Why punishing Michigan for sign-stealing allegations is complicated from all sides

As the sign-stealing allegations against Michigan continue to unravel, we’re still quite a ways away from reaching a resolution. The investigation into the Wolverines is still ongoing as more information continues to come out about games that staffer Connor Stalions attended.

Big Ten president Tony Petitti reportedly met with Michigan administration recently as the pressure continues to heat up. With the Wolverines currently among the top four teams in the College Football Playoff rankings, many have wondered whether they will face any sort of punishment that directly impacts this season.

Anthony Broome of The Wolverine joined On3‘s Andy Staples on Sunday to explain that it will still take some time to to sort through the findings of the investigation. With Michigan president Santa Ono releasing a letter recently urging the Big Ten for “fair” process, it’s clear a lot is still yet to be determined.

“I think if you’re Santa Ono, you do fight this,” Broome said. “It’s a unique situation where, as far as we know, an investigation was just opened up. So for the information that’s been made available to come via leaks and anonymous sources and not necessarily as the result of an investigation, I do think Michigan has a right to be like, ‘we get there might be a paper trail of things that have gone on and we are gonna have to eat some sort of punishment for that, but there needs to be a due process that has to be played out.’ For Michigan, I understand that.”

Although the NCAA’s investigation is only beginning, though, the information that has been reported certainly doesn’t look good for Michigan. Stalions was investigated by the NCAA after reports arose of the Michigan staff “sign-stealing.” He allegedly bought tickets to four different campus games of four College Football Playoff contenders last year.

Additionally, there are records of SEC title game ticket purchases from 2021 and 2022. Finally, twelve of the other 13 Big Ten schools have record of Stalions buying tickets. Stalions reportedly did not cooperate with any internal or external investigations or discussions.

So as much as Michigan may attempt to fight back against the sign-stealing allegations, there’s already some pretty clear evidence in the eyes of Big Ten. The conference could use the league’s sportsmanship policy to punish the Wolverines this season, according to Pete Thamel. Several Big Ten coaches have already asked the conference to take action.

“From the Big Ten perspective, the coaches perspective, the league perspective, given that that information is out there right now is so damning,” Broome explained. “The paper trail is so clear and all of these schools have these ticket receipts that are linked back to Connor Stalions, I get why they would say, ‘what is there to investigate? It’s all out there.’

“There’s the layers of that. There’s apparently the layer that a third party investigative arm is involved here somehow. From the day that this came out, you’re starting to think ‘wow, this could be a pretty fascinating 30 for 30.’ Now it’s starting to feel like the six-part docuseries.”

Ono explained in his letter that he wants the Big Ten to wait until the conclusion of the NCAA’s investigation before issuing any punishment against the Wolverines. He argued that the school deserves “due process” so that the conference can “ascertain all the facts” or otherwise open its own investigation.

Broome agrees that being so quick to react would not be in the best interest for either party. We’ll wait to see what ultimately happens, but he urged everyone to “take a deep breath” and realize this isn’t something to rush through.

“I don’t think it’s a crazy ask to let that investigation play out and the due process of it,” he said. “I saw that Santa Ono, obviously Michigan people see the letter that comes out and they’re like, ‘yes. That’s our guy. Santa’s fighting for us.’ The rest of the nation will roll their eyes and say, ‘what about this and this and X incident and Y incident?’ I don’t like that aspect of it either. Michigan’s gonna defend itself here and it should. I think the people inside Ann Arbor that know are taking this seriously.

“It’s not like they’re saying this is a witch hunt or smear campaign and things like that. They just want it to be investigated. Because I think anything at a university level that has some sort of accusation like that, you take a deep breath, you take a step back and you investigate it. Then you determine what your path forward is. But having the punishment come before the sentencing seems super weird to me.”