boosters/regents that are pissed off we hired Harbaugh instead of Ron English in 2014. Lol... I kid you not. Unreal...

Did the nuts commit a crime or hire someone to do it?

If the ncaa allows this to happen without consequences, whats to stop every team to hire firms to dig and hack opponents?

Doesn't this potentially cause a huge loss of control for the ncaa?

Worth a listen, please:

The police investigation into Matt Weiss is not related to the NCAA investigation into Michigan.

The following are a listing of my understandings based on all that I’ve read regarding “sign-stealing gate”.

• The rules that may have been violated are a prohibition of off-campus scouting of opponents and the use of electronic or audio devices to record or communicate impermissible scouting.
• These are minor NCAA rules, lower than Level III and have no prescribed penalties associated with them.
• Should the NCAA Committee on Infractions choose to investigate and hear this case, they will not prescribe a penalty.
• The penalty for minor rules violations for which penalties have not been prescribed will be set by the Executive Committee of the NCAA
• Executive Committee-prescribed penalties must be consistent with those set for Level I, II and III violations and that requirement for consistency shall not be modified by the Executive Committee retroactively.

Josh, can you comment on any or all of my understandings on this situation? You’re closer to this situation than any of us and I think we’d all appreciate your response as our consistent Voice of Reason.

Josh

At this time, has the NCAA presented Michigan with any evidence that you know of?

are going into our bye week which we all know will lean heavily towards prepping for the OSU game. How convenient.

so it is guaranteed.

Jim needs to beat the nuts by 50 points.

Then in the post game comments, close out the interview with:
FLUP that lying corrupt organization known as the NCAA. We just beat your favored poison NUTS by 50 FLIPPING point and we didn't need any sign stealing to kick their A$$, so NCAA, FLUP You! I am gone!

This is my opinion.

The recent news reports implicating more than one coach or member of the Michigan football staff has provided super-fuel for all the Michigan-haters. I’m sure we all know some, and they’re all taking great delight in rubbing salt in our wounds with every new click-bait article published. It’s tough, particularly from the holier-than-thou ‘Domers.

I’ve almost reached the point where I’ll put some of my “friends” on my Do Not Accept e-mail and text lists.

Those that I feel most sorry for are our Michigan players. Maybe they’re not experiencing hatred, but I’m sure they’re suffering from the uncertainties that now effect their futures as Michigan football players.

I 100% believe if Jim Harbaugh's extension isn't a done deal by next Friday you can kiss his ass goodbye. At this point someone could fart and it would be the reason for another 3 month delay. I'll hold out optimism for 1 more week but there really is 0 excuses at 2/3 of the way through the season this isn't done yet. I don't care about burger gate, spygate, wtf else is the so called reason this is being delayed, if Harbaugh and Michigan wanted to make this thing work it would be done. Next Friday, that's it for me after that I'll just mentally prepare myself for this program to fall back apart. Sorry to be negative but the writing is on the wall

Evidence to come out that Stalions did attend a game of an opponent to scout.

Can’t really say much more than that in order to not violate trust of my sources.

To say our program. Our university is under attack. Literally. And our president and AD may need to respond in some way v soon

Little Pete had a shit eating grin on his face the whole time while he was explaining the Stallions situation with OSU fans in the background. It was disgusting and the dude clearly has an axe to grind with Michigan and/or is a mouth piece for OSU (highly likely). ESPN is clearly anti-Big Ten now since their contract ended. Anyways, I thought this was pathetic, but not suprising with Little Pete.

A fly on wall during the NCAA meeting today.

Mass shooting 22 dead. Keeps things in perspective.

spreads for the PSU and OSU games actually gone up and stayed the same? It's now UM -5.5 against PSU (started at UM -3) and UM -6.5 against OSU (started at UM -2.5 (IIRC).

The fact that there is this mysterious, anonymous investigation firm involved in collecting “evidence” may actually be a development that works in Michigan’s favor.

When you take a step back and look at everything for what it is… sign stealing may pale in comparison to the methods and steps that were required to uncover it.

Not saying Michigan didn’t do anything wrong or shouldn’t be punished in some way.

But the hiring of a PI to dig up dirt and gather evidence on a program is even worse optics, in my opinion. Can’t beat them on the field, so they had to try another route.

Not something *tough* teams do…

“Obtained from computer drives maintained and accessed by multiple Michigan coaches”

Maintained and accessed the drive, but what about whether they accessed the files themselves? It’s another day where I have more questions than answers.

I doubt Stalions had a simple “ILLEGAL SCOUTING” folder just hanging out, there was likely a folder within a folder type of situation.

Maybe it is ignorant to suggest that staff members didn’t know this file was there or didn’t access it but we do know the staff accessed the drive itself, which doesn’t say anything other than regular files were stored on there.

I want names, I want to know who accessed the files. Just because you access a server doesn’t mean you’re looking at everything that is on it.

The budget thing isn’t great, a $15k number seems awfully high for some low-level staffer. Again, who funded this? Who knew of this?

Who hired the outside law firm and who gave access to the files?

It’s another day where we’re left with more questions than answers.

Anyone remember the Nevin Shapiro scandal at Miami?

“Before the NCAA penalties were announced, it was revealed that NCAA enforcement staff paid Shapiro's lawyer $25,000 to call in University of Miami personnel during an unassociated legal deposition for Shapiro's bankruptcy, and ask a specific list of questions related to the university's scandal.[9] Shapiro's attorney used her subpoena power in the bankruptcy case to question two witnesses who were crucial to the NCAA's case. The NCAA had no subpoena power, and neither witness had any obligation to talk to the association. The backlash from the revelations about the NCAA's activities, coupled with the university's unprecedented self-imposed sanctions, helped the Miami Hurricanes escape additional harsh NCAA penalties.[10]”

Copied this from the Wikipedia page but this sounds to me like how the NCAA might have gotten access to this server.

Likely hired the PI Firm to look into the Weiss thing and then used them to look into the possible in person scouting accusations at the same time.


I also could be entirely wrong. What do I know? What do any of us know?

Go Blue

With the latest news now out coach likely gone after this year. NCAA will find a way to punish the current team and likely the next two teams going forward. No wonder the NCAA is coming in tomorrow. I guess rip the bandaid off and get it over with. Damn shame.

Just wanted to drop my thoughts on this sign stealing investigation that NCAA has launched on Michigan.

Will preface this by saying I have no inside knowledge of the details of the investigation or what went on.

However, I am struggling finding a way for any of this to add up.

First off, and I think many have made this point, but the schedule Michigan has had so far this season wouldn’t seem to warrant any additional scouting that is beyond the bounds of the film that is given to the teams to prepare for the games at hand. Which begs the question, even if Michigan wanted to go out of its way to bend the rules and do some in person scouting, why in the world would you do it against ECU, UNLV, Bowling Green, Nebraska, Minnesota, Rutgers or Indiana? The risk wouldn’t seem to be worth the reward even if a program thought about pushing the gray area of the rules against teams they are way better than.

Secondly, even if the in-person scouting allegations were true (I again have no knowledge to how much validity the allegations have), how in the world would you be able to identify a Michigan staffer in 60,000-100,000 person stadiums? It’s not like they are setting up recording equipment at midfield in Michigan gear. Even if a staffer were sitting close to the action in the stands and got their phone out to record, I don’t know how that would set off any alarms compared to just regular fans around them who pull their phones out to record part of the games to capture the experience.

The competitive advantage that would be gained by doing such a thing would seem so marginal, and things are not seeming to add up about any of this. It will be interesting to see what further information comes forward.

Side note: I know people have resurfaced the Schiano video where he brought up at halftime that there were things going on in that game that “weren’t right,” and I am assuming he was referring to some type of sign stealing now that this info has come to light. But it’s important to remember that just because he thought Michigan was picking signs during the game doesn’t mean someone had to go scout Rutgers in person to do so. Often, defenses will pick up on certain tendencies, motions and signals that offense do during the game, that’s not uncommon. It’s then up to the offenses to adjust to make it so defenses can’t pick up on tendencies so easily. When Gattis was the OC, I remember a specific play where every time Michigan did a certain type of motion, they would run the same play every time, and teams picked up on it. Point is, just because defenses are diagnosing plays doesn’t mean there is cheating necessarily going on, there’s such a thing as film study and reading tendencies.

He seems like the kind of guy that wants credit for the success, but he isn’t getting it.
Ala Jerry Krause, he would be happy to tear program down to prove he could rebuild it.
And like Krause, while important, he really wasn’t the guy that built it in the first place.

The author, Will Hobson, attended Boston College from 2002-2006.

Ryan day was a GA there from 2003-2004.

Also on Will Hobson’s LinkedIn, his storytelling skill is endorsed by…Jim Stapleton.

I keep reading a lot about Jim Stapleton. The Baconator sure got the pot boiling with his comments earlier in the day. Other than he's got it out for Harbaugh, does Stapleton understand it's essentially the players and their families that are ultimately going to be hurt the most should the NCAA hand down any strict penalties? Of course, I'm hoping that nothing happens. But some on here have been talking about the players and I couldn't agree more that this is where our focus should be over the coming days, weeks, and months. Our support is key. I have no doubt the fan support will be off the chart come November 4th when they take the field against Purdue. I'm in Cali. But I'm looking at coming back for this one.