Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

Thoughts on this whole issue raised by @betarhoalphadelta and @utee94 as to whether or not Michigan scouted the "patsies" or only PSU, tOSU, and a few others. 

I was thinking about this and it might depend on just how far up the food-chain this whole cheating scheme went.  Consider the two extremes:

Extreme #1, EVERYBODY up to and including Harbaugh knew, they had a big coaches meeting and decided to roll the dice and go for it:
In this case it would make sense to ONLY scout the opponents in games were a single loss would likely knock you out of the NC.  The past two seasons that means just five games per season:

• Penn State - because a loss here creates a 3-way tie with tOSU and PSU and Michigan might not win the tiebreaker (PSU would have won in 2023, I'm not sure about 2022). 
• Ohio State - because a loss here means you don't even tie for the B1G-E. 
• B1GCG - because a loss here means you are NOT an undefeated or 1-loss P5 Champion because you aren't a P5 Champion. 
• CFP Semi-Final - Lose here and you are out. 
• CFP CG - Duh. 

So long as Michigan goes at least 9-1 in their other 10 games, they *PROBABLY* would make the CFP anyway as a 12-1 B1G Champion and they would almost certainly be ahead of any other B1G teams. 

Even here though, I would think that they would probably have wanted to "field test" their scheme in at least one or two "patsy" games just to make sure that they had it running smoothly.  One would think that Harbaugh would veto any additional scouting as being unnecessarily risky and simply not worth the effort/cost/risk to get bigger wins against teams that Michigan is probably going to beat regardless. 

Extreme #2, Stalions is a Con Man and lone wolf and NOBODY else knows exactly how he is getting his information.  Maybe he just convinced them all that he is "Rain Man".  In this case, I think he has to scout as many Michigan opponents as possible because he has to demonstrate the efficacy of what he is doing BEFORE the big games.  The coordinators aren't going to suddenly trust him ONLY in the humongous games against PSU/tOSU if they haven't seen him produce successful results in prior games. 

This is true. But if he established the credibility in 2021, he easily could have dialed it back in 2022 and 2023 having already built up that credibility.

• 2021 Michigan was 11-3 ATS
• 2022 that dropped to 8-5-1 ATS
• 2023 that dropped again to 5-5-1 ATS

Now, there are multiple possible explanations for this. One, of course, is that Vegas was wising up after 2021 and pushing the spreads higher and higher on Michigan because they overperformed. Another would be that they only scouted certain teams, because they determined that some games just didn't require that level of scrutiny to assure a win.

BTW here are the 2023 results--bold in the rightmost column means they beat the spread:
[img width=274.381 height=402]https://i.imgur.com/naP1R5o.png[/img]
It is very interesting that in the first three OOC games, which would be ones I don't think they would bother trying to steal signals, they didn't beat the spread. Then in the next three weeks before the MSU game when the scandal broke and Stalions wasn't on the sideline, they went 3-0-1 ATS. After the story broke? 2-2-0 ATS.

The sample size here is WAY too small, of course. And as Mdot pointed out, they were beating the spread in the Purdue game up until a garbage-time score against their scrubs. So that was pretty close to 3-1-0 for those 4 games.

I'm not sure we can really give a strong lean either way based on what is at best circumstantial evidence here that they did or didn't steal those weaker conference mates' signals.

You make a good point, the sample size is way too small to draw any definitive conclusions.

I don't know what these figures actually are, but I'm sure the Vegas guys have a handle on probabilities and know, for example:

• 80% of teams are 45-55% ATS
• 90% are 40-60% ATS
• 95% are 35-65% ATS

Somewhere in there they draw a line and start investigating. Ie, if my made up figures are correct then only about 5% of teams are going to be either below .350 or above .650 ATS. There are about 130 teams so they could just investigate anybody outside of those parameters and that would be ~7 investigations/year.

No.  Not even a little.   

This certainly has to be concerning to Buckeye fans...



https://twitter.com/Scott_Bings/status/1727417601712632141?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1727417601712632141%7Ctwgr%5Eee3ce1c775377cb8d6ee1f8f124a65f3ef2bc535%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.surlyhorns.com%2Fboard%2Findex.php%3Fapp%3Dcoremodule%3Dsystemcontroller%3Dembedurl%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fscott_bings%2Fstatus%2F1727417601712632141%3Fs%3D4626t%3D2sJHRYJsu1wETnuOQIcqSg

The guy is of course- a Michigan slappy.  Makes up all kinds of shit.  This is what they do.  🤷‍♂️




https://www.reddit.com/r/OhioStateFootball/comments/17qmzfk/coach_day_was_the_snitch_scott_bingsburg_on_x/

Don't know, seemed totally legit to me...

😂.  They thank you for your support.  

38-27 Buckeyes.

38-27 Buckeyes.

I hope so!

In case you are right, I'm going volunteer my services as a speech-writer and here is my first draft of a speech for Ryan Day's post-game press conference:

"Good evening and thank you for this opportunity to speak to you. None of our players will be made available and I will not be taking any questions after my statement.

As you saw today, my team is a lot tougher when our opponent doesn't cheat and know all of our play calls in advance. If you think about it, knowing all of your opponents' play calls is a bit like starting the game on third base.

I want to take a step back and talk about our hosts. The University of Michigan is a great University, it is truly a world class institution of research and higher learning. Unfortunately the cheating Michigan Football program is an embarrassment to a great institution. They are an embarrassment to the conference and to all the member institutions including the one I represent.

Cheating has real life consequences for real kids and they are the biggest victims of Michigan's cheating. The Wolverines have a very good team this year as they did the last two years but their accomplishments will always exist under a cloud of suspicion.

Coming into this game last year my QB, CJ Stroud was the favorite for the Heisman trophy. It is entirely possible that Michigan would have won the last two years without cheating but we will never know because the Michigan Football Program chose not to play the last two years without cheating. We'll never know what would have happened if they hadn't cheated because we can't go back in time and eliminate Michigan's cheating.

Finally, I want to address one more issue. Members of my family have literally received death threats due to insinuations and rumors including some put out by a University of Michigan Regent that I was behind the investigation into the massive cheating operation conducted by the University of Michigan's Football Program over at least the past three years. Those rumors and insinuations are completely false and it is beneath the stature of a University Regent to engage in such blatant falsehoods. It also may be legally actionable as members of my family and I have been forced to absorb security costs due to these lies. (Only include this paragraph if it is true).

I want to again thank you for your time and thank the University of Michigan for hosting us today, we will enjoy our trip back home.