2023 Michigan Season Thread

[medinabuckeye1]

I haven't said much about it because I haven't seen any factual evidence. That being said, I do think it's weird when the story broke, it was tips from a PI firm. Then it comes out Day's brother runs a PI firm with a football based name for his firm and he has some childhood friends that took up shop in MI. Then the media (ESPN/Yahoo side) suddenly shift that it was vegas and the gambling side are the firm.

We don't know where it came from and you have a good point (later in your post, not quoted here) that we may never know.  As I said upthread it is certainly possible that it came from Day/Ohio State.  OTOH, I find that highly unlikely because I just don't think they would have been able to figure it out looking from the outside.  I still think the VASTLY more likely sources are either the Weiss investigation or a whistleblower.  

I interpreted something earlier as suggesting that US Integrity (the Vegas-based gambling investigation firm) was the source but I want to walk that back.  There have been leaks that they are "involved" but that could be after the revelation.  I haven't seen anything official or even a reasonably credible leak suggesting that US Integrity was the source of the original revelations.  

It has been denied, but I still think it all grew out of the Weiss thing.  That gave various investigators access and that access is what, IMHO, most likely led to the discovery of documentation of the spying.  

[medinabuckeye1]

This is very true. What has always drawn me back to this board is how the group discusses difficult topics as opposed to the crazy extremists on either side. There's just a few times each side has flirted with the extremist side on this one. Looking back on the discussions of tattoogate and the Penn St terrible situation, there's always been some brazen opinions, but the group has largely landed in a reasonable place with some understanding it sucks to be a fan when your program is in the middle of a crummy situation. Life can have too many problems that it's just so much easier when our fanhood doesn't lead us to a situation where our program, players, universities cross moral lines. That just sucks.

This is my relationship with this board as well.  I started out on a Buckeye board but the people there were too homerish for my tastes.  Then I started going to a Michigan board as well to basically get the other side but that was just as reality-detached and had the added fact of being disagreeable.  If I'm going to hang with reality-detached people, I'll at least stick with reality-detached people who wear the same colors.  

I like the more realistic back-and-forth here.  For many years I ran the Power Rankings threads here and one thing I always found that most outsiders would NEVER expect is that rather than getting ridiculous homer votes I saw a lot more ridiculous anti-homer votes.  The lowest votes for Ohio State usually came from tOSU fans and same thing for most teams here.  

Here is @medinabuckeye1 's listing of what I think are the most likely sources of the original revelations (most to least likely):  

• The Weiss investigation.  
• Weiss or another spurned past employee blew the whistle.  
• A whistle blower completely unrelated to the Weiss situation.  
• An investigation by US Integrity on the basis of Michigan's unusually strong performance ATS.  
• Ryan Day / Ohio State or possibly another B1G Coach or a group of B1G coaches noticed things on tape that suggested that Michigan was getting signals in advance and one of them or some group of them got together and hired someone to look into it.  
• My Favorite Possibility (lifted from @ELA ):  Jeff the MSU fan who lives in Stalions' neighborhood and whom Stalions alleged turned him in for running his refurbished vacuum cleaner business out of his home in contravention of local zoning or HOA regulations was so mad at Stalions that he hired a PI to track him and Jeff the MSU fan's PI discovered Stalions' spying ring.  This would be epic!

[medinabuckeye1]

It's also definitely weird that Michigan has been completely wrong so far on their "inside" versions of the story

This is one of the most interesting aspects of this story.  It is also part of the reason, I think, that the bulk of the Michigan faithful have been so completely reality-detached through this saga.  They aren't getting any of the news from "their" people.  It is ALL coming from the outside.  It wasn't like that with Tattoo-gate.  We (tOSU faithful) had at least some inkling from "our" people that this was bad before it became blindingly obvious and undeniable.  

Michigan fans generally haven't been getting that.  "Their" insiders have been basically doing this:

Michigan fans both out of optimism and out of familiarity have trusted "their" guys and been burned repeatedly.  

My honest take on this (trying to be fair):
Let me say upfront that I believe this is BAD for Michigan even if there are no further revelations.  The guy who was fired last week was either fired for destroying evidence (the original leak) or for telling people not to cooperate.  Either of those is BAD.  The saving grace for Michigan is that they (apparently) wasted no time in getting rid of him.  But that also just adds to the number of guys terminated so now we are at:

• Weiss:  @Mdot21 said this was simply that he tried to access other people's accounts and got fired for it.  That doesn't pass the smell test to me for two reasons.  First, why would he?  Second, that wouldn't take long to investigate and AFAIK the investigation is STILL ongoing.  
• Some staffer fired after allegedly being caught buying alcohol ahead of a meeting that he thought was with an underage girl.  
• Stallions fired after his sign-stealing ring became undeniable.  
• Partridge fired for either destruction of evidence (Yahoo report) or for telling others not to cooperate (some other source, not much better anyway).  
• Schembechler's kid fired before even starting for dumbass social media posts.  

#1 and #2 aren't even related to the Sign stealing thing (other than that #1 may be the source of the revelations) and by themselves they aren't a good look.  Honestly, the guy involved in #2 is REALLY lucky.  If it weren't for everything else going on at Michigan right now, all the tOSU fans would be banging the drum about him and keeping his name in the news.  He has been very lucky in that the other scandals have taken attention away from his situation.  

Like I said, I'm trying to be fair here but this would look like a cluster-f*!k even if it wasn't going on at my schools' biggest rival.  I think even the M guys can agree that the above five items are NOT a good look.  Something is not right in Ann Arbor.  At a minimum it begs the question of who is vetting Michigan's hires?  


Then on to the sign-gate saga more specifically:
I said this once before but nobody picked it up (even to disagree) but I think this is a LOT worse than most M fans think in large part because the actual violation was planned, directed, and committed by members of the University of Michigan's football coaching staff.  When we look at the Michigan BB scandal or Tattoo-gate, or the Cam Newton situation we tend to say that:

• "Michigan paid their BB players", or
• "Ohio State traded bowl swag for tattoos", or
• "Auburn paid half a million to Cam Newton."  

We tend to say those things but in the three situations above the institutions had some distance (or at least tried to appear to have some distance) between themselves and the violations:

• The University of Michigan as an institution didn't pay their BB players, some guy did.  
• The Ohio State University as an institution didn't trade bowl swag for tattoos, some tattoo parlor guy did.  
• The University of Auburn didn't pay Cam Newton, some boosters made a "contribution" to his dad's church (I think that was the story).  

Connor Stalions' sign stealing operation is fundamentally different.  The violation wasn't committed by a booster or a kid.  The violation was planned, orchestrated, and committed by a paid member of the Institution's Football Coaching Staff.  

Even if nothing more comes out, I think that is BAD news for Michigan.  This isn't just about some booster and some kid.  It is about them and their employees.  

Next, there are at least four not altogether unlikely avenues by which this can get WAY worse for Michigan:

First:
Ohio State fans are always going to say that Harbaugh/the staff knew.  Michigan fans are always going to say that they didn't.  What matters is what the NCAA can prove and what they feel is realistic.  It isn't all that unlikely that the NCAA or some other body (US Integrity or the FBI) is going to find some piece of evidence that at least some people above Stalions knew full well that he was breaking rules to get opponent signals or at least knew enough that they should have known or asked.  

Second:
As this conspiracy grows so too does the likelihood that at least one member of it used their knowledge of Michigan's sign stealing operation to make a little (or a lot) of money by placing bets on Michigan in the knowledge that Michigan was using impermissible means to gain an advantage.  I guess we should ask @MaximumSam or @ELA but, IMHO, that is fraud.  Furthermore, if they placed those bets online or used a bank (almost impossible not to) it isn't just fraud but the federal crime of wire fraud.  That will bring in the FBI.  People will go to jail.  People facing jail time will sing like canaries.  It will get ugly fast.  

Three:
There was a rumor at one point that at least one of Stalions' sign stealers was a Michigan Football intern.  If that is true, it could be catastrophic for Michigan.  Stalions wasn't realistically in a position of sufficient authority to authorize that trip so that means somebody else had to which gets to #1.  

Four:
There was a rumor that Michigan provided Tennessee's signs to USCe last year.  I couldn't figure this one out.  I didn't understand why Michigan would be scared of Tennessee.  Now I do see a plausible reason for it.  Assuming they did it, maybe it was insurance against a loss to Ohio State.  If Michigan instead of Ohio State had finished 11-1 last year they would have made the CFP in part because Tennessee wasn't 11-1.  If they actually attempted to manipulate CFP entrance by providing stolen signs to another team that is all kinds of bad.  For one thing it will REALLY tick off another fanbase that otherwise wouldn't care and ramp up pressure on the NCAA to HAMMER them.  Secondly, Stalions didn't realistically know the people on the USCe staff, but higher ups would have had connections.  If this happened it probably wasn't Stalions who sent Michigan's data on Tennessee to USCe, it was someone higher up who thus obviously knew and the NCAA could potentially give USCe some sort of immunity or reduced punishment in return for testimony.  This one probably isn't true but, if it is, I think it would be REALLY bad for Michigan.  

[Cincydawg]

South Carolina Football, rival Clemson brought into sign-stealing scandal (garnetandcocky.com)

A ridiculously far-fetched idea has appeared out of Knoxville, Tennessee by Volunteer fans who still cannot cope with the fact that the Gamecocks smacked their favorite team up, down, and all around Williams-Brice Stadium for three hours last November.
This conspiracy theory suggests that Michigan, in hopes of hurting Tennessee’s playoff chances, illegally stole signals from the Vols and forwarded all of their findings to the Gamecocks. According to the tin foil hat-wearing fans of the orange and white, South Carolina football only beat them because of these alleged stolen signs. They’ve even posited that Michigan did this the next week for USC’s game against Clemson.
The claims are ridiculous and also extremely hypocritical as the Volunteers just got busted this summer for over 200 violations in recent years under former head coach Jeremy Pruitt.

[Cincydawg]

Michigan Reportedly May Have Assisted Another School With Signs It Had Stolen To Prevent A Specific Opponent From Making The CFP | Barstool Sports

If this is true, I don't know that there's another on-field scandal in college football since I've been following it that rises to this level. There's trying to decipher opponents' signals. Then there's sending spies around the country to film the sideline to have every single one of a team's signals. And then there's doing that and doling that information out to other teams to hopefully alter the path of a potential future Playoff opponent. This went deeper than anyone could have ever imagined.

As to what team this could be, Vol Twitter was abuzz yesterday that Michigan had potentially given South Carolina the information it had on Tennessee after being confirmed to have scouted the Vols' game against Kentucky. I mentioned it here halfway kidding, but it didn't not make sense. And while UT certainly played poorly in that game, 6-4 teams usually don't go from scoring six points one week to 63 — against one of the best teams in the country — the next. It also wouldn't be the first time Shane Beamer had accepted game plan information on an opponent.

[FearlessF]

just keeps getting better

[medinabuckeye1]

just keeps getting better

The USCe stuff is, AFAIK, purely speculation and also it has been out there for a while.

[Cincydawg]

The USCe stuff is, AFAIK, purely speculation and also it has been out there for a while.

I agree, same with TCU and Clemson.  Maybe it's true, but there really is nothing more than speculation to support that.  It's akin to "insiders claim".

[MrNubbz]

This might be traced backed to Weiss's computer.  If something comes out about people connected to the cheating, making bets,on underdog Michigan the last two seasons. Those canards  just might regret using "bet". Vinny,Dutch and Fat Tony just might see if Jeem's kneecaps swing the other way

[Cincydawg]

Maybe a lot of things.  What we KNOW for certain is pretty limited yet.

[FearlessF]

pretty limited but, very damning

[medinabuckeye1]

If (big "if", I know) Michigan loses on Saturday and there aren't a slew of upsets to get them into the CFP discussion at 11-1, do you think they'll self-impose a bowl ban for the 2023 season?

My thoughts, Pro:
It is pretty clear that Michigan wants to delay the repercussions of their NCAA violations until after the 2023 season because they could be a NC contender this year. However, if that dies on the field on Saturday then what is left is not much. The Rose Bowl is a CFP semi-final this year so the tOSU/M loser will probably play the FSU/Louisville loser in the Orange Bowl. 

Michigan's known violations are serious enough that a Bowl ban of at least one year seems pretty automatic so my thinking would be that getting it over with ASAP would be best for the future of the program.

My thoughts, Con:
Even with a loss on Saturday the Wolverines would still be a lock for a NY6 Bowl (likely Orange, see above). Michigan made CFP appearances the last two years but prior to that (and coincidentally their cheating scheme) they only had two NY6 level Bowl appearances in nine years so maybe NY6 is good enough to want to take it while you can?

[Cincydawg]

If Michigan knows internally that more shoes are going to drop, I'd self impose.

[FearlessF]

I'd dodge the bowl if I didn't have video footage of the opponent's signals