That’s my point. Every team steals signs, or at least tries to during the game. Not every team goes to the lengths Michigan did.
Michigan Under Investigation For Sign Stealing
- Thread starter selmaborntidefan
- Start date
I had read somewhere that a "private firm" had initially contacted the NZAA with some of the info, then the other B1G teams started adding even more evidence.
It will be interesting to find out who got the "private firm" involved to start the process.
Hope is wasn't OSU because I hate snitches.
IMO, this episode of alleged Michigan cheating is a serious action that has greatly benefitted them if the allegations are true. It has been a direct violation of specific NCAA by-laws. Sign stealing does not violate NCAA by-laws, but the specific actions in which they have allegedly engaged do. Do others do what Mich has done? Certainly, no one would be surprised if there were other violators but it would be surprising if it is widespread. And unless it is widespread, the competitive advantage gained is great.
The quotes below are from an Eric Evans article. (I didn't link it because there is often profanity in the comments section of the article.) IMO, the entire article is worth a read. If you can look past the language, the comments are often very insightful.
Harbaugh was 47-22-68%, 34-16-68 prior to the alleged start following the 2-4 Covid year, when he was forced to accept a cut in pay. Since the alleged start of the chicanery, he is 33-3-91.6, 22-1-95.7. Massive, massive difference.
I'm not sure how the Big 10 can continue to look down their nose at others when their corruption is not only as frequent as the "sleazy" SEC but more repulsive. Not just "normal" corruption like has been shown at Illinois, Wisconsin, OSU, MSU, Mich but the stinking messes like MSU and PSU and to a lesser extent the recent NW mess that, at least to this point, far exceed the "good ole boy" sleaze in which the SEC has often engaged.
And Michigan has been a leader in college sports snobbery. Michigan Man, blah, blah, blah.
IMO, if the allegations are true, one of the penalties that should be imposed is the forfeiture of all games from the beginning of the violations and the vacation of any titles won.
The quotes below are from an Eric Evans article. (I didn't link it because there is often profanity in the comments section of the article.) IMO, the entire article is worth a read. If you can look past the language, the comments are often very insightful.
Last year this included Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama.
Just in case you didn't know - the "School Down South" is not Alabama but OSU.
Harbaugh was 47-22-68%, 34-16-68 prior to the alleged start following the 2-4 Covid year, when he was forced to accept a cut in pay. Since the alleged start of the chicanery, he is 33-3-91.6, 22-1-95.7. Massive, massive difference.
I'm not sure how the Big 10 can continue to look down their nose at others when their corruption is not only as frequent as the "sleazy" SEC but more repulsive. Not just "normal" corruption like has been shown at Illinois, Wisconsin, OSU, MSU, Mich but the stinking messes like MSU and PSU and to a lesser extent the recent NW mess that, at least to this point, far exceed the "good ole boy" sleaze in which the SEC has often engaged.
And Michigan has been a leader in college sports snobbery. Michigan Man, blah, blah, blah.
IMO, if the allegations are true, one of the penalties that should be imposed is the forfeiture of all games from the beginning of the violations and the vacation of any titles won.
He never sniffed a title of any kind at Michigan before this. He was absolutely non-competitive against Ohio State.
Then bam! All of a sudden he is dominating the Big Ten, owns Ohio State, and is going to two consecutive playoffs.
That all happens on the heels of a near firing that was avoided only because he took a pay cut.
It’s not conceivable that all of a sudden an uptick in talent allowed this. It’s one thing when that happens in year two like with Nick Saban in 2008. But in year 6? That’s just odd all the way around. Presumably his talent level has stabilized by year 6…
Anyway, again, I’m just over here popping popcorn and watching the show. It’s just my opinion.
Breaking: Video of University of Michigan Staffer Connor Stalions assembling his team of video espionage experts:
He was one play from playing for the B1G title in his second year at Michigan - after inheriting a 5-7 team the same year Ohio State won the national title.
He was leading in the fourth quarter IN COLUMBUS in 2016 and a controversial spot was the difference between the B1G title game and CFP and nothing.
One play.
He was 32-12 in the Big Ten prior to the Covid year. Drop the losses to Ohio State and he was 32-7 against the rest of the conference 2015-19.
Of those seven losses:
one was an overthinking loss on a botched punt against Sparty
one was a last play field goal from Iowa
one was a dropped pass in the end zone by a receiver against State Penn
yeah, he had a rough patch in 2017.
Do we know this?
Or was the pay cut because of the lack of money because of Covid?
But this is built on the notion that he was nowhere close to being good before. The guy came within the spot of a ball from playing for the Big 10 title his second year in the league after inheriting a 5-7 team.
And Urban Meyer left.
And Mark Dantonio left after the 2019 season.
And didn't players get a "free Covid" year where it didn't count against their four official years?
Given those circumstances, it wasn't that far of a trip from 10-3 to 12-1.
Harbaugh took an NFL team to the Super Bowl his second year.
He was one play against Ohio State from playing for the B1G title his second year at Michigan.
I don't have a problem with the opinion itself, and I'm not even saying you're wrong. In fact, you MAY INDEED BE RIGHT!!! I just don't think Harbaugh was as far away from already having a good team as several observers here want to say. What's funny to me - and this is no reflection on you just to be clear - is how many Alabama fans want to use the "we were only two plays from being undefeated last year" in evaluating Alabama (always ignoring we were ALSO two plays from a four-loss season) but don't look at Michigan and say "they were only two plays from a 12-1 season in 2015 or an undefeated regular season in 2016."
Why can these things always be seen when it's ALABAMA but never when it's somebody else????? It's the same argument as "but our player was hurt" while mocking "but Colt got hurt!"
Again, I appreciate your interaction on it.
More evidence will come out, and we will move our conclusions to it.
He may not have been sooo far away as I’m making it seem. But I will say that we Alabama fans know how far 10-3 is away from 12-1. It might as well be light years.
I know that I’m guilty of playing the perception vs reality game here and I’m going on perception more than reality. But in year 6 it had become the perception that Harbaugh couldn’t break through to the elite level at Michigan.
And I may be misremembering but I’d swear he did take a pay cut and the word was that Michigan really wanted to part ways but couldn’t afford to due to Covid shortfalls. But maybe I am thinking of internet chatter and not real news.
I’m a cynic at heart and it is something I am learning to fight against in my older age (I don’t think complete cynicism is healthy). So my cynic nature is coming through on this one.
Plus doggone it, we’ve got to be able to pile on Michigan right???
Sorry, but I just read the fine print on my “Alabama Fandom Card”. “Piling on” is restricted to Auburn, Tennessee, and Notre Dame. Any additional “piling on” without the expressed, written consent of Coach Nick Saban, AD Greg Byrne and Paul Bryant, Jr is strictly prohibited.
Has a conference ever been penalized by the NCAA? The B1G was a huge winner from Michigan's misdeeds and, from many articles I've been reading, Stalions was a well-known quantity around that conference.
Did the B1G turn a blind eye due to the many millions they were raking in from UM's playoff appearances? I certainly don't see them rushing out to put UM in their place. They actually seem more concerned about UM's playoff aspirations than anything else.
No blue font. Hope this isn't true but we all know that money runs everything in almost every conference. With every new article I read it seems these become more legitimate questions.
Glad this all happened during our bye week. We should assume that everyone one on our schedule has been given access to our signals.
Did the B1G turn a blind eye due to the many millions they were raking in from UM's playoff appearances? I certainly don't see them rushing out to put UM in their place. They actually seem more concerned about UM's playoff aspirations than anything else.
No blue font. Hope this isn't true but we all know that money runs everything in almost every conference. With every new article I read it seems these become more legitimate questions.
Glad this all happened during our bye week. We should assume that everyone one on our schedule has been given access to our signals.
Yeah that’s the #1 reason I went from Strongly disliking Tennessee but with a certain amount of respect to just outright HATING them.
Never have liked Tattle Tales..lol
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Reminds me of the ol' Mike Leach vs sexat story...
Why is it "light years" for Michigan through an Alabama lens, but two losses (which is what we're discussing here) was "just two plays" when it was Alabama last year?
In terms of perception, yes. But here's the next what I would say is a methodological flaw: everyone is assuming Michigan fans have the same point of view as Alabama fans. Granted, this is much easier to understand in the CFP era, but Michigan fans have been brainwashed to believe that the Rose Bowl is the Holy Grail, to the point that once upon a time when they got upon a bus after losing to Notre Dame in a gut-wrencher (1993), and they weren't even upset about the loss. And the press told us why - "because they could still go to the Rose Bowl." Then they lost to Sparty, and you would have thought they had just gotten a terminal cancer diagnosis. I grew up with that whole conference being that way EXCEPT for Ohio State, which is why I've always said they are the one program in that league that could fit into the SEC with the mindset, not that they didn't aim for the Rose Bowl, but they had bigger fish to fry.
This whole "that coach is no good because he didn't win a national championship" permeates a lot of Alabama discussion, rivaled only by "Coach X at Auburn has to be the worst coach to ever win one."
I LOVE that we have the "national title or bust" mentality when it comes to us, but it sometimes gets in the way when we look at (most) other schoools, too.
I agree with you 110% right here. But let's add two other parallel urgencies to the point:
1) Ohio State won a title in 14 and made the playoff in 16, 19, and 20....
2) And Ohio State was beating Michigan like the wimp in the prison
That 2014 title by Ohio State lit a fire under Michigan, driven by jealousy. And fear. And the fact they were raising up a generation of little Wolverines who were gonna assume every year that Ohio State had their number.
I think a lot of their fans saw 2016 as more of "he got lucky" than "he's good." I think that's what you're saying and agree here.
This is not a point I would argue with you because Covid has severely impacted my memory, as in the pandemic and me working in healthcare, not that I caught Covid and lost my brain (which was already lost, LOL!). I am still suffering severe PTSD from what healthcare workers endured, not saying this for pity but noting that there are many things in my memory all out of whack from the Covid years of 20 and 21.
So you may be right, and you may remember completely right. I had actually forgotten about him toying with the Vikings job.
Nah, I agree, and it reinforces my point that HISTORICALLY Michigan and Texas are the two most overrated programs in CFB, teams who were a big name and won a lot of games a long time ago, but they haven't really done much lately (Michigan with 2 CFP appearances has done more than Texas to this point).
For years, I used to hear that "football is better when Texas is good." I always found myself thinking, "When was Texas good, and more to the point, when were they good for a long time?" Texas might well be the top CFB program of the 60s not named Alabama (a case can be made for them as better based on them winning titles both early and late in the decade while ours were clustered). But when was Texas good long-term? When did this mythical time IN MY LIFETIME (born 1969) ever exist?
They were real good from 1959-64 and 1968-72. They were #2 in the nation in 1981, regressed and were again #2 in 1983 going into the bowls...and then they'd pop a super year here or there. But I began watching in 1978, and as I said in another post, Texas has been less successful than AUBURN since 1987.
So in the last 40-plus years, Texas hasn't been "good" to make the game good.
When, other than back in the days of segregation, was Texas a powerhouse that somehow made CFB good?
I always chalk that level of analysis up to "cliche idiot saying doesn't even understand."
I'm good with your speculation on this with Harbaugh, and there MAY BE more substantial evidence supporting this point of view. I'm not saying it's wrong even now, I'm saying I just don't see enough evidence to connect those dots yet is all.
WSJ: Michigan football ‘rescinded a new contract offer’ for Jim Harbaugh
This isn't particularly shocking. #GoBlue
www.yahoo.com
You must have an early version of that card. Mine says "Auburn, Tennessee, LSU, and Coach Kiffin coached Ole Miss teams (No Sir, I'm not making this up...)". Maybe you should get an updated card...
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I don’t have a problem with sign-stealing if it’s done during a game. Kind of like in baseball when the batting team has a runner on second base, can see the catcher’s signals to the pitcher, and tips off the batter (his teammate) as to what’s coming.
I don’t have a huge problem with it if they use a publicly-available TV broadcast.
But if the allegations against Michigan are true, they had a complex infrastructure built around scouting and specialized video capture / analysis, plus a whole bunch of people directly and knowingly involved. This is a mid-six figure process…maybe into seven figures.
If true, to my mind, that crosses the line between keen observation and cheating, and puts them in the same category as the Houston Astros of a few years ago.
Also, Harbaugh’s denials of knowledge carry less than no credibility.
First, the scale of the alleged process is so big, with so many people, costing so much money, that there’s no way everybody in the athletic department didn’t know. Including Harbaugh and Warde Manuel (the AD).
Second, Harbaugh’s already been suspended (earlier this year!) for lying to the NCAA. If he said water was wet, I’d want independent verification.
Third, his denial is conspicuous in what it omits. He doesn’t say that the alleged conduct didn’t happen. He denies only personal knowledge. I smell the work of a PR crisis manager.
Late Add: Thought of another parallel — card-counting in blackjack. If a player is just watching what cards have been dealt, live and in person, with his own human eyes, and keeping track of the points in his own unaided human brain, and using the information for his own personal bets (i.e., not tipping off other players), I have no problem with it. Yeah, I know casinos don’t see it that way….I’m giving my own impression.
But if the player is wirelessly transmitting the information to an off-site computer, which in turn communicates back to him the optimal play, that’s cheating. So sez me.
I don’t have a huge problem with it if they use a publicly-available TV broadcast.
But if the allegations against Michigan are true, they had a complex infrastructure built around scouting and specialized video capture / analysis, plus a whole bunch of people directly and knowingly involved. This is a mid-six figure process…maybe into seven figures.
If true, to my mind, that crosses the line between keen observation and cheating, and puts them in the same category as the Houston Astros of a few years ago.
Also, Harbaugh’s denials of knowledge carry less than no credibility.
First, the scale of the alleged process is so big, with so many people, costing so much money, that there’s no way everybody in the athletic department didn’t know. Including Harbaugh and Warde Manuel (the AD).
Second, Harbaugh’s already been suspended (earlier this year!) for lying to the NCAA. If he said water was wet, I’d want independent verification.
Third, his denial is conspicuous in what it omits. He doesn’t say that the alleged conduct didn’t happen. He denies only personal knowledge. I smell the work of a PR crisis manager.
Late Add: Thought of another parallel — card-counting in blackjack. If a player is just watching what cards have been dealt, live and in person, with his own human eyes, and keeping track of the points in his own unaided human brain, and using the information for his own personal bets (i.e., not tipping off other players), I have no problem with it. Yeah, I know casinos don’t see it that way….I’m giving my own impression.
But if the player is wirelessly transmitting the information to an off-site computer, which in turn communicates back to him the optimal play, that’s cheating. So sez me.
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His team is loaded with talent, his QB is the real deal when it comes to college football. I think some are looking to far into this from when he started to where they are now. Remember Alabama when Saban got here. He has recruited well and developed talent. Harbaughs offense is really really good. I dont think the cheating is the only reason they are good now. This is a good team.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Michigan has rescinded its new contract offer to Jim Harbaugh. The report includes a good summary of events and circumstances related to the investigation. Below is an excerpt followed by a link to the article.
Edit: didn't realize a similar link was posted just a few posts back. I left this one up since there is a good summary of the overall circumstances surrounding the Mich program related to these allegations, including references to their current recruiting problems with the NCAA.
WSJ link
Edit: didn't realize a similar link was posted just a few posts back. I left this one up since there is a good summary of the overall circumstances surrounding the Mich program related to these allegations, including references to their current recruiting problems with the NCAA.
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There’s a world of difference in losing 2 games per year and making the playoffs. The timing of Michigan’s “improvement” can’t be ignored. They cheated, plain and simple.
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