely in the gray area of rules.
--"I just felt like if you're not doing it, you're not trying to get ahead."
FULL ARTICLE: https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/38758564/ex-d-iii-coach-says-u-m-staffer-hired-record-future-big-10-foes
October 27th, 2023 at 9:13 PM ^
This!
OSU poached our DC, every year there are at least a few players and a coach or two leaving for other schools. So you have to assume anything the coaches know about will be known by our opponents the next year. So you have stay in compliance or it WILL come to light.
October 27th, 2023 at 8:48 PM ^
Anyone else a bit worried about Stallion himself? Imagine if WD’s email didn’t lead to Brandon being fired but rather signed to a lifetime extension and WD made persona non grata at games.
I gotta believe it wouldn’t end well for anyone. And Stallion was no less of an obsessive fanboy than WD was back in the day.
I honestly hope someone is checking on him. The dude thot we was helping and now…..
October 27th, 2023 at 8:58 PM ^
He should talk to Steve Bartman.
October 27th, 2023 at 9:06 PM ^
I was thinking the same mGrowOld. Imagine being Connor Stallions right now. A huge Michigan fan his whole life, volunteers, gets a job on staff, and is right there every day living the dream. Now his name is being dragged through the mud all over the country, and his actions are going to result in some kind of punishment for his favorite team. On top of that, an article is published making him look like a nut job. He must be crushed.
October 27th, 2023 at 9:39 PM ^
Then don't do what he clearly did.
Yes, it's a dumb "jaywalking" rule that didn't exist until the '90s, and probably won't exist in a couple of years. But for now it's a rule, and they can nail you on it if they want to. If you take the (unnecessary) risk you have to accept the results.
October 28th, 2023 at 4:06 PM ^
What rule was broken? Still not clear to me what he did wrong.
October 27th, 2023 at 9:17 PM ^
What happened to WD, I liked the kid. I appreciated his devotion to Michigan. I was pretty fanatical in Middle/High School myself until life kept getting in the way.
October 27th, 2023 at 9:26 PM ^
I said it when this all started that it was incredibly shitty for Thamel to name drop him like that. There wasn't even a formal complaint and he was already out there being vilified for what does sure seem like a gray area and not by some criminal mastermind. He's gotta feel terrible and it's unlikely this won't be the first thing that comes up on a Google search for his name for years.
He likely did something wrong but it was not remotely as bad as what a lot of others have done, and yet they've been able to live in anonymity and this guy, who really loves UM, has had his entire life turned upside down because some asshole at ESPN wanted to seem like a big shot.
October 27th, 2023 at 9:40 PM ^
I had the same thought. This is the sort of thing that can lead to someone eating a bullet.
October 29th, 2023 at 3:20 AM ^
LOL. WD is EXACTLY who I conflated this to, also! I think you're correct that we should have concerns for Stalions; WD was a kid, kids do stuff and then grow up. Stalions is a former Marine officer who went to Annapolis. Honor, integrity, excellence, etc. Living his dream working on the sidelines and in Schembechler Hall with Harbaugh. He has to be feeling like his whole world has gone to complete shit.
October 27th, 2023 at 8:48 PM ^
but felt that if someone from Michigan's staff was asking him to do this that it must fall safely in the gray area of rules.
It did.
October 27th, 2023 at 8:51 PM ^
Allegedly… Not believing anything until the NCAA issues a notice of allegations.
October 27th, 2023 at 8:52 PM ^
If you think about getting back to the core rule of not videotaping a game with your phone. The rule was going to be abolished in 2021 as we all know bc it’s archaic - it was put in place before almost every game was televised and smaller schools wouldn’t have the money. Did we break that rule? Possibly, and, possibly without any knowledge of the coaching staff. Do you think Jim Harbaugh is relying on SparTac flip-phone footage from some jerkoff who had never played football? And if he did, that is why they are 8-0 and not 4-4? OSU knew every played we would run in 2021 and 2022. The whole country did. They could NOT stop it. Bring all the evidence, this doesn’t mean nearly anything.
sidebar, Harbaughs promotion for student-athletes takes money out of the NCAAs pockets (i.e. revenue sharing). It’s not hard to connect some dots whether this rule everyone found out about last week was broken or not.
October 28th, 2023 at 12:28 PM ^
Please provide the full text of “the core rule of not videotaping a game with your phone.” I’m not sure such a specific rule exists. There is a NCAA bylaw against “off-campus, in-person” scouting of future opponents in that season. What is “off-campus”? Are not most all college football stadiums on campus? At the least, the NCAA should be the one to suffer from its lousy drafting. It doesn’t even define “scouting.” Is observing sufficient? Arguably not as the bylaws also use the word “observing.”
My pet theory—asked of the program who put the NCAA onto this, “what clued you into Michigan’s recording scheme?” Answer: “The Michigan guy was sitting next to and blocking the view of the guy we sent to record signals and players at the game.”
October 27th, 2023 at 8:55 PM ^
I wonder if Ryan Day pays these clown "journalists" extra for a friday night "leak"
October 27th, 2023 at 11:20 PM ^
He and Thamel clearly have a "thing"
October 27th, 2023 at 8:58 PM ^
Allegedly
October 27th, 2023 at 8:59 PM ^
"I wasn't doing it for personal gain or hoping to get my foot in the door if Conor becomes a head coach someday," he said.
Our boy Connor was really selling everyone on that takeover of his, wasn’t he?
October 27th, 2023 at 9:01 PM ^
November 25th can't come soon enough.
October 27th, 2023 at 9:03 PM ^
This guy is a coach and even he didn't think there was anything wrong with doing it. "It's a gray area."
Nobody actually thinks this is a big deal. Some people are just hoping to make it look like a big deal for their own agendas.
October 27th, 2023 at 9:08 PM ^
Sounds like he’s crushing it.
October 27th, 2023 at 9:22 PM ^
I suspect that "former player and coach" might mean he was a former player who was a GA for a year afterwards and then this was just something he did because he knew ball a bit. I may be wrong because all these articles are written terribly when it comes to details like that.
October 28th, 2023 at 6:46 AM ^
No doubt the articles are written either for click bait or to make Michigan look bad.
On the analyst side, if you were football geek with an interest in data, analytics, and strategy, (like me) it would be hard to pass on an opportunity to get paid to attend a football game and gather data for analytics. I think many of us are racking our memories to see if there was a play where Michigan really knew what was coming (more than all of us knew what was coming.) I can't think of one (I think I watched maybe 60% of the snaps.)
I keep flashing back to Russell Belamy stepping in for Denard Robinson and telegraphing the play so completely Nebraska's safety and linebacker were crashing hard and early to the play gap BEFORE the ball was snapped. So much so that Devin Gardner playing MSU was less humiliating.
October 28th, 2023 at 9:00 AM ^
I think the public perception problem is the term sign “ stealing”.
Most of the public doesn’t have a clue about what really is going on, but they hear “stealing” - stealing is bad, stealing is cheating. Then you get knuckleheads like thamiel etc… saying it’s cheating and bans are coming. That’s what is hard to erase. If it was called sign deciphering it would have a different perception.
October 27th, 2023 at 9:05 PM ^
"I only did a half because it was pouring rain and they were playing UMass," the source said. "It didn't pay well enough so I was like, 'Yeah, I'm not staying here.'"
Their opponent has nothing to do with it, you halfwit. It's about the signs, doesn't matter if they were playing a H.S. JV team. Give Connor his money back.
October 27th, 2023 at 9:15 PM ^
Ryan Day thinks this is what's beaten his team the last two years?
October 28th, 2023 at 11:17 AM ^
No. He knows. But he NEEDS some cover, in case he loses again this year (which is at least fairly likely). You can't be the OSU coach if you can't beat Michigan. He knows that too.
October 29th, 2023 at 3:29 AM ^
But if your cover is removed and you get pants again, then you're really in it, aren't you? Man, do I ever want Michigan to go all Dan Campbell kneecap chewing at the end of November.
October 27th, 2023 at 9:13 PM ^
The man, a former Division III football player and coach, spoke to ESPN on the condition that his name not be published because he was concerned about his privacy.
What a fucking surprise. How are these news outlets reporting breaking news unable to provide one source? NOT ONE...some women, third-party investigation firm, D111 coach, etc. All anonymous. Absolute joke.
October 27th, 2023 at 9:19 PM ^
Again, this mostly follows the trend since last week that the initial reporting was Stalions had a network of guys he got info from as they scouted games and it has mostly been color since.
Also, like all these articles it feels really Mad Libs in that the bones are all the same - sign stealing isn't illegal but this is a gray area - and then various random quotes thrown in from anonymous sources mostly painting this as a rinky dink operation run by an obsessive weirdo with some money.
October 27th, 2023 at 9:20 PM ^
There will be a couple more
"journalists" need to keep the story alive until the CFP rankings come out next week.
October 27th, 2023 at 9:28 PM ^
So a guy went to a college football game that 80,000 other people were at, and that was nationally televised, and recorded part of it with his iPhone from 50 yards away and then uploaded it to a shared album.
Yes, we deserve the death penalty.
October 28th, 2023 at 6:55 AM ^
Careful, after Jamal Crawford and stretch-gate, anything is possible even if North Carolina doesn't even try to keep the student in student-athlete. Some staff at the NCAA are petty beyond my comprehension.
October 27th, 2023 at 9:32 PM ^
At least the article states the actual rules:
”It is against NCAA rules for staff members of a football program to scout games of future opponents in person. The NCAA football rulebook also prohibits "an opposing player, coach or other team personnel" from recording an opponent's signals through audio or video.”
No one on Michigan’s staff did either of these things.
October 27th, 2023 at 9:33 PM ^
I know it’s a Friday night so drop news you want to bury time, but this really isn’t anything and if anything I think actually helps the rogue staffer narrative:
- Shared iPhone album = tied to an individual / personal iCloud account rather than an AD drive.
- Not paid a lot of money
- Paid from a personal Venmo of Stalions
- Didn’t even finish filming
- Only spoke to Stalions
The article even sites the rule about it needing to be coaches/staff who attend to violate the rule (this might be the first time I’ve seen that in a more national publication actually being noted).
That’s a lot of Stalions and a lot of things that aren’t in any way tied to the larger program. Yawn.
October 27th, 2023 at 9:50 PM ^
Definitely helps the rogue staffer narrative.
This was all pretty half-assed, fly-by-night stuff.
The "scout" walked off the job halfway through filming the Penn State - UMass game, but he was still going to be used for the Penn State - Indiana game anyway. Not exactly a crack operation run by a multi-million dollar organization.
October 27th, 2023 at 10:04 PM ^
Perhaps they’re trying to start walking this back, because they know where it’s heading.
October 27th, 2023 at 10:54 PM ^
The article even sites the rule
cites. Site is a noun.
October 27th, 2023 at 9:42 PM ^
I love the story, I wonder how much he got paid for it… 😂😂😂
October 27th, 2023 at 9:51 PM ^
Going out with a bang there, eh ESPN?
Yeah this story is toast. “Former D3 Coach Paid To Watch UMass Game”…. and you’ve already lost interest. Here in lies the issue with this rule and story in general. Nobody gives a shit if you’re a school like UMass and you’re scouting others teams or if you’re scouting teams like UMass.
But replace UMass with Michigan, OSU, Clemson, Bama, etc… and you set the world on fire. This is hypocrisy at its finest and “selective” investigating because of the powers in charge at UM. The NCAA damn well knows this happens at most other schools but chooses to investigate UM because half the leg work is done and the UM brand helps sell the story that the NCAA is still relevant…
Can’t say this story is a complete nothingburger but let’s call it a nothingburger with cheese.
October 27th, 2023 at 10:20 PM ^
Is his manifesto as dumb as his actions?
October 27th, 2023 at 10:39 PM ^
This is probably nothing, but I was at the Michigan-Rutgers game this year and there was a guy in my section in plain clothes with a bluetooth earpiece, and he was just saying the down and distance before every play and then saying "snap" as the balled was snapped. Did it for every play. I didn't think it was suspicious, just odd. It seems a little suspicious now but I still don't really understand why he would be doing it. The guy's comment in the article about syncing video up made me think it might be something like that but that doesn't quite make sense. Any ideas why someone would be doing that, for legitimate reasons or not? Was I witnessing OSU's Stallions in action?
October 27th, 2023 at 10:54 PM ^
Good question, definitely seems very strange and suspicious given these recent events. I don't have a guess as to how that fits in a particular operation though.
October 27th, 2023 at 10:57 PM ^
So I’ll throw out an idea: He was talking to someone watching the game live on TV and was trying to compare plays and timing of the delay to live broadcast? That would fit with these actions. Not sure why you’d have to do it a ton though…
October 28th, 2023 at 8:46 AM ^
Yeah, that would make sense if he was doing it once a drive or something but it was every single play in which the crowd was quiet enough for me to be within earshot. Obviously I wasn't listening the whole game but there was probably like a 5-6 play sequence where I was just trying to figure out what he was doing and he wasn't talking at all other than his "snap" calls.
October 27th, 2023 at 10:58 PM ^
Time to hire an investigative firm, there's no way M only scores 52 against Indiana if it weren't for Bluetooth headset guy!
Ryan Day must be so much fun to hang out with..... what a douche
October 28th, 2023 at 4:10 AM ^
Go report it. They’ll figure it out and hire a private investigator lmao….
October 28th, 2023 at 1:44 AM ^
Not to be paranoid or anything, but given Thamel works for ESPN and they have the rights to the SEC, is there any chance that this is a hit job directed by ESPN to enhance the value of their rights? Perhaps such a scheme would decrease the chances of the Big Ten from getting teams in the playoff by concocting a visage of corruption that contaminates the entire Big Ten. I’m not sure what it would do to help ESPN but it’s fun to ponder in absurdist comedy kind of way kind of like that Brad Pitt movie Burn After Reading.