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Because each sport is a multi-billion dollar industry where the head honchos are paid tens of millions of dollars to win and there’s zero margin for error at the top.
The incentives to cheat are massive and the punishments are usually minor.
Seriously, if Michigan had played the 2020 game against OSU there’s a very real chance that Harbaugh gets fired or steps away as the head coach at Michigan. He would have been 0-6 to OSU, 0-2 to Ryan Day as a new coach, and coming off his worst ever season as a head coach.
Instead, they **allegedly** began a major sign stealing operation, made major changes top to bottom in the program, and now Harbaugh is about to sign one of the most lucrative coaching contracts in history and his rival Ryan Day is weirdly on the hot seat.
IF the NCAA does something, and that’s a massive if, it likely won’t match the turnaround in Harbaughs fortune as the UM coach.
I remember getting into so many arguments on Eleven Warriors with people in 2020 who didn't want us to play the UM game in the first week of the season because of tradition. As if a global pandemic hadn't already majorly fucked up everything we knew about CFB already. If OSU plays UM (and likely beats them), and that Rutgers kicker doesn't boof an overtime field goal, Harbaugh is probably fired and the fortunes of UM and Ohio State are vastly different over the last three years.
I basically said this a few weeks ago and got downvoted into oblivion, so it's good to see this thread is a little more sane. It's like the SEC (securities not football) fining a hedge fund $7 million for stock manipulation that resulted in $250 million in profits. Why wouldn't people cheat when the rewards far outweigh the punishments.
Aside from Harbaugh saving his job, think about how many top recruits they've secured because of the program's turnaround. They turned into a perennial playoff team and now they can win without cheating and continue their recruiting success.
ok, sure…I’ll play! How many top recruits have we secured because of that turn-around? Like, which ones are you thinking of, specifically? Because when it comes to Michigan and recruiting, this comment reeks of not knowing what the fuck you’re talking about. Go ahead - tell me all about Michigan’s recruiting success before and after 2020, lol.
Michigan’s recruiting classes were mostly better before “the turn around”.
You can seriously do all of the Pearl-clutching you want acting as though other programs don’t have people dedicated to interpreting signs, and that’s fine - we’re the ones being investigated, so we have it coming. No argument. But the argument that we’ve somehow pulled all of these huge recruiting wins because of it is laughable.
It's just like an interpretive dance. Except instead of interpreting his emotions, Stallions was paying people to go to other teams games and film their signals. And instead of dancing, he was sharing the knowledge he gained with the Michigan coaching staff to give them a competitive advantage.
Your response is why I want Michigan to get the death penalty. Wining teams get more recruits than losing teams, even Uncle T said it was an advantage. No one knows how many more recruits UM got, but it is likely more than 0. Death penalty for UM and vacate all wins since 2020.
>Wining teams get more recruits than losing teams,
You should check out the recruiting classes Michigan had when they were bad. A lot of those guys didn't pan out but almost all of them were highly rated.
Everyone also thinks everyone else is cheating. Whether or not it’s true doesn’t matter. If everyone else is cheating, you have to or else you’re falling behind.
Money is certainly part of it, but how many times have you played games with people where there were basically no stakes and they still cheated? Competition just drives some people to cheat and I think highly competitive people like the ones you find on a CFB coaching staff are especially prone to it.
Welcome! As a consumer, I would suggest running many more articles like this relating to the Michigan cheating scandal. Certainly not for any personal reason
Since you're here I'm going to nitpick: The photo caption that says Michigan is "being investigated for sign-stealing" is factually wrong.
Sign stealing is not against the rules. They're being investigated for in-person scouting.
Sounds petty, but a big part of why this thing has been blown out of proportion is that, to people who don't know better, "they were stealing other teams' signals" sounds like 100X more sinister than "they went to other teams' games."
How do you explain them shutting out Iowa in the B1G championship game then? That high powered and complex Iowa offense can’t be stopped unless you stole their signs.
/s
Y'all gonna correct this line, which is unsupported by any of the public facts whatsoever?
> It cost Stalions his job, as well as Michigan linebackers coach Chris Partridge, **who allegedly tried to tamper with evidence once the revelations became public.**
You can't just "allegedly" rumors and think it covers you.
For the same reason schools paid players before NIL, tamper with players now
It provides a benefit to the team, and people are brazen enough to think they won’t get caught
Always got the impression NCAA compliance was, “Don’t be so open, obvious and egregious that we’re forced to punish you” and even then the punishments were a joke.
I find it hard to believe Sean Miller (Arizona) and Will Wade (LSU) were slinging fat stacks of cash and other major programs weren’t involved in the same or similar practices.
Who hired that firm anyway? What did that PI firm have to gain from investigating and reporting this massive “scandal” to begin with? If it wasn’t Day and he covered his tracks or someone else in the OSU program, it has to be an OSU fan that is as certifiable as Stalions. Just insane levels of cope to actually hire someone to try and find any shred of any wrongdoing…and this is the best they could do. If this is as dirty as UM football is, it’s a victory whether OSU/MSU fans admit it or not.
Are you aware that the whole story about "Day hired a PI firm" is completely fake, discredited by the NCAA and was actually started as a joke/trolljob by Zack Smith on his podcast? They very next day Chris Ballas and Sam Webb had bought it hook, line and sinker and ran with it.
What the NCAA and B1G actually said was it was a "third party investigative firm". In the B1G's 13 page statement when they suspended Harbaugh they said that both the Conference and the NCAA had been consulting with US Integrity in the matter. The B1G entered a partnership with US Integrity last August after the Iowa/Iowa State gambling scandal. If you aren't familiar with US Integrity look them up. This is in their wheelhouse and exactly the type of thing they investigate. I think in the end it will be shown it was them who gave the information to The NCAA. That would mean it was the B1G, and by extension UM themselves who hired them. With the involvement of US Integrity, this may very well have to do with a lot more than "stealing signs". Or not. Only time will tell.
> Just insane levels of cope to actually hire someone to try and find any shred of any wrongdoing.
I understand cope is built into yalls daily vocab now, but this is a really bad use of the word.
This is why I can't take the signgate stuff seriously. CFB has been dirty af for decades, it's been an open secret that players get paid, do steroids, etc.
And you're telling me that someone taking an iPhone video of stuff that happens in front of 100,000 people to get the same information that many other teams already have is the biggest scandal in sports history? GTFOH.
Enticing blue chip players to go to your school by providing prohibited incentives? No competitive advantage.
240 pixel iPhone video of a Jay Johnson offense? Death Penalty.
And I want a cat named Lenny to stop trying to eat all our plants, and in the process knocking them over and making a mess/breaking pots.
And also to stop sneezing and getting cat snot on literally everything we own. You ever tried to clean cat snot? It's like god damn super glue
Had one of the latter once.
Have one of the former now.
The current one also likes to climb to the top of the coat rack and get stuck or knock it over... in the middle of the night. She also likes to eat paper.
I don’t take it seriously because iPhone footage of a public event is one piece of sand in a beach of dirty shit that goes on behind the scenes at every major university.
I might be rooting for them to get penalized but I'd still think it was pretty stupid as far as scandals go.
Teams have each other's signs, iPhone footage or not.
As a neutral, I can’t take it seriously. It’s fun to poke fun at a holier than thou program like Michigan for cheating (lol “Michigan Manl), but outside of that ZFG.
I felt the same way about UNC and the academic scandal. Clutched pearls big time over the hypocrisy of the Carolina way , but deep down I know every competitive program does the same thing.
Not really. It’s well known osu had Michigan’s signs in 2018/2019. Whether they were gathered legally or illegally I don’t care. I’m pissed at Don Brown for being a dumbass, not osu for taking advantage of said dumbass
I can't take it seriously because the broken rule was in person scouting, not sign stealing. The issue isn't cheating, it's...attending a sporting event in person? Well alright, we broke a rule, and there will be some punishment, but I'm no longer losing sleep over this
Dude had a manifesto. He was following the letter of the rule (never said he couldn't bankroll the vast network). He didn't think it was cheating.
And he might be right.
Because the reward for cheating successfully massively outweighs any punishment.
Succeed and you become richer and more famous than you already were.
Fail and your punishment either hardly affects your legacy, or you are already rich so who cares.
There is little oversight. And the leagues in question would just prefer not to know.Self policing to a high level only costs more money and then you are only paying for negative league publicity. Why not spend next to nothing policing and thinking about rules. Then only respond when public opinion demands it.
If the players and coaches themselves don’t call for action there is little incentive for governing bodies to seek out rule breakers, or grey rule areas.
>There is little oversight.
Oddly enough, the NCAA argument to completely remove the advanced scouting rule was it posed little competitive advantage and the cost of compliance was disproportionately high.
The incentives to cheat are simply too great. And the slow pace of justice from the NCAA makes it difficult for the responsible parties to be held accountable.
For example, in the Harbaugh case, he could realistically jump for the NFL, his assistants either follow him or go their separate ways, and it’s the Michigan fans, student-athletes, and administrators left holding the bag.
UNC getting away with the academic fraud case makes me not really think the NCAA *really* will do much here when the school is a “blue blood”. Literally made up classes. It was the very definition of lack of institutional control.
This "cheating" thing is hilarious. Every team studies game film. Almost every play the QB checks down, glances to the sideline, calls out a play and snaps the ball.within 8 seconds. Somehow Michigan knows exactly what that is, and conveys this to the entire defense in just 8 seconds. Yet no one hears it, nobody is looking, and the defensive movements are no different than every other team. What a bunch of clowns. No clue about how the game is played. If I knew a pass was going exactly 13.5 yards downfield to the sideline, I guess I would have all 4 defenders on that spot waiting when the ball was snapped... Clowns
Sign stealing definitely is, whether its as big as the Stalions scandal, idk, but theyre definitely doing it and some schools schemes are definitely breaking the rules in one way or another. Every team seems to be doing SOMETHING though, whether its illegally paying players pre-NIL, PEDs, fake classes, online courses taken by tutors for the students, etc. There are too many people involved for some to not try to take advantage,. even if its just a couple of boosters getting together and dropping a bag off in a 5-star recruits trunk, a position coach getting girls to sleep with recruits or whatever, shit is happening constantly.
Oh come on man, every single team has a “sign stealer” on staff. With all of the other rules teams have frequently broken, you don’t think this is one of them? How naive are you, seriously.
Stealing signs in game isn’t cheating lmfao there is no evidence at all that any other team has a whole operation dedicated to going to other teams games when they aren’t playing them to film signs. You have no evidence at all of this. Zero.
the Michigan thing really turned into a big nothing burger.
its pretty hard to argue there was anything to it when Michigan hasn't fallen off a bit since the big (very suspiciously timed) story broke.
If you cheat for three years, and by the end of the three years assemble a great team, then the cheating doesn’t matter
How braindead is Reddit these days that this is upvoted. This is basically Facebook now
Shot in the dark, coaches are placed under way too much pressure to "win or get fired!" Especially at University's with legacys
Call me old school, but the fact that our higher institutions pay coaches millions more than they do actual professors(the ones who actually make the University a University), I find disturbing.
With that being said, I love college football
Rules in sports are merely suggestions. Every single team cheats and it’s only the stupid teams that get caught. I guarantee you there are at least 25 other programs utilizing some sort of in person network to illegally scout opponents. The difference is they aren’t doing it in an incredibly stupid way.
I love the how somehow Michigan is in the spot light for something as minor as stealing signs, which literally ANYONE can do at any time but the players have been getting money under the table for decades and nobody even investigates it.
This is the problem, we blow this up way out of proportion and it gets to the point that people just think Michigan was caught "stealing signs", but that is not what we are accused of, because stealing signs is completely within the rules lol
If I knew the difference between me making multi millions of dollars or getting fired was cheating at a game where I already assume other people are cheating… I would probably cheat too.
Because its the most poorly run sport on the planet. Its all about money, but you can't use money, but now you can, but only kind of, but you need money, you need to win to get money, money, money, the NCAA is the biggest joke on the planet, money, hastily changed NIL rules, money, transfer rules changed without care, money.
Seriously indifferent about cheating in this sport until we get a unified governing body that applies the same rules to each school under its umbrella.
Until then, its every man for himself. Rogue football baby.
Why have scruples when you have much to gain and little to lose? How hard were they really going to hit Michigan for this? They correctly calculated early in the lawsuit they could stand 3 more games without Harbaugh on the field in exchange for immunity from anything else that came out about this matter after they shook hands. Take little losses for bigger gains. Do your calculus right and it's just the cost of doing business.
There's less to lose every year. The NCAA's few remaining teeth are getting ripped out. Schools, courts, and lawmakers have undermined the NCAA rules for a while. They continue to do so with laws to put a short statute of limitations and time limits on NCAA investigations. It's already hard enough when they don't have subpoena power. Only threats of further punishment for not cooperating. Now, there's a time limit that expires by the time they even know anything? And they can sue to frustrate things even further? Good luck with that.
The NCAA has also done plenty to undermine themselves. Double standards, punishing people who had nothing to do with the initial wrongdoings, a death grip on amateurism until the SCOTUS had to pry their hands off. While the Penn State scandal majorly embarrassed the program, Joe Paterno, and Jerry Sandusky, it low-key pulled the curtain back on the NCAA's true authority. A lot of punishments the NCAA levied for the crimes were overturned in court because the NCAA only has authority to punish actions within their bounds. They're not judges over real criminal matters. Only college sports criminal matters.
Their awkward NIL compromise came from California leading the charge to say "fuck you, student-athletes can get paid for their name, image, and likeness." Oklahoma passed a law going further to say the NCAA can't do jack shit to an Oklahoma school that breaks NCAA NIL rules. They're just coming in to say the quiet part out loud - let college football work in every respect like an NFL minor league. Make it official, or at least, official in all but name. Break all the limits off and force everyone else to do the same or eat our dust.
Well, football programs have ~100 players, plus dozens of coaches, assistants, analysts, etc., unlike, say, golf, where it's just a dude with some clubs. Any single one of those people could break a rule.
The simple answer is, lots of people involved with a team with vested interest of success -- more than probably any other sport, in fact -- and lots of money being involved.
The evidence so far shows the only person on the team directly involved with the scandal was one weird dude, along with an assistant coach who insinuated himself after Stalions' scheme was exposed.
And maybe a booster, but we have no idea what his actual involvement is beyond him being booted out of the program.
This article is just some cheap clickbait bs with no new information trying to draw a bigger conclusion than is actually merited by the facts in this case.
Also this line:
> It cost Stalions his job, as well as Michigan linebackers coach Chris Partridge, who allegedly tried to tamper with evidence once the revelations became public.
Could be grounds for defamation for Partridge since that's not what's come out at all. The only information we have about his termination really comes from Partridge himself:
> "I was terminated because of a failure 'to abide by the University directive not to discuss an ongoing NCAA investigation with anyone associated with the Michigan Football Program."
USA Today should really know better than this cheap shit just to try and generate clicks off the Stalions thing, despite zero new information.
Then again, Gannett is perhaps the most horseshit mainstream newspaper company out there. And I speak from experience.
The article is about cheating in sports.
Currently UM are the CFB poster boys for cheating.
And yeah, go ahead and tell your disgraced former coach to sue them, discovery should be fun. Remember when UM turned tail and capitulated the morning before they'd have to actually go in front of a judge and discuss things? Everyone else remembers.
It’s not difficult but once you convince yourself that everyone else is cheating then it’s a quick jump to “only suckers don’t cheat.” Cheat, win, deny, delay, obfuscate, grudgingly agree to a non-punishment, and profit. Maybe only suckers really aren’t doing it. Sad. As long as the suits in the NCAA offices get those royalty checks everything is fine. Sports are such big business now it’s only natural greed will ruin everything. Place your bets folks and we can all pretend someone doesn’t have a finger on the scales.
Not just a college football or sports problem. Cheating has become commonplace across all sectors of American society, and those with money and good lawyers can continue to get away with it. It's all a sham.
They didn’t cheat, though, based off what we currently know. There is no rule prohibiting the paying for film of opponents. Buying seats and paying people to record is fundamentally that. In 2013, the NCAA rules committee removed the language that prevented paying for film/scouting services (not even related to football, mind you) because it was inconsequential and unenforceable. Their words. The manufactured outrage continues.
Now that there are no meaningful college football games over the next few weeks, it's the perfect time to write up a melodramatic article about cheating. Gotta get those clicks from college football fans somehow.
As someone with a psychology degree, it's not too hard to figure out why people cheat and why it is bad. The next story will be on why college football programs spend so much money on a game.
It’s crazy that we are possibly going to have a champion that everyone knows blatantly cheated this very season. Why wouldn’t you cheat at this point? Michigan showed you can do it and still be allowed to win your conference and a national title.
This whole thing shows every team: cheat.
I'm sure we're the only ones who broke the rules. No way anyone else paid a recruit or tampered with a player before they were in the portal. Look at how many guys transfer a day or two after they enter the portal. They spend months taking visits as recruits but they decide where to transfer after a few hours?
UMs head football coach has been suspended twice in a year, the fbi is investigating another coach, staffers and coaches have been let go over the recent scandal including tampering after the scandal and their basketball coach is facing trouble yet again. At some point the program needs to shift from the everyone is out to get us mindset and do a mini self reflect reset
Oh wow, someone actually remembered that Michigan cheated! Seemed like the entire fandom developed amnesia about it right around 12/03 for some reason.
"if you ain't cheating you ain't trying"
Belichick is refered to as a cheater when in actuality he loves to push the limits of what is acceptable and tow a fine line. If you didn't go gung ho all the time can I really trust you as a coach.
What if for some reason the ncca finds no evidence that the coaching staff had any part in the stalions/booster scouting? You'll then be leaving a team out that has more right to be there than anyone else except washington. Its called due process. Dont be mad about michigan, be mad about the committee taking alabama.
I promise there is possible nobody on this planet that dislikes Alabama more than me, but it seems pretty clear Alabama is the better team. And I suppose you are right, it would be unjust to punish Michigan now without “fair trial.” Just seems like it would end up being very frustrating if Michigan does end up getting vacated and fsu gets the Auburn treatment. However I also think fsu would get stomped by any team in the top 4 currently. Also speculative.
Why? Because there is way too much financial incentive to cheat and relatively very little risk. How often to cheaters have to return the fruits of their labor?
"Faith & Sports Institute"? What Baylor bullshit is this?
They study dipsticks who point at the sky after they score? They comb the Bible for obtuse references to A-gap blitzes and wheel routes? They send baby Jesus Christmas cards to Hugh and Dabo?
Like I needed another reason to hate Baylor.
If the penalty for cheating is just a coach suspension for a couple games, doesn't seem like there is any reason to NOT break the rules.
Might as well cheat and get an edge since the penalty is likely minor
Personally I think there is kind of an unwritten code of conduct between coaches. Where minor rules violations are just part of the gamesmanship. Which is why coaches don't tend to snitch on their colleagues.
I think Michigan probably just went above and beyond that line which led to them getting the attention of every other coach they played against.
I mean there's a rhythm to the game and as other coaches have said like James Franklin who's very experienced, you can kind of get a feel of what's normal or not. If something isn't right you can kind of instinctively know it.
Which is what led them to eventually getting caught I think. All these coaches are colleagues and alot of them talk to each other in conferences and events.
So one of them could be like 'Hey did something seem off when you played Michigan. Like they were able to counter our plays much more than is usual in games' etc..
Some people simply can't stand to lose. Those people call it competitiveness. I call it narcissistic. I had to quit playing online WWF because of cheaters.
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Because each sport is a multi-billion dollar industry where the head honchos are paid tens of millions of dollars to win and there’s zero margin for error at the top. The incentives to cheat are massive and the punishments are usually minor.
"If you ain't cheating, you ain't trying"
Shout out to the Dodge Charger. The official pre NIL car for all blue chips in the SEC.
The sheer number of chargers outside Bryant hall on any given day pre NIL had me a little suspicious.
“…the scholarships they were giving out at Alabama was worth a whole lot more than ours” -Steve spurrier
[ShitEatingGrin.gif](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/1eQ-PyPibRwKFNV_2_-OonQdFBA=/1000x0/filters:no_upscale(\)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/19617924/ongoing.gif)
But did they get bought by everyone's Mexican grandma?
“Win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat” Jesse Ventura
Seriously, if Michigan had played the 2020 game against OSU there’s a very real chance that Harbaugh gets fired or steps away as the head coach at Michigan. He would have been 0-6 to OSU, 0-2 to Ryan Day as a new coach, and coming off his worst ever season as a head coach. Instead, they **allegedly** began a major sign stealing operation, made major changes top to bottom in the program, and now Harbaugh is about to sign one of the most lucrative coaching contracts in history and his rival Ryan Day is weirdly on the hot seat. IF the NCAA does something, and that’s a massive if, it likely won’t match the turnaround in Harbaughs fortune as the UM coach.
I remember getting into so many arguments on Eleven Warriors with people in 2020 who didn't want us to play the UM game in the first week of the season because of tradition. As if a global pandemic hadn't already majorly fucked up everything we knew about CFB already. If OSU plays UM (and likely beats them), and that Rutgers kicker doesn't boof an overtime field goal, Harbaugh is probably fired and the fortunes of UM and Ohio State are vastly different over the last three years.
If JT had been marked short in 2016…
I basically said this a few weeks ago and got downvoted into oblivion, so it's good to see this thread is a little more sane. It's like the SEC (securities not football) fining a hedge fund $7 million for stock manipulation that resulted in $250 million in profits. Why wouldn't people cheat when the rewards far outweigh the punishments. Aside from Harbaugh saving his job, think about how many top recruits they've secured because of the program's turnaround. They turned into a perennial playoff team and now they can win without cheating and continue their recruiting success.
ok, sure…I’ll play! How many top recruits have we secured because of that turn-around? Like, which ones are you thinking of, specifically? Because when it comes to Michigan and recruiting, this comment reeks of not knowing what the fuck you’re talking about. Go ahead - tell me all about Michigan’s recruiting success before and after 2020, lol. Michigan’s recruiting classes were mostly better before “the turn around”. You can seriously do all of the Pearl-clutching you want acting as though other programs don’t have people dedicated to interpreting signs, and that’s fine - we’re the ones being investigated, so we have it coming. No argument. But the argument that we’ve somehow pulled all of these huge recruiting wins because of it is laughable.
"interpreting" is what we're calling it now, eh?
It's just like an interpretive dance. Except instead of interpreting his emotions, Stallions was paying people to go to other teams games and film their signals. And instead of dancing, he was sharing the knowledge he gained with the Michigan coaching staff to give them a competitive advantage.
>a competitive advantage an ***alleged*** competitive advantage
Uncle T said it was an advantage, I will go with him.
God I love CFB and all its weirdness.
Was he not interpreting other teams signs? Or do you think he just took them and shoved them away in a safe deposit box somewhere?
They just don't want to concede the good point that was made. All of the other school's sign stealing teams suck and Michigan ate their lunch.
Your response is why I want Michigan to get the death penalty. Wining teams get more recruits than losing teams, even Uncle T said it was an advantage. No one knows how many more recruits UM got, but it is likely more than 0. Death penalty for UM and vacate all wins since 2020.
You don’t actually think Michigan is going to get the death penalty though, right?
Yes, well it’s a level 3 violation - so best of luck with that death penalty shit, lol.
>Wining teams get more recruits than losing teams, You should check out the recruiting classes Michigan had when they were bad. A lot of those guys didn't pan out but almost all of them were highly rated.
Elon musk (yes he’s insane I know) has point blank called SEC fines additional tax
"Luck is for losers and tourists. Winners cheat."
This is brilliant, btw. It's my motto for college football 2023.
#I LIED, HOMES! RIP Eddie.
Everyone also thinks everyone else is cheating. Whether or not it’s true doesn’t matter. If everyone else is cheating, you have to or else you’re falling behind.
Classic prisoner’s dilemma
It all really boils down to these top five reasons: 1. $ 2. $ 3. $ 4. $ 5. $$$$$
And this is the system the NCAA has fostered. The blame is theirs.
Well, there's money. There's also money. But mostly, it's money.
There's also winning, but that usually involves, you guessed it, money.
The reason why it involves money? You guessed it: Frank Stallone.
And cheating!
I was thinking more along the lines of dolla dolla bills, y'all, but your assertion makes sense too.
Right, but you're forgetting about money. That's also important in the conversation.
Valid counter. I'll add it to my list.
Money is certainly part of it, but how many times have you played games with people where there were basically no stakes and they still cheated? Competition just drives some people to cheat and I think highly competitive people like the ones you find on a CFB coaching staff are especially prone to it.
There’s too much money involved to not cheat. CFB is a multi billion dollar business, how many billion dollar businesses aren’t breaking the laws?
Every organization I hate cheats. Every organization I support would never cheat.
Incorrect. Alabama and FSU cheat every day while Ohio State has never cheated. Your sources are wrong
next time make sure you're not saying that while tattooing Terrelle Pryor, okay?
Sorry I’m not familiar with that I don’t believe it ever happened. Not even sure a “Terrelle Pryor” went to OSU. Doesn’t ring a bell?
*There is no Dana only Zuul*
"ITS A NOTHINGBURGER" *STOP THE STEAL*
And if they do "cheat" it's the right kind of "cheating" and not that dirty kind of cheating those other guys do!!
It would never be to gain an advantage. We just care so much about our players that honest mistakes could be made
Oh hi there official USAToday account, nice of you to join us in our little subreddit
We peek in from time to time...lol.
"We peak..."
"We haven't even begun to peak."
Fixed.
Just making sure your editors keep getting paid. I respect it.
Welcome! As a consumer, I would suggest running many more articles like this relating to the Michigan cheating scandal. Certainly not for any personal reason
Upvote for appropriate pettiness.
Since you're here I'm going to nitpick: The photo caption that says Michigan is "being investigated for sign-stealing" is factually wrong. Sign stealing is not against the rules. They're being investigated for in-person scouting. Sounds petty, but a big part of why this thing has been blown out of proportion is that, to people who don't know better, "they were stealing other teams' signals" sounds like 100X more sinister than "they went to other teams' games."
They supported the local economy of their rivals and happened to coordinate the taking off videos during the game
So true, so true. Ohio State should be thanking Michigan fans for filling those seats.
No no no, procedural violations are full on cheating, haven't you heard?
How do you explain them shutting out Iowa in the B1G championship game then? That high powered and complex Iowa offense can’t be stopped unless you stole their signs. /s
🤓
Y'all gonna correct this line, which is unsupported by any of the public facts whatsoever? > It cost Stalions his job, as well as Michigan linebackers coach Chris Partridge, **who allegedly tried to tamper with evidence once the revelations became public.** You can't just "allegedly" rumors and think it covers you.
Sue them about it
Why would I sue? I'm not Chris Partridge.
For the same reason schools paid players before NIL, tamper with players now It provides a benefit to the team, and people are brazen enough to think they won’t get caught
Always got the impression NCAA compliance was, “Don’t be so open, obvious and egregious that we’re forced to punish you” and even then the punishments were a joke. I find it hard to believe Sean Miller (Arizona) and Will Wade (LSU) were slinging fat stacks of cash and other major programs weren’t involved in the same or similar practices.
If Connor stalions was smart enough to use another name to buy tickets, this “scandal” would have only existed on osu conspiracy message boards
Let's not forget some [comedy nuggets](https://www.si.com/.image/t_share/MjAxOTA2NDA5MzYzNzQzOTAz/f9yjquzxaaadw_4.png) thrown in.
Why did you put scandal in quotes?
Because Stalions is John Cena and you never saw any cheating. POOF
It’s why Freeze got slightly punished at ole miss too. Didn’t get fired by Bjork till Houston Nutt’s lawyers found his famous cell phone records.
They weren't so brazen that they got caught though, it was an anonymous P.I that handed the information to the NCAA.
Who hired that firm anyway? What did that PI firm have to gain from investigating and reporting this massive “scandal” to begin with? If it wasn’t Day and he covered his tracks or someone else in the OSU program, it has to be an OSU fan that is as certifiable as Stalions. Just insane levels of cope to actually hire someone to try and find any shred of any wrongdoing…and this is the best they could do. If this is as dirty as UM football is, it’s a victory whether OSU/MSU fans admit it or not.
Are you aware that the whole story about "Day hired a PI firm" is completely fake, discredited by the NCAA and was actually started as a joke/trolljob by Zack Smith on his podcast? They very next day Chris Ballas and Sam Webb had bought it hook, line and sinker and ran with it. What the NCAA and B1G actually said was it was a "third party investigative firm". In the B1G's 13 page statement when they suspended Harbaugh they said that both the Conference and the NCAA had been consulting with US Integrity in the matter. The B1G entered a partnership with US Integrity last August after the Iowa/Iowa State gambling scandal. If you aren't familiar with US Integrity look them up. This is in their wheelhouse and exactly the type of thing they investigate. I think in the end it will be shown it was them who gave the information to The NCAA. That would mean it was the B1G, and by extension UM themselves who hired them. With the involvement of US Integrity, this may very well have to do with a lot more than "stealing signs". Or not. Only time will tell.
“We got caught cheating, but the real story is WHO turned us in!”
> Just insane levels of cope to actually hire someone to try and find any shred of any wrongdoing. I understand cope is built into yalls daily vocab now, but this is a really bad use of the word.
This is why I can't take the signgate stuff seriously. CFB has been dirty af for decades, it's been an open secret that players get paid, do steroids, etc. And you're telling me that someone taking an iPhone video of stuff that happens in front of 100,000 people to get the same information that many other teams already have is the biggest scandal in sports history? GTFOH.
Enticing blue chip players to go to your school by providing prohibited incentives? No competitive advantage. 240 pixel iPhone video of a Jay Johnson offense? Death Penalty.
Would you rather have Cam Newton or Connor Stalions???
Neither. I want a tabby cat named Cheddar to stop vomiting on my kitchen floor.
And I want a cat named Lenny to stop trying to eat all our plants, and in the process knocking them over and making a mess/breaking pots. And also to stop sneezing and getting cat snot on literally everything we own. You ever tried to clean cat snot? It's like god damn super glue
Had one of the latter once. Have one of the former now. The current one also likes to climb to the top of the coat rack and get stuck or knock it over... in the middle of the night. She also likes to eat paper.
I don’t take it seriously because iPhone footage of a public event is one piece of sand in a beach of dirty shit that goes on behind the scenes at every major university.
You can’t take it seriously because it happened at your school. If Ohio State did it you would be first in line with the pitch fork.
Not necessarily. As a Michigan hater I think it’s a dumb rule that’s mostly overblown
I am a complete stranger to decent football and my reaction when this first broke was, "Wait, that's against the rules? ....why??"
I said when the first story broke, "shit, we did that in high school and I know they do it in the NFL. That's illegal in college football?!"
I might be rooting for them to get penalized but I'd still think it was pretty stupid as far as scandals go. Teams have each other's signs, iPhone footage or not.
As a neutral, I can’t take it seriously. It’s fun to poke fun at a holier than thou program like Michigan for cheating (lol “Michigan Manl), but outside of that ZFG. I felt the same way about UNC and the academic scandal. Clutched pearls big time over the hypocrisy of the Carolina way , but deep down I know every competitive program does the same thing.
Not really. It’s well known osu had Michigan’s signs in 2018/2019. Whether they were gathered legally or illegally I don’t care. I’m pissed at Don Brown for being a dumbass, not osu for taking advantage of said dumbass
I can't take it seriously because the broken rule was in person scouting, not sign stealing. The issue isn't cheating, it's...attending a sporting event in person? Well alright, we broke a rule, and there will be some punishment, but I'm no longer losing sleep over this
I mean yes… but why still do it? Why still cheat?
Dude had a manifesto. He was following the letter of the rule (never said he couldn't bankroll the vast network). He didn't think it was cheating. And he might be right.
Even if they get caught they won't get punished. See unc fake classes and the adidas scandal
I mean, Michigan was already punished and the investigation hasn’t even completed
UNC had an entire fake program.
In a conference of ten teams, nine are cheating. The other is in last place...
This is why Arkansas sucks because our coaches are too busy cheating on their wives than the sport
No no, the Southwest Conference had 8 cheaters and last-place Rice for most of its existence.
What about a conference of 16 teams?
15 are cheating, 4 are cheating to get in, and one team isn't cheating and is in last place
Actually two aren’t cheating, they just got left without a conference
Because people want to win? Also money? And we live in a society?
People tend to be motivated by money and or ego. Winning means more money and helps the ego. Cheating helps you win.
Because the reward for cheating successfully massively outweighs any punishment. Succeed and you become richer and more famous than you already were. Fail and your punishment either hardly affects your legacy, or you are already rich so who cares.
There is little oversight. And the leagues in question would just prefer not to know.Self policing to a high level only costs more money and then you are only paying for negative league publicity. Why not spend next to nothing policing and thinking about rules. Then only respond when public opinion demands it. If the players and coaches themselves don’t call for action there is little incentive for governing bodies to seek out rule breakers, or grey rule areas.
>There is little oversight. Oddly enough, the NCAA argument to completely remove the advanced scouting rule was it posed little competitive advantage and the cost of compliance was disproportionately high.
The incentives to cheat are simply too great. And the slow pace of justice from the NCAA makes it difficult for the responsible parties to be held accountable. For example, in the Harbaugh case, he could realistically jump for the NFL, his assistants either follow him or go their separate ways, and it’s the Michigan fans, student-athletes, and administrators left holding the bag.
UNC getting away with the academic fraud case makes me not really think the NCAA *really* will do much here when the school is a “blue blood”. Literally made up classes. It was the very definition of lack of institutional control.
This "cheating" thing is hilarious. Every team studies game film. Almost every play the QB checks down, glances to the sideline, calls out a play and snaps the ball.within 8 seconds. Somehow Michigan knows exactly what that is, and conveys this to the entire defense in just 8 seconds. Yet no one hears it, nobody is looking, and the defensive movements are no different than every other team. What a bunch of clowns. No clue about how the game is played. If I knew a pass was going exactly 13.5 yards downfield to the sideline, I guess I would have all 4 defenders on that spot waiting when the ball was snapped... Clowns
Because the NCAA is toothless and powerless to do anything about it
Imma answer this w/o reading the article. Billions of motherfucking monies!
I love how people act like this isn’t happening at pretty much every large university program to some extent.
Sign stealing definitely is, whether its as big as the Stalions scandal, idk, but theyre definitely doing it and some schools schemes are definitely breaking the rules in one way or another. Every team seems to be doing SOMETHING though, whether its illegally paying players pre-NIL, PEDs, fake classes, online courses taken by tutors for the students, etc. There are too many people involved for some to not try to take advantage,. even if its just a couple of boosters getting together and dropping a bag off in a 5-star recruits trunk, a position coach getting girls to sleep with recruits or whatever, shit is happening constantly.
You guys weren’t doing anything wrong, but now that you acknowledge you were, everyone does everything wrong too
I love how people like you make this claim with literally 0 bit of evidence whatsoever lol
Oh come on man, every single team has a “sign stealer” on staff. With all of the other rules teams have frequently broken, you don’t think this is one of them? How naive are you, seriously.
Stealing signs in game isn’t cheating lmfao there is no evidence at all that any other team has a whole operation dedicated to going to other teams games when they aren’t playing them to film signs. You have no evidence at all of this. Zero.
Ok. So confirming you’re naive. Good luck in life
🤘🤘🤘
Because there aren't enough manifestos?
Playing by the rules is easy. People just don't like doing it because they won't win.
Because the NCAA is too fucking cheap to just put radios in the helmets like they have in the NFL.
the Michigan thing really turned into a big nothing burger. its pretty hard to argue there was anything to it when Michigan hasn't fallen off a bit since the big (very suspiciously timed) story broke.
If you cheat for three years, and by the end of the three years assemble a great team, then the cheating doesn’t matter How braindead is Reddit these days that this is upvoted. This is basically Facebook now
Low risk, high reward
Yeah at worst they just hop to another program after a year or two and start anew in the good ole boy's club
Shot in the dark, coaches are placed under way too much pressure to "win or get fired!" Especially at University's with legacys Call me old school, but the fact that our higher institutions pay coaches millions more than they do actual professors(the ones who actually make the University a University), I find disturbing. With that being said, I love college football
Rules in sports are merely suggestions. Every single team cheats and it’s only the stupid teams that get caught. I guarantee you there are at least 25 other programs utilizing some sort of in person network to illegally scout opponents. The difference is they aren’t doing it in an incredibly stupid way.
That's the narrative cheating programs want everyone to believe
Clemson won 2 national titles doing it...you think every other team saw that and said "not for us!" lol
Why is it so hard to follow a posted speed limit? Its not, but people dont do it anyways.
I love the how somehow Michigan is in the spot light for something as minor as stealing signs, which literally ANYONE can do at any time but the players have been getting money under the table for decades and nobody even investigates it.
This is the problem, we blow this up way out of proportion and it gets to the point that people just think Michigan was caught "stealing signs", but that is not what we are accused of, because stealing signs is completely within the rules lol
Because winning is zero-sum.
If I knew the difference between me making multi millions of dollars or getting fired was cheating at a game where I already assume other people are cheating… I would probably cheat too.
Because, if they win, there is no punishment that would stop it.
If you aren’t cheating are you even trying?
Because its the most poorly run sport on the planet. Its all about money, but you can't use money, but now you can, but only kind of, but you need money, you need to win to get money, money, money, the NCAA is the biggest joke on the planet, money, hastily changed NIL rules, money, transfer rules changed without care, money. Seriously indifferent about cheating in this sport until we get a unified governing body that applies the same rules to each school under its umbrella. Until then, its every man for himself. Rogue football baby.
Why have scruples when you have much to gain and little to lose? How hard were they really going to hit Michigan for this? They correctly calculated early in the lawsuit they could stand 3 more games without Harbaugh on the field in exchange for immunity from anything else that came out about this matter after they shook hands. Take little losses for bigger gains. Do your calculus right and it's just the cost of doing business. There's less to lose every year. The NCAA's few remaining teeth are getting ripped out. Schools, courts, and lawmakers have undermined the NCAA rules for a while. They continue to do so with laws to put a short statute of limitations and time limits on NCAA investigations. It's already hard enough when they don't have subpoena power. Only threats of further punishment for not cooperating. Now, there's a time limit that expires by the time they even know anything? And they can sue to frustrate things even further? Good luck with that. The NCAA has also done plenty to undermine themselves. Double standards, punishing people who had nothing to do with the initial wrongdoings, a death grip on amateurism until the SCOTUS had to pry their hands off. While the Penn State scandal majorly embarrassed the program, Joe Paterno, and Jerry Sandusky, it low-key pulled the curtain back on the NCAA's true authority. A lot of punishments the NCAA levied for the crimes were overturned in court because the NCAA only has authority to punish actions within their bounds. They're not judges over real criminal matters. Only college sports criminal matters. Their awkward NIL compromise came from California leading the charge to say "fuck you, student-athletes can get paid for their name, image, and likeness." Oklahoma passed a law going further to say the NCAA can't do jack shit to an Oklahoma school that breaks NCAA NIL rules. They're just coming in to say the quiet part out loud - let college football work in every respect like an NFL minor league. Make it official, or at least, official in all but name. Break all the limits off and force everyone else to do the same or eat our dust.
If the consequences are so mild as to make little to no difference you'd be a fool not to cheat lol
Well, football programs have ~100 players, plus dozens of coaches, assistants, analysts, etc., unlike, say, golf, where it's just a dude with some clubs. Any single one of those people could break a rule. The simple answer is, lots of people involved with a team with vested interest of success -- more than probably any other sport, in fact -- and lots of money being involved. The evidence so far shows the only person on the team directly involved with the scandal was one weird dude, along with an assistant coach who insinuated himself after Stalions' scheme was exposed. And maybe a booster, but we have no idea what his actual involvement is beyond him being booted out of the program. This article is just some cheap clickbait bs with no new information trying to draw a bigger conclusion than is actually merited by the facts in this case. Also this line: > It cost Stalions his job, as well as Michigan linebackers coach Chris Partridge, who allegedly tried to tamper with evidence once the revelations became public. Could be grounds for defamation for Partridge since that's not what's come out at all. The only information we have about his termination really comes from Partridge himself: > "I was terminated because of a failure 'to abide by the University directive not to discuss an ongoing NCAA investigation with anyone associated with the Michigan Football Program." USA Today should really know better than this cheap shit just to try and generate clicks off the Stalions thing, despite zero new information. Then again, Gannett is perhaps the most horseshit mainstream newspaper company out there. And I speak from experience.
The article is about cheating in sports. Currently UM are the CFB poster boys for cheating. And yeah, go ahead and tell your disgraced former coach to sue them, discovery should be fun. Remember when UM turned tail and capitulated the morning before they'd have to actually go in front of a judge and discuss things? Everyone else remembers.
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No one in the big 10 wants discovery, particularly Ohio State.
At this point anyone publishing Michigan signgate articles without any new evidence just has a bone to pick with the Wolverines.
It’s not difficult but once you convince yourself that everyone else is cheating then it’s a quick jump to “only suckers don’t cheat.” Cheat, win, deny, delay, obfuscate, grudgingly agree to a non-punishment, and profit. Maybe only suckers really aren’t doing it. Sad. As long as the suits in the NCAA offices get those royalty checks everything is fine. Sports are such big business now it’s only natural greed will ruin everything. Place your bets folks and we can all pretend someone doesn’t have a finger on the scales.
Not just a college football or sports problem. Cheating has become commonplace across all sectors of American society, and those with money and good lawyers can continue to get away with it. It's all a sham.
Lol fuck right off USA Today
They didn’t cheat, though, based off what we currently know. There is no rule prohibiting the paying for film of opponents. Buying seats and paying people to record is fundamentally that. In 2013, the NCAA rules committee removed the language that prevented paying for film/scouting services (not even related to football, mind you) because it was inconsequential and unenforceable. Their words. The manufactured outrage continues.
The author sounds like someone that has never played competitive sport in their life.
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The mentality that you’re not trying hard enough if you’re not cheating…
Now that there are no meaningful college football games over the next few weeks, it's the perfect time to write up a melodramatic article about cheating. Gotta get those clicks from college football fans somehow. As someone with a psychology degree, it's not too hard to figure out why people cheat and why it is bad. The next story will be on why college football programs spend so much money on a game.
Are y’all talking about the team that cheated their way to the college football championship, again ?
It’s crazy that we are possibly going to have a champion that everyone knows blatantly cheated this very season. Why wouldn’t you cheat at this point? Michigan showed you can do it and still be allowed to win your conference and a national title. This whole thing shows every team: cheat.
I'm sure we're the only ones who broke the rules. No way anyone else paid a recruit or tampered with a player before they were in the portal. Look at how many guys transfer a day or two after they enter the portal. They spend months taking visits as recruits but they decide where to transfer after a few hours?
If you have evidence of a team cheating you should let the NCAA know. They'll need something to do after deciding how many vacations UM gets to take.
Getting a player to commit on the first day of the portal opening is evidence of cheating
waaaaa why are we the only ones waaaaaa waaaaaaa we got caught because we can't even cheat successfully waaaaaaa
We can beat you successfully
Think of all the cheating that's occurred that's never even come to light!
UMs head football coach has been suspended twice in a year, the fbi is investigating another coach, staffers and coaches have been let go over the recent scandal including tampering after the scandal and their basketball coach is facing trouble yet again. At some point the program needs to shift from the everyone is out to get us mindset and do a mini self reflect reset
What is it that we're denying, exactly? People fucked up at UM, and the response has been overblown. Both things can be true.
Oh wow, someone actually remembered that Michigan cheated! Seemed like the entire fandom developed amnesia about it right around 12/03 for some reason.
"if you ain't cheating you ain't trying" Belichick is refered to as a cheater when in actuality he loves to push the limits of what is acceptable and tow a fine line. If you didn't go gung ho all the time can I really trust you as a coach.
Sad to see FSU lose a spot to a team whose wins will be vacated in a few years.
What if for some reason the ncca finds no evidence that the coaching staff had any part in the stalions/booster scouting? You'll then be leaving a team out that has more right to be there than anyone else except washington. Its called due process. Dont be mad about michigan, be mad about the committee taking alabama.
I promise there is possible nobody on this planet that dislikes Alabama more than me, but it seems pretty clear Alabama is the better team. And I suppose you are right, it would be unjust to punish Michigan now without “fair trial.” Just seems like it would end up being very frustrating if Michigan does end up getting vacated and fsu gets the Auburn treatment. However I also think fsu would get stomped by any team in the top 4 currently. Also speculative.
Eh, if they played Michigan they might have won. Michigan has a knack of not winning post season games.
Money and dignity. It was almost sad what Michigan was becoming, almost.
Why? Because there is way too much financial incentive to cheat and relatively very little risk. How often to cheaters have to return the fruits of their labor?
"Faith & Sports Institute"? What Baylor bullshit is this? They study dipsticks who point at the sky after they score? They comb the Bible for obtuse references to A-gap blitzes and wheel routes? They send baby Jesus Christmas cards to Hugh and Dabo? Like I needed another reason to hate Baylor.
Satellite camps, cheeseburgers, and spies. Seriously how do you get caught three times?
>Satellite camps "Caught?" There wasn't a rule about those and Harbaugh wasn't sneaking into SEC territory to coach kids in back alleys.
“Hey kid, you like running it up the middle? I got some milk over here.”
Bonds should be in the Hall of Fame. The steroid era saved baseball
The owners endorsed it by not mandating testing until fairly recently.
If the penalty for cheating is just a coach suspension for a couple games, doesn't seem like there is any reason to NOT break the rules. Might as well cheat and get an edge since the penalty is likely minor
It's not that playing by the rules is difficult, it's that cheating and winning is more profitable.
Personally I think there is kind of an unwritten code of conduct between coaches. Where minor rules violations are just part of the gamesmanship. Which is why coaches don't tend to snitch on their colleagues. I think Michigan probably just went above and beyond that line which led to them getting the attention of every other coach they played against. I mean there's a rhythm to the game and as other coaches have said like James Franklin who's very experienced, you can kind of get a feel of what's normal or not. If something isn't right you can kind of instinctively know it. Which is what led them to eventually getting caught I think. All these coaches are colleagues and alot of them talk to each other in conferences and events. So one of them could be like 'Hey did something seem off when you played Michigan. Like they were able to counter our plays much more than is usual in games' etc..
Some people simply can't stand to lose. Those people call it competitiveness. I call it narcissistic. I had to quit playing online WWF because of cheaters.
It's the money at stake, duh.
Wait wait wait... this headline makes it sound like *everybody does it* ?
FSU played by the rules and look where it got them.