SI confirms “Rivals” shared UM signals
Sports Illustrated just posted via Instagram “Two single-page documents listing detailed breakdowns of Michigan's deciphered signals were shared last season with a Big Ten school set to face the Wolverines, Si's @bypatforde and @ri_cfb report.”
I’m guessing the NCAA and B10 may decide to back off since this is just the tip of the iceberg as to the information UM has on everyone. I almost hope they press their luck so we can go scorched earth on them all. Defamation suits all around!
November 7th, 2023 at 1:59 AM ^
It will be delicious when ESPN has to actually cover this now after Thamel tried to bury it.
November 7th, 2023 at 6:43 AM ^
I finally deleted the ESPN app in favor of the Fox Sports app. Small protest. It is kind of nice though, I can select what teams I want to follow and the news stories on the front page are curated to them, as opposed to that list of random shit on the front page of the ESPN app.
November 7th, 2023 at 6:52 AM ^
I cancelled my ESPN+ subscription..They are now ONLY concerned about the SEC and will try to protect them and go after everybody else ..they have joined the corrupt media crowd
November 7th, 2023 at 7:45 AM ^
Yahoo sports is way better, surprisingly...
November 7th, 2023 at 8:17 AM ^
I only watch ESPN on pirated streams.
November 7th, 2023 at 1:59 AM ^
“Tony told Michigan this was the worst scandal in Big Ten history, not including game fixing,” one Big Ten administrator told SI.
If there's one thing for certain, it's that we aren't going to get a fair hearing from Pettiti. He ought to at least pretend he hasn't made his mind up until Michigan has filed its response.
I wonder if there's any way we can get this taken out of his hands and referred to an arbitrator instead.
November 7th, 2023 at 3:19 AM ^
an arbitrator, or an "arbitrator"?
November 7th, 2023 at 8:55 AM ^
"Tony told Michigan this was the worst scandal in Big Ten history, not including game fixing,” one Big Ten administrator told SI."
We don't know if this is true or just bullshit from the "Big Ten administrator"
November 7th, 2023 at 9:12 AM ^
True. Thankfully, now that it's in the public sphere, Petty-ti has the opportunity to refute this claim.
November 7th, 2023 at 9:22 AM ^
The fact that anybody from the Big Ten office would say that with a straight face is deeply problematical. Especially when the they have the ability to had down punishments on their own whim.
November 7th, 2023 at 2:14 AM ^
Hypothetically, say Sparty plays UM in October 2022 and films the game. After the game, they decipher some or all of UM's signals and send them to Purdue.
If UM is found to violate the NCAA rule against in person scouting by getting signals off video taken by third parties who attended an opponent's game in person, then any school that got signals from another conference member who deciphered signals based on their own game versus UM violated the same rule.
:pearlsgettingclutched:
Now, if the rule is only violated if an employee goes to the game, then nobody broke the rules...except if CS went to the CMU game.
November 7th, 2023 at 8:14 AM ^
And CS has already been punished way beyond what the Big 12 coach got for the same infraction.
November 7th, 2023 at 8:37 AM ^
I feel like this analysis is getting caught up in the details. Big picture: There were two elements to this "scandal": 1) Stalions sending people (maybe including himself) to other teams' games. 2) Which allegedly allowed Michigan to get a completely unprecedented unfair advantage of knowing their opponents' signs. The logic for why #1 was so bad immediate action needed to be taken was because of #2.
What this new information shows is that other teams in the Big Ten knew Michigan's signs last year. That might not be illegal in the NCAA rules as written. (Though if it isn't, I'd certainly argue that's pretty strong evidence the NCAA does not consider sign stealing to be a significant issue!!) But it almost completely defangs point #2 above. How can you possibly argue that Michigan having your signs is the worst scandal in Big Ten history, but you having Michigan's signs is just business as normal?!
November 7th, 2023 at 9:24 AM ^
The NCAA already said in writing that they consider advance sign scouting an insignificant issue when they tried to rescind the rule in 2021.
November 7th, 2023 at 9:13 AM ^
Not to mention, if any of the schools in-person scouting Michigan's signals for the benefit of other schools used video recording equipment from the press box or sidelines, then they actually violated the NCAA rule against using that equipment to record signals in-game.
November 7th, 2023 at 2:15 AM ^
It seems like the scales are starting to tip the other way from the NCAA saying that Harbaugh was not involved with Stallions to two national publications putting out information that teams stole Michigan's signs. Tony Pettiti will look like a fool if he tries to suspend Harbaugh indefinitely unless he also starts suspending other Big Ten coaches. The thing that I am waiting for is whether Michigan has the receipts of where all of those 5 stars are coming from for Ohio State. Please air the dirty laundry about pay for play for Ryan Day.
November 7th, 2023 at 8:20 AM ^
There are insider Michigan accounts on X who claimed to know what Michigan was releasing yesterday and are posting things like "Drip, drip, drip. Wait until you see tomorrow." According to one of them, Michigan has the receipts on OSU paying players to come in for visits, but that's being held in reserve in case they have to go nuclear.
November 7th, 2023 at 8:31 AM ^
I mean, what is defcon at now? If this isn't nuclear, what is?
November 7th, 2023 at 8:45 AM ^
Right now we're at the beginning of the Muhammad Ali taunting George Foreman stage:
Foreman said: "I was beating him up pretty good, I thought, but in about the sixth round, he started screaming, “Is that all you got, George? Show me something!” That was all I had with him forever. I didn’t want anything to do with him. I didn’t want to fight him anymore."
November 7th, 2023 at 8:47 AM ^
Why hold that back? The time to strike is a week ago. This went nuclear awhile ago.
November 7th, 2023 at 9:15 AM ^
Wait until their drip slows/stops. This maximizes the reach of our drip.
November 7th, 2023 at 2:42 AM ^
The whole thing was a fucking hit job orchestrated by some terrified schools who do not want to face a filling weaponized Michigan under Jim Motherfucking Harbaugh.
I hope this makes him sign a lifetime contract with us and he spends the next 10 years turning buckeyes into roadkill.
Fuck everyone in the B1G. Fuck all the dirt bag reporters.
November 7th, 2023 at 3:39 AM ^
I wonder if it also suggest why those higher up at Michigan wouldn’t necessarily have known what Stallions was doing?
If the argument is ‘they must have known’ (on the basis that Stallions was more accurate with his decoding than you’d otherwise expect without in person recording perhaps?) - this indicates that there were other ‘legal’ methods of decoding going on in the Big10 which could have otherwise explained accuracy.
November 7th, 2023 at 3:52 AM ^
They assume Stalions was 100% perfect in decoding and that teams never changed signals before game
Also, let's say you stole the answers to a test at school. You wouldn't 100% the test because it'd be obvious to the teacher. If Stalions was trying to keep this low key then he could've only "decoded" signals at a lower rate in order to not raise suspicions amongst the staff yet still look good enough at his job
November 7th, 2023 at 7:13 AM ^
Pretty sure Stalions wasn’t 100% on the signs based on plenty of busts that would still happen. That’s not what raised suspicion here.
November 7th, 2023 at 6:04 PM ^
Sorry wasn’t suggesting that he was accurate and that’s what raised suspicions for other teams. I was suggesting that if the argument is that harbaugh and others ‘should have known’ - the question is why should they have known? In the absence of any evidence or paper trail, is the argument that they should have known because he was accurate and they should’ve therefore been suspicious about why?
The release of the decoding document suggests that even if he was accurate, that should not necessarily have raised suspicions about where stallions was getting his info from, as it seems everyone had access to pretty accurate sources of info that were ‘legal’
November 7th, 2023 at 8:02 AM ^
Bro stallions absolutely seems like the type of dude who would cheat on a test and get 100% correct.
November 7th, 2023 at 3:42 AM ^
I wish I wasn’t so cynical, but I don’t see the AP or SI articles (nor anything that may follow to counter the anti-Michigan narrative) making much of a difference with either the B1G, its 13 other members, or Pettiti at this point. All of this would have been presented during the weekend meetings if not earlier - and to no avail. The conference wants Michigan taken down and taken out.
Where it may matter is to a judge in Federal court. We may know before the end of the week.
November 7th, 2023 at 5:51 AM ^
There's also a whole court of public opinion outside of conference leadership. This stuff helps enormously in that space. It ain't cheating if everyone does it.
November 7th, 2023 at 8:47 AM ^
Absolutely. The court of public opinion is enormously important and in time can definitely impact legal and administrative processes. We had completely ceded that space to our enemies, that is changing.
November 7th, 2023 at 7:48 AM ^
That's fine.
Harbaugh can announce leaving the B1G for another conference while accepting his third B1G Championship trophy.
I'm sure Michigan will be accepted with open arms somewhere else.
November 7th, 2023 at 10:22 AM ^
Agree with you that this information will matter most in court. I think the PR battle has largely been forfeited by Michigan and the public will always think of this as the Michigan sign stealing scandal. But, unless the Big10 opens investigations and pursues punishment of every other incident of sign stealing to determine if they were done"legally" or not, this, and the other incidents to come, will be fantastic evidence in court of the Big10's arbitrary and capricious enforcement of its' rules. Also, should it get to it, it will open up all these other coaches, schools, and analysts to discovery about what info they had and how they obtained it. All of that becomes highly relevant to UM's claims in court that it is being unfairly treated by the Big10.
November 7th, 2023 at 4:21 AM ^
So AP and SI have this story, and yet somehow ESPN and Thamel aren't on it. Hmmmm.....
November 7th, 2023 at 4:27 AM ^
Nor anyone else - not even the Detroit papers. The Freep doesn’t surprise me. But the Detroit News? I’m really angered by it.
November 7th, 2023 at 5:53 AM ^
I'm giving it until noon before I pass judgement on the Detroit outlets. They're not 24 hour operations; they're Gannett carcasses running on fumes and taboola ads. It may take them a bit to catch up.
November 7th, 2023 at 6:58 AM ^
"... they're Gannett carcasses running on fumes and taboola ads."
That was LOL for me, thanks.
November 7th, 2023 at 6:11 AM ^
Those guys are busy writing about how Ford Field needs a new anthem.
Those kids will get on this one they finish Circle Time.
November 7th, 2023 at 6:17 AM ^
I believe something happened with MSU basketball in the last 24 hours that may be of interest to the Detroit media as well.
November 7th, 2023 at 8:43 AM ^
During the game, ESPN wasn’t showing the score on their website. Huge potential upset in the works, yet they didn’t have the score. Could that be because the game was on BTN, not an ESPN channel?
ESPN made a business decision years ago to only cover the sports their network is showing. Their integrity has never recovered.
November 7th, 2023 at 8:49 AM ^
Nothing could be truer while I am not sure it isn't a good business decision you have to take steps to mitigate the obviousness of doing this as a Sporting News Network none of which they have done. The shittiest thing about collegiate athletics is that it turned rapidly to show me the money and the money directs the narrative. Nothing is going to ever be good sports wise that way but here we sit. If I'm Michigan and all the reporting is true that other member schools in my conference were colluding against me I'm giving them the middle finger and asking for no more equal revenue sharing. These havenots shitting on one of their two best money makers is un-fucking believable. Do they not know when Michigan does well they do to? There are about 4-5 markets in the Big Ten that could survive on their own generating their own revenue I say lets watch them try.
November 7th, 2023 at 7:14 AM ^
It doesn’t fit their narrative.
November 7th, 2023 at 4:38 AM ^
This is going to be one hell of a documentary one day.
November 7th, 2023 at 6:14 AM ^
If this doesn't violate any sportsmanship rules, I don't know what will. This is the off ramp Pettiti needs to just say he'll pause in light of this new info. Does he really want the practice stuff to come out?
November 7th, 2023 at 8:58 AM ^
He isn't smart enough or strong enough to do that. The rest of the conference has probably promised to renew his contract whenever it comes up as long as he sticks it to Michigan. This isn't the Security Council and unfortunately we don't get a veto.
November 7th, 2023 at 6:15 AM ^
Worst scandal in big ten history? Yes, Penn st sweeping the multiple rapes of children under the rug pales in comparison to this. Also gutter trash Penn st fans saying this is worse, we have officially gone plaid.
November 7th, 2023 at 9:29 AM ^
All it takes is one bold reporter to take him to task with that statement. "So Tony, I know you stated that the allegations against Michigan are the conference's biggest scandal. So I just want to clarify that in person scouting is considered worse than the rape of minor by a program's defensive coordinator? And also that sexual harassment is not as severe as in person scouting. And that knowingly sharing in person scouting with other conference members is not a problem but in person scouting by a rogue staffer is a huge problem. Is that correct?"
November 7th, 2023 at 10:27 AM ^
And the Nassar thing wasn’t bad? Shit!
November 7th, 2023 at 6:47 AM ^
I say the Horse is out of the Barn its time for UM to go all out Legal and Battle the BIG, the other BIG schools involved and the CORRUPT NCAA,,,Spill ALL the beans on this..The Media (ESPN SI and all the rest just couldnt WAIT to jump all over UM BEFORE KNOWING ALL THE FACTS
November 7th, 2023 at 6:50 AM ^
This should basically be the end of it, but the Big Ten has gotten themselves so convinced its the greatest cheating operation in sports history and Jim just had to know that I'm not sure how it deescalates. Pettiti does not seem like the guy for the job.
Funny that the CFB world hasn't caught up to this yet. People are still on reddit and twitter talking about how its the greatest scandal ever