Michigan plans to fight NCAA over ‘sign stealing scandal’ — vigorously
Michigan plans to fight the NCAA in what they said was “massive overreach” in response to the alleged impermissible scouting scheme led by former staffer Connor Stalions. The U-M response was “very long,” our sources told us a few weeks back, and Yahoo Sports has now confirmed many of its concerns about the way it was handled. Many of them were laid out in the response to the NCAA’s Notice of Allegations.
From Yahoo: “In the 137-page document — a portion of which Yahoo Sports obtained — Michigan makes clear that ‘it will not enter into a negotiated resolution’ with the NCAA over the alleged wrongdoing, vigorously defending its former head coach, current head coach, several staff members, and even Stalions, the low-level assistant who orchestrated one of the most elaborate sign-stealing systems in college football history on the way to the school winning the 2023 national championship.
“The school purports that the sign-stealing system offered ‘minimal relevance to competition,’ was not credibly proven by NCAA investigators and should be treated as a minor violation.”
In addition, one of the allegations — current head coach Sherrone Moore’s deleted texts with Stalions — is a case of more overreach, Michigan argues. It’s the one that “stands as the most serious and impactful for the current state of the program,” Yahoo writes — “Moore, then an assistant, deleted 52 text messages with Stalions on the very day (Oct. 19, 2023) that Yahoo Sports broke the story of the NCAA’s investigation into the school.
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“In its response, Michigan and Moore acknowledge the deleted messages. However, the school contends that the texts were “innocuous and not material to the investigation” and that Moore cooperated fully with the investigation, even turning over his phone for imaging — a move that revealed the previously deleted messages … and U-M contends none of the texts were specifically about the in-person advanced scouting system.”
In short, U-M contends there is no evidence current or past coaches knew the details of the operation — and in addition, it appears the Michigan stance is that there really is no evidence of wrongdoing based on the evidence presented.
They also argue that “many of the in-person scouting allegations ‘do not support the six elements of a completed indirect scouting violation,’ including lack of witness statements or eyewitness evidence that videos were taken from the stands at many of the games in which Stalions purchased tickets.’”
Watch for more on this development in the hours to come …
