Kirthmon F. Dozier / USA TODAY NETWORK
It’s been close to two years since Michigan found itself at the center of the wild scandal involving Connor Stalions and the sign-stealing that sent a shockwave through college football. Now, we’ve been treated to another twist courtesy of a report that claims a player was responsible for illegally gathering some of the info that put the scheme on the NCAA’s radar in the first place.
Every college football team engages in some gamesmanship in an attempt to gain an edge on its opponents, and in 2023, the world learned Michigan had done that and then some after a virtually unknown assistant named Connor Stalions made national headlines for orchestrating a sign-stealing operation that came to light during a season that would end with the Wolverines winning a national championship.
Stalions resigned from his role as a Defensive Analyst after the NCAA announced he was at the center of an investigation into a ruse that stretched back at least three years—one where he purchased tickets to games involving teams Michigan was slated to face off against (along with one instance where he was able to post up on CMU’s sideline).
He wasn’t the only coaching casualty.
It’s pretty obvious Jim Harbaugh was partially motivated to head back to the NFL over the results of an NCAA inquiry that led to him being banned from helming a college football team for a decade, while linebackers coach Chris Partridge (who was cleared in the same report concerning the punishment for the program) was fired for allegedly telling players to lie to investigators shortly after the scandal came to light.
However, the latter may have inadvertently played a central role in that revelation based on a new report elaborating on the claims that the Wolverines had a mole in the form of a former player who blew the lid off things in the first place.
A Michigan football player who was allegedly responsible for compiling the intel that sparked the NCAA’s investigation into Connor Stalions may have given the school an out in court
In August, the NCAA officially handed down the punishments stemming from the sign-stealing affair and released a report that offered some new insight into exactly what went down.
It wasn’t entirely clear how the gambit came to the attention of the governing body in the first place, but that report contained evidence that suggested the call came inside The Big House thanks to an unnamed player who recorded a conversation with Stalions that the NCAA subsequently obtained.
According to CBS News Detroit, a private investigator who served as a middleman between those two parties says the player who recorded the call was also able to access Partridge’s computer to obtain videos ” in an unauthorized manner” before they were handed over to the agency the P.I. works for and relayed “within 24 hours to start the NCAA investigation” (they also noted the call with Stalions was recorded without his knowledge, although that may be a moot point when you consider Michigan is a one-party consent state).
All signs point to those videos being instrumental to the case at hand, and the outlet spoke to an attorney who asserted Michigan could use that reality to its advantage while appealing the punishment in court, noting “it’s called fruit from the poisonous tree… and in that case, anything obtained from that evidence is deemed inadmissible, which would render the case against Michigan dismissed.”
The plot thickens.