Everything You Need to Know About Michigan Football Scandal
When the college football season kicked-off in late August, Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh served a school-imposed three game suspension due to recruiting violations during the COVID-19 mandated recruiting dead period.
To this day, Michigan is still under investigation for the alleged violations by the NCAA. The Michigan Wolverines are No. 2 in the country and are favorite to win the college football National Championship according to FanDuel sportsbook.
In case you’ve been under a rock, you heard about the latest Michigan scandal.
Michigan suspended analyst Connor Stallions with pay; he is the center of the investigation.
According to ESPN Stallions bought two tickets to the 2021 and 2022 SEC championship games through a secondary market (Seatgeek, Stubhub, etc.).
He also bought tickets to more than 30 games at 12 out of the 13 Big Ten stadiums over the past three years. The one school that cannot identify if Stallions bought the tickets is because they don’t have access to the secondary market.
NCAA INVESTIGATION
According to the Washington Post an external investigative firm tipped off the NCAA about this.
The NCAA was provided evidence of sign stealing from computer drives from Michigan coaches. The firm laid out a schedule detailing their travels for sign stealing for the rest of the year.
The schedule featured a budget of $15,000 with scouts attending more than 40 games played by 10 opponents. By comparison, Ohio State led the way with eight games and over $3,000 for travel and tickets.
Other members of the Michigan staff could be in a lot of trouble. Harbaugh has denied accusations.
RULES
The rule on sign stealing states: “Off-campus, in-person scouting of future opponents (in the same season) is prohibited.” Technically it is not illegal to steal signs unless it involves equipment to record coaches and players signals during the game.
Teams have access to a good amount of film in advance to help scout their next opponents.
A little caveat TCU claims they knew Michigan was sign-stealing in their CFP semifinal and made-up dummy signals to throw them off.
Lookout for more updates as the story unfolds.
