The first shoe has fallen in the Michigan sign-stealing operation.
Connor Stalions, the Naval Academy graduate and Marine Corps captain turned shadowy football analyst who allegedly/reportedly spearheaded the effort to crack the code of hand signals used by future Michigan opponents, has been fired. The news was first reported by Dan Wetzel of Yahoo.com.
It’s the first tangible action taken by anyone in connection with the investigation. The question now becomes whether and to what extent Stalions will cooperate with Michigan, the Big Ten, and/or the NCAA in assisting the investigation — assuming he didn’t already spill the proverbial beans in connection with the behind-the-scenes efforts to get to the bottom of the situation.
Stalions allegedly/reportedly arranged for a network of minions to attend games and record the signals used by upcoming Michigan opponents. Past reporting from a variety of publications suggested that Stalions bought tickets to multiple games. One unnamed source came forward to admit that he was paid to attend games and film the sideline of future Michigan foes.
There are still many unresolved questions that hopefully will be answered in the coming days and weeks.
Video has emerged of Stalions possibly communicating directly with head coach Jim Harbaugh during a game, potentially telling him that signals from the opposing sideline indicated “pressure” from the opposing defense.
Some also have raised questions about Stalions’s potential presence on the Central Michigan sideline for the September 2 game against Michigan State. CMU coach Jim McElwain has said there’s “no place in football” for Stalions to be where he was (if he was) and doing what he was doing (if he was doing it), others are having a hard time believing that no one from Central Michigan was aware that someone from another program had both the credential and the clothing to blend in with others on the sidelines.
“There is no way he snuck down on the sideline,” one source with an NFL team told PFT. “Wearing gear, with sunglasses and a play script and a credential. Someone would have called him out. There is a high number of security [personnel], and coaches know who belongs down there and who doesn’t.”
It has been a crazy story, with many developments. Few have been good for Michigan. We’ll see where it all goes from here, now that Stalions is officially no longer an employee of the school’s football program.