FB Dive

November 7th, 2023 at 3:33 PM ^

I think it's a gray area, just like it was with Stalions. The 11.6 bylaw and the Big Ten rules are vague and poorly written. The point is that you can't impose a rushed and unprecedented punishment on Michigan when it's clear that other schools were essentially doing the same thing.

Hensons Mobile…

November 7th, 2023 at 3:18 PM ^

When JUB says "raises question re: relative competitive advantage" does he mean because everyone has everyone's signs or does he mean because those teams lost badly despite having Michigan's signs?

gbdub

November 7th, 2023 at 3:18 PM ^

If we’re getting punishment under a “sportsmanship” clause, this would clearly violate that too. If in-person scouting is wrong, this is in-person scouting. 

Hensons Mobile…

November 7th, 2023 at 3:20 PM ^

I believe since we've had two days in a row of information being released we've reached the threshold for "OMG this keeps getting bigger and worse and is ever-expanding ahhhhhhhhh!"

Isn't that how it works?

Bryan

November 7th, 2023 at 3:20 PM ^

If the rule that Stalions is alleged to have broken (there’s an argument to be made that no rules were technically violated - aside from whether it was him at CMU) is to prevent advanced scouting because it leads to a competitive advantage, then why would it be permissible for opposing coaches and staff to share signs, obtained during a game (which is permissible) be any different in terms of a competitive advantage. 
 

I think that’s what has been missing here. If team M does it this way and team 4523 does it another way, but they lead to the same result, why can one be punished and the other not.

mGrowOld

November 7th, 2023 at 3:25 PM ^

The question I've been asking as well.

Why is it some massive competitive advantadge when Stallion steals their signs but it's of no real impact when one of their coaches steal ours and pass it along to another school?  I think even an OSU fan would admit there's a pretty big inconsistency in their arguement.

Who the hell am i kidding?  They would be too busy yelling CHEATERS to stop and think about this for one second.

los barcos

November 7th, 2023 at 5:59 PM ^

The unfair competitive portion of the conversation no longer exists - Buckey mouth breathers are only talking about the method, which they say sharing signs with coaches isn’t illegal . They can’t understand logic and reasoning so it’s pointless to argue with them at this point.

M-Dog

November 7th, 2023 at 6:35 PM ^

Why is it some massive competitive advantadge when Stallion steals their signs but it's of no real impact when one of their coaches steal ours

Well Stalions did have that one "scout" that left the Penn State-UMass game at halftime because it was boring and it was raining.  That kind of astute intelligence working for you is an inherent massive competitive advantage.

JBLPSYCHED

November 7th, 2023 at 3:21 PM ^

Despite being a college football fan for over 50 years, as of 3 weeks ago I was completely naive about how pervasive sign decoding is. Now that it is clearer to me that it happens all the time, every week, every season, and that coaches share what they know with each other, it is also clear to me how this issue is treated within the college football coaching community (ie. as an open secret).

Seen in that context, a rogue analyst like Connor Stalions who wants to make a name for himself (let alone become Michigan's head coach someday) and who looks for loopholes and exploits them to gain further advantage is clearly no big deal.

If Day and Schiano can send our stuff--literally down to the play calls--to Jeff Brohm before the B1G championship game then it's open season. Nobody wanted to talk about it or really cared until we became two time B1G champs. In actuality it's just another week in a normal college football season.

grumbler

November 7th, 2023 at 7:53 PM ^

Isiah Hole talked a couple of weeks ago about the sign-decoding weenies on all the Big Ten teams sharing their data on a quid pro quo basis: "you give me what you have on Maryland and I'll give you what I have on Rutgers."  His belief was that this was being done to make the weenies look good to their bosses, with benefits to their team just a byproduct.  It wasn't a secret practice and Michigan almost certainly was in on it.  Some of the games Stalions sent people to make more sense if he was doing it to get trade leverage.

M-Dog

November 7th, 2023 at 6:42 PM ^

This is a good point.  They got some amazing detail from just watching in-game.  Seems like the kind of detail you would need to record electronically to be able to retain.  That's a no no.

Somebody on the Ohio State sideline or in the Ohio State press box was likely recording Michigan's signals.

Somebody should look at footage of the game and see if they can pick somebody out doing this . . .

MGoCali

November 7th, 2023 at 3:23 PM ^

This is important to move the conversation toward changing the rules since this is all stupid anyway. Get headsets or mandate wrist bands. We need the coaches and Big Ten ADs to stop pearl clutching and admit that none of this really matters. Perhaps even the NCAA will just go toward a rule change in the end if we can thread this needle. 

NJblue2

November 7th, 2023 at 3:24 PM ^

Disappointing that alma mater (Rutgers) would do this. It's not surprising though since we seem to really hate Michigan and Penn State. Penn State makes sense (local, ton of NJ people go there so we run into them a bunch) and that's probably target number 1. I never understood the hate for Michigan and the respect for OSU among the fanbase.