By any measure, Connor Stallions seems to love football. He’s been on the staff of the University of Michigan Football since 2022. And he volunteered for the team for seven years before that. And beyond Michigan football, he has bought tickets to more than 30 football games over the past three years, including at 11 other Big Ten schools. It’s that last part that seems to have caused some trouble. Because it seems increasingly likely that those tickets were purchased to help Michigan steal signs from opposing teams in clear violation of NCAA rules.
For more context, here are some things worth noting. First, Connor Stallions is not the central figure here, even if he is a critical actor. Stallions is a fairly low level staffer who earned $55,000 this year, a mere fraction of a fraction of what Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh makes and a drop in the Michigan football budget, which measures conservatively in the tens of millions. In other words, Connor Stallions is not driving the bus for Michigan football – speaking metaphorically – and it’s hard to imagine how he could have afforded tickets and travel to all these high profile games, including playoff games featuring SEC teams. Second, these tickets were all purchased in similar positions in the stands – essentially perfectly positioned to allow someone to video a team’s sidelines the entire game. Which is apparently what happened, either by Stallions or someone he sent to the game. All of this infers that Michigan has used a fairly elaborate scheme to steal signs from opposing teams over the past several years.
That, to be clear, is against NCAA rules – both because you’re not allowed to scout teams in opposing stadiums and, more notably, you’re not allowed to record signals from an opposing team. If verified, Michigan would be guilty on both counts, something that would become a huge headache for the nation’s second ranked football team and a trending choice to win the national title. It’s unclear what the penalty would be, but it’s safe to say the Wolverines would have far more to worry about than how to stop Georgia’s offense in the championship game – a game I’m assuming they could be banned from if things keep going south. We don’t have a lot of precedent for this kind of infraction, especially since the most obvious comparison came in the pros with New England’s infamous Spygate. But the NCAA and NFL operate under a very different set of conditions. Meaning that college sports will levy penalties that professional commissioners wouldn’t, and frankly couldn’t impose anyway.
The judicial side of this is certain to work itself out, probably sooner than one might think given Michigan’s prominence in this year’s football landscape. It’s going to be a lot easier to sanction them before the playoffs happen than after them. And there are a lot of athletic directors in cities like Columbus, Ohio, and Eugene, Oregon, that will make sure this case is adjudicated as quickly as reasonably possible. But that, the legal ramifications, isn’t the whole story. As this story has broken, you’ve heard a lot of people ask not whether Michigan broke the rules and stole signs, but whether that should be considered unethical in the first place. Besides all the people who hate either Michigan Football or Coach Harbaugh – and that is a lot of people – a more common refrain seemed to be, so what? What’s the big deal about stealing football signs, even by illicit means, and isn’t everyone doing it anyway? And furthermore, the idea that knowing someone’s play calls is a lot different than being able to stop it, something Colorado head coach Deon Sanders said in a press conference – while wearing mirrored shades and a cowboy hat, of course. Basically in a nutshell, if you’re not cheating, you’re not trying.
It would be naïve to suggest that sign stealing isn’t fairly common, but also rarely as sophisocated. And perhaps that is the moral of the story. In other words, a little cheating is fine, expected even in the larger context of competitive sports. But there is honor among thieves. It’s not the fact that Michigan was stealing signs. It’s that they created a bizarrely complex and easily traceable system of doing so. So maybe Michigan shouldn’t be penalized for breaking the rules. They’re penalized for being stupid. And to be clear, I’m not sure I agree with that logic – but I do think it’s fairly pervasive.
Just don’t blame that all on Connor Stallions, who at best is a patsy in a much larger operation. His most likely crime is simply loving football.
Keith Strudler is the director of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. You can follow him at @KeithStrudler
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