The Michigan/Sign Stealing & COVID Punishment Thread

[detfan782004]

1 hour ago, nagahide13 said:

I've said this before and I may be in the minority, but the actual scandal and lengths Michigan has gone through to knowingly cheat are far worse than the actual sign-stealing. They knowingly and intentionally cheated and set up a system to do so. That's death penalty stuff.

Maybe we can get Connor Stallions to put his skills to work and find out what the hell is inside Ron Desantis' boots.

Death penalty is a joke now given NIL.

Take scholarships? UM can just pay walk ons.

 

NCAA has hosed themselves for enforcing much 

[AkronsWitness]

3 hours ago, nagahide13 said:

I've said this before and I may be in the minority, but the actual scandal and lengths Michigan has gone through to knowingly cheat are far worse than the actual sign-stealing. They knowingly and intentionally cheated and set up a system to do so. That's death penalty stuff.

Maybe we can get Connor Stallions to put his skills to work and find out what the hell is inside Ron Desantis' boots.

You have to also think (as Im sure the committee is too) that this is Michigans like...4th scandal in the past 3 years under Harbaugh. That Im sure is going to weigh in to the decision.

They have had recruiting violations and suspensions for improper benefits, they have the FBI after Weiss for computer access crimes, they have a ex-marine sneaking onto the field of opposing teams sidelines with spyglasses on and correct me if Im wrong here but didnt they also have a scandal a few years back of one of their guys changing the student grades of certain players by hacking into the schools system? 

That is a helluva lot of 'stuff' happening around a single program in very short amount of time and how they have survived ALL of this with only Harbaugh getting a 3 game suspension thus far against meaningless teams is crazy.

Some Michigan fans can try to downplay it all they want but if the shoe was on the other foot and they found out MSU was potentially hacking into their schools cloud server to steal YEARS worth of practice footage to gain an advantage, let alone buying tickets to their games against the NCAA rules to sit at the 50 yard line  e i g h t different games of theirs--- UM fans would rioting in the streets of East Lansing right now.

Edited November 3, 2023 by AkronsWitness

[AkronsWitness]

3 hours ago, NateDawg said:

If there aren’t satisfactory measures taken, I don’t know why any Big Ten opponents wouldn’t just go out there on a Saturday with microphones in their helmets. What is the worst the Big Ten or NCAA could do honestly? You took things into your own hands to level the playing field when a team clearly illegally acquired your signals. If I were Purdue Saturday I would dare someone to do something about it. You are already Purdue. It’s hard to get knocked any lower, what’s the worst that can happen.

They wouldnt be allowed to participate in the Quiznos Subs Bowl

[MWil23]

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/38804628/ads-offer-support-tell-commissioner-big-ten-step-up
 

A few noteworthy items:

*UM’s AD was NOT on the call. Sorry @ramssuperbowl99

*While no potential punishments were discussed, Petitti acknowledged speaking with the NCAA about its investigation, although he refused to divulge any details of that conversation, sources said. One of the issues Petitti brought up with the athletic directors was that he couldn't make a decision on Michigan this season based on a whim, that he would need a set of facts to go off.

The conversation with the NCAA hints at his willingness to find out the fact set the NCAA could be working toward. It's not known whether the NCAA would be willing to share information, but it's telling that the organization gave the Big Ten an initial heads-up on what was alleged, an action taken in part to protect the integrity of games.

(On phone can’t quote)

*Next steps are speaking with B1G Presidents

*They could go down a sportsmanship violation to use B1G discipline, but that still is bureaucratic.

*This call was one of support for the new Commish as opposed to the coaches who wanted their pound of flesh now

*Unrelated article, but Purdue’s coach has said he has video and ticket sales receipts to show multiple times they were at Purdue games doing the same stuff

[BigC421/]

Petiti is at UM today for a field hockey game and will meet with Santa tonight. 

[detfan782004]

I have never condone this but some big questions I have.

 

* If these schools have known about it why did it take a UM alum to turn this in? In todays social media world any University could have easily blown lid off this

* If schools knew about it for couple years why did schools not change up signs or get creative to stop it. Not condoning it but why was TCU warned but their own school didn't change their signs? Makes no sense there.

* So you have a known infiltrator attending games and you aren't ratcheting up security on sideline?

So basically you are getting rob weekly, you know about it, you did nothing to protect your house and now you are crying foul.

Michigan is in wrong but so many of these coaches are showing some inept leadership if they didn't get this under control for 2 years.

There is a lot of evidence out there against Michigan that was easily available and a lot of quotes from people at these schools that they have known. Allowing the behavior to perpetuate is bad on each University.

But if the Big Ten knew and did nothing until a story broke the Big Ten is culpable too. 

[MWil23]

9 minutes ago, detfan782004 said:

I have never condone this but some big questions I have.

 

* If these schools have known about it why did it take a UM alum to turn this in? In todays social media world any University could have easily blown lid off this

* If schools knew about it for couple years why did schools not change up signs or get creative to stop it. Not condoning it but why was TCU warned but their own school didn't change their signs? Makes no sense there.

* So you have a known infiltrator attending games and you aren't ratcheting up security on sideline?

So basically you are getting rob weekly, you know about it, you did nothing to protect your house and now you are crying foul.

Michigan is in wrong but so many of these coaches are showing some inept leadership if they didn't get this under control for 2 years.

There is a lot of evidence out there against Michigan that was easily available and a lot of quotes from people at these schools that they have known. Allowing the behavior to perpetuate is bad on each University.

But if the Big Ten knew and did nothing until a story broke the Big Ten is culpable too. 

Could be that they knew their signs were being stolen but not how and to what extent, or even to what degree.

Changing signals sounds great, but doing it takes a LOT of time, frankly time most coaches don’t have barring a big break between games ala TCU having weeks as opposed to days. You can’t just switch up signs to that degree without a significant heads up in advance, certainly not mid flow of the game.

So let’s say a team figures out the second drive of a game, they’re sunk, whereas if they know well ahead of time, they can adjust.

[detfan782004]

1 hour ago, MWil23 said:

Could be that they knew their signs were being stolen but not how and to what extent, or even to what degree.

Changing signals sounds great, but doing it takes a LOT of time, frankly time most coaches don’t have barring a big break between games ala TCU having weeks as opposed to days. You can’t just switch up signs to that degree without a significant heads up in advance, certainly not mid flow of the game.

So let’s say a team figures out the second drive of a game, they’re sunk, whereas if they know well ahead of time, they can adjust.

I don't disagree but reading the quotes these coaches knew if going into games. Before games. Weeks in advance 

[MWil23]

14 minutes ago, detfan782004 said:

I don't disagree but reading the quotes these coaches knew if going into games. Before games. Weeks in advance 

With the 20 hour rule per week in NCAA, it essentially forces those teams to use that time and waste it on things they shouldn’t have to due to cheating or by gameplanning and practice time which is still a huge competitive disadvantage.

[rackcs]

16 hours ago, BigC421/ said:

Point is this just isn’t as big of a deal as you want it to be. Sign stealing happens and everyone in the football world already knows it. People acting like it isn’t are publicly outing themselves as ignorant as to how major college football works.  Your exposing yourselves no matter how many jokes you make.  The very in-depth Marquette article from 2022 basically concludes that not only does every one sign steal but the ncaa essentially approves of it. It flat says for a major program to not be in gaging is malpractice at this point.  
 

But you keep falling for the Ryan Day to Pete Thamel strategic media drip telling yourself you know more about football than football people

If you want to hear from football people, here you go: https://theathletic.com/5013443/2023/11/01/college-football-coaches-thoughts-sign-stealing-michigan/

In case you don't have an Athletic subscription, they interviewed 50 current FBS coaches and staffers. There's a pretty overwhelming consensus that this is a serious allegation.

15 hours ago, BigC421/ said:

I think you and your softy coach are trying a little to hard to make excuses for your failures. Even to the point your already making it an excuse for this years game preemptively despite the fact that Stallions won’t even be there while your sign stealing guy will be. 
 

Do you honestly believe OSU doesn’t steal signs? 

Your softy coach had to cheat just to get past his failures

13 hours ago, roger murdock said:

I think the fairest thing for the B10 to do to spell this out for Michigan

 

1. We don't have enough information to make a fair ruling right now

2. We will let this playout

3. You have the option to self impose a post season ban this year

4. If you do not self impose a punishment this year, and we find you guilty, the punishment will be *considerably* worse 

 

If  Michigan thinks they are innocent, they can play the year out, get a chance at a title, and redeem themselves by proving they did nothing wrong. 

If Michigan knows they are guilty, they can avoid disgracing the sport and the conference by potentially going to a playoff this year, and actually do the right thing. 

 

We dont fully know whats going on, but its obvious Michigan knows how screwed they are. 

I think Michigan is going to keep playing it out and see what happens. If they can just push through this for this season and win the championship, it probably will still feel worth it to the school/team/alumni even if the title gets stripped away later.

[Scoundrel]

14 minutes ago, rackcs said:

If you want to hear from football people, here you go: https://theathletic.com/5013443/2023/11/01/college-football-coaches-thoughts-sign-stealing-michigan/

In case you don't have an Athletic subscription, they interviewed 50 current FBS coaches and staffers. There's a pretty overwhelming consensus that this is a serious allegation.

Your softy coach had to cheat just to get past his failures

I think Michigan is going to keep playing it out and see what happens. If they can just push through this for this season and win the championship, it probably will still feel worth it to the school/team/alumni even if the title gets stripped away later.

Get him Rack! You win case closed. Game over. /thread. Back to school for some is my suggested next step.

[BigC421/]

14 minutes ago, rackcs said:

If you want to hear from football people, here you go: https://theathletic.com/5013443/2023/11/01/college-football-coaches-thoughts-sign-stealing-michigan/

In case you don't have an Athletic subscription, they interviewed 50 current FBS coaches and staffers. There's a pretty overwhelming consensus that this is a serious allegation.

Your softy coach had to cheat just to get past his failures

I think Michigan is going to keep playing it out and see what happens. If they can just push through this for this season and win the championship, it probably will still feel worth it to the school/team/alumni even if the title gets stripped away later.

Lol anonymous poll of coaches right ? No one that’s willing to put there name on it ? No idea who any of them are or what school or bias they may have?  Quotes and polls from sources that are to big of cowards to put there name behind it mean nothing .  Scouting your opponents and stealing there signals isn’t cheating. You can debate the ethics of the lengths Stallions went to but it’s not cheating. As Wetzel said You should not expect any level of privacy when your holding up giant cards in a stadium with 80,000+ people in attendance on live tv. Everyone steals signs, everyone knows everyone steals signs. Don’t be so stupid that your signs can be easily decoded.  Everyone in college football openly admits they steal signs.  Why do u think they have multiple guys holding up cards?  It’s not cheating, minor infraction at best. Clemson was great at sign stealing no one cared. Baylor got caught in person scouting no one cared. This is a strategic PR hit job 

[BigC421/]

As I said early Big10 commish is meeting with UM president tonight. Trusted source has on good authority Michigan isn’t laying down on this and is fully prepared to go take it to the courts and go the full legal route.  Bunching whiners will not rule with mobb justice and no due process, not happening.  
 

Latest info dropping this morning is that Michigan has proof information was obtained illegally and for the 1st time transfers are now giving up all the dirt on there old programs. Michigan is prepared to fight back. 
 

This is why most coaches have had the good sense to keep there mouths shut on this issue.  Everyone’s got dirt and Michigan has money cannon’s for days.  You want to make it open season and start hiring PI firms? Commuting crimes to obtain information ? Pay off ex players and coaches for dirt? Everyone’s dirty and it’s open season 

[roger murdock]

24 minutes ago, BigC421/ said:

Lol anonymous poll of coaches right ? No one that’s willing to put there name on it ? No idea who any of them are or what school or bias they may have?  Quotes and polls from sources that are to big of cowards to put there name behind it mean nothing .  Scouting your opponents and stealing there signals isn’t cheating. You can debate the ethics of the lengths Stallions went to but it’s not cheating. As Wetzel said You should not expect any level of privacy when your holding up giant cards in a stadium with 80,000+ people in attendance on live tv. Everyone steals signs, everyone knows everyone steals signs. Don’t be so stupid that your signs can be easily decoded.  Everyone in college football openly admits they steal signs.  Why do u think they have multiple guys holding up cards?  It’s not cheating, minor infraction at best. Clemson was great at sign stealing no one cared. Baylor got caught in person scouting no one cared. This is a strategic PR hit job 

Interesting point about biases.

Do you think your view on this might be clouded by your alliance's and loyalties? Maybe a little? 

To me the gold standard of bat **** crazy loyalty was the Ray Rice situation where the evidence was overwhelming and Ravens fans basically though ‘this is nothing y’all making a mountain out of a molehill’ and 31 other fan bases looked at em like they were Barbarians. 
 

Now, most Michigan fans here seem to be more level headed here and can read the writing on the wall, but then again you don’t go to Michigan if you struggle with comprehension. Am I correct in assuming you are a Walmart wolverine? 

[MikeT14]

4 hours ago, MWil23 said:

*While no potential punishments were discussed, Petitti acknowledged speaking with the NCAA about its investigation, although he refused to divulge any details of that conversation, sources said. One of the issues Petitti brought up with the athletic directors was that he couldn't make a decision on Michigan this season based on a whim, that he would need a set of facts to go off.

I actually agree with him there. We're seeing a lot of accumulation of things, but double checking, fact finding, and reports take time. It's a hard decision, and I get that. He's in a very tough spot.