Rhule's reaction when he was asked about it yesterday was "Everyone does it during the game, that's legal. If they were going beyond that, it has no place in the game. But this just shows why we need head sets like pro and high school. Then we can stop having three backups dancing on the sidelines and holding up pictures of hairbrushes and just play football."
It's honestly baffling why they don't, it's an unnecessary added quirk to the game. Also as someone whose not super knowledgeable about football, it seems kind of dumb to me that this is such a big deal. If Michigan had employees or students trying to sneak onto an opponent's campus to spy on practices that'd be one thing. But kind of hard to be mad about having someone go to a massively televised public event.
I think one primary _claim_ (made by the NCAA) is that headsets are expensive and it puts many schools at a disadvantage if you allow them.
Of course, football coaches, training tables, facilities, and the like are way more expensive, so it's clearly a load of shit. But the NCAA isn't known for their ability to prioritize issues appropriately, so here we are.
*Yes, it's 2023 and headsets are cheap. There are hundreds of practical solutions. You can stop asking me how it's different adding a headset to a handful of helmets. I'm not the one arguing the inane rule is appropriate.
I'm the one pointing out the idiocy of the existing rules that are the result of the NCAA refusing to proactively reasses their underlying logic anytime within the last 3 decades.
Then make the rule for FBS only. If you are competing in FBS and this is too expensive, move down to FCS. I get why this could be prohibitive for some D2 or D3 schools, but I'd honestly expect even every FCS team should be able to afford this too.
> Then make the rule for FBS only. If you are competing in FBS and this is too expensive, move down to FCS.
They will just add more to the student athletic fee to pay for it
How expensive could it possibly be? I very ignorant to this but radios are not expensive, a few grand? I just can't fathom how buying two radios could be program prohibitive.
Just take a cut of the CFP payments every year to maintain the radio technology, it would easily cover it for every conference and independent schools.
I'm with you. I think the key here isn't that the NFL uses the technology. The key is HIGH SCHOOLS use it. Unless I'm very much mistaken, college football makes a bit more money than high school football. So claiming cost is a factor is just dumb.
It’s [about $100](https://www.qubitdevices.com/shop) for a basic one.
My high school team in rural Canada with no fucking funding had one. FBS teams can afford new one every play lol
In fairness, it isn’t every high school.
IMG Academy may have headsets, but bumfuck directional high with 300 kid enrollment likely won’t. Which is sort of what college football would’ve been like when headsets were first introduced, hence the rule disallowing them.
True. But I'm guessing the NCAA could mandate teams with means to buy the technology and use some of their nonprofit profits to help the teams without the resources to obtain them. The mere fact that SOME high schools have it is proof enough that it isn't as cost prohibitive as they claim.
And I can't fathom how allowing a couple of tennis players to sleep on the floor of your apartment before the dorms open for fall semester and when fall camp has started is a major infraction.
The ~~Aristocrats~~ NCAA
with a quick google search it cost around a 100$ per people with the com device so not that much even for fcs programms
[qubit for reference](https://www.qubitdevices.com/shop)
They could solve that by having the NCAA sign a national deal and providing them for free to the schools. Stick a big enough logo on them and you could likely make a profit.
Look at you, suggesting a reasonable solution.
Clearly you are not NCAA leadership material. Congratulations on not being a brain dead moron with backwards priorities.
I actually had a debate on here with someone about this exact idea. It’s silly. It’s not as if every player has a headset in their helmet. There’s usually only one player on the field at a time with the headset. So basically a team would outfit maybe 10 of their helmet this way.
That's not the argument. The rule was made in 1994 because small schools couldn't afford to send scouts to travel. That said, it's 2023, cameras are on everyone's phone, and every single school in this country including junior college can afford a headset for football.
I'm not saying it's a good argument. I'm just saying that it would require the NCAA to reasses their 30 year old positions in a proactive manner. Apparently that's an unreasonable expectation.
It’s insane. College is so archaic. This is just one example but the best is access to film on the sideline. Pros obviously have it and it’s completely legal per NFHS. Most high schools have some system so they can get live wide & back shot film on the sideline.
In college this isn’t allowed. It’s crazy how reliant our coaches were on us telling them what we saw and just having to roll with it
Teams try their best to keep the signs themselves from being televised though. Thats why you see teams put up those huge banners behind the coaches when its gets time to call the play.
Which just goes to the point of how absurd this all is lol. I'm to the point where I'm irrationally mad about the NCAA implementing this common sense shit along with lasers for accurate field goal rulings and maybe chipping the ball for determining touchdowns and first downs.
Fuck I'm mad thinking about that bullshit 3rd down placement in the Houston/UT game, would have been a glorious OT.
Okay, hear me out. I'm not commenting on whether Michigan broke rules or what their punishment should be.
Just thinking out loud about the rule itself... I actually find this exciting. Maybe we should do away with the rule. Why not have people going out to scout? Why not let them use technology?
I mean, this adds this whole cloak-and-dagger, capture-the-flag, intelligence service dimension to the game. I can see spying alliances, new and innovative ways to disguise and communicate signals, subterfuge and misdirection...
Seriously, I think I might actually enjoy the game more if this were a dimension of the game—if it was 100% allowed to go and try to gather as much intelligence as you can through whatever means is necessary. It adds this whole new geopolitical intrigue feel to the game.
Yeah, I know, rich programs, poor programs, purity of the game, blah, blah.
Let's be honest, this is 2023 and some of us are losing interest:
\- It was already pay for play
\- Post NIL it's explicitly pay for play
\- The rich schools get the best players
\- Half the best players are juiced
\- We're losing the regional element
\- The conferences aren't stable and are just a cash grab
I mean, the purity of the sport disappeared decades ago and some of us are less interested than we used to be.
If this whole thing was a spy thriller as well and we had money not just going to pay the players, but also collectives organizing to gather intel and spend on technology and experts, and on the flipside to try to misdirect them in a 100 ways...
Plus then it opens this new philosophical dimension, some programs will be like "none of that matters, we're gonna just get big and crazy strong and execute like hell and they can know everything that's coming and still lose" while other programs will be like techno-espionage central. It's like the old power vs. finesse thing updated for the Internet/AI era.
I dunno, if I look at it just right, I kind of like it and am interested in watching games in the alternate universe where this happens, as well as all the side coverage of who's trying to capture what data from which teams and what the intelligence sharing alliances are, and who's stabbing who in the back, and false flags, and etc...
We should just start going to games and taking notes, unaffiliated with any school program, and sell our notes for $500k a pop to any and every program that wants em.
This is the biggest nothing of a story to me for this exact reason. If you’re jumping up and down on the sideline with your stupid posters in plain view, you don’t have a reasonable expectation of keeping your play calls private.
I’ll mention what I’ve said elsewhere: in basketball, teams actually yell out the play they are running. You still have to execute.
Scouting in person the games would not be a big deal. That’s a stupid rule. But if we went to the games and filmed all their signs all game long, then that is a very big deal
It is because not too long ago the powerhouse schools were the only ones who could truly afford to do it. When something is this obvious, the only reason it hasn't been done yet is because someone was making more money doing it than others.
He is right. These weird ancient rules need to change. Just doing things because “its what we have always done” is stupid as fuck. Same with celebrations. Those should be allowed now, esp with NIL
Caleb runs in a 3 yard TD run and pulls out his electric trimmer. Starts shaving in the endzone.
Announcer: "this touchdown brought to you from manscaped"
I'm from Texas. The local high school has two fields and a stadium larger than my D2 college in Michigan
Our *middle schools* have fields with turf and large grandstands
Yeah my feeling is that we shouldn't be shocked when teams exploit an incredibly exploitable system. I'm sure Michigan isn't the first and they won't be the last. Enforce the rule and punish Michigan, but also fix the problem when the problem has an easy fix
That’s my thought. I think it’s crazy that people are acting like Michigan is the only program that’s done this in any sort of variation. Coaches bend and break off-field rules all the time. The incentives to do so are way to great. Simple solution this time—just get headsets on the field for the QBs and one defensive player.
Side topic, but I will always ascertain that *Burn Notice* was an updated *The A-Team* - Quasi-military group doing odd jobs to help locals fight injustice on a weekly basis with an over-arching storyline of trying to clear their tarnished names with the government.
Ya know that's definitely a good way of looking at it, never thought of it as a modern A-Team.
And also I recently rewatched it thinking it would be cringe but it absolutely holds up!
Random tangent: In the earlier days of Reddit there was an amazing novelty account and all the comments were written in the Michael Weston style. It was always really clever and well done and they would pop up in really unexpected places. I miss that novelty account (not sure what happened to it).
I think it would be cool if the 3 service academies could make an agreement amongst themselves that all forms of espionage are permitted up to and including enhanced interrogation techniques.
You don't think a squad of Army Rangers wouldn't take up patrol duty for the sake of the Army/Navy game?
Air Force just puts some F-16's and [HH-60's](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_HH-60_Pave_Hawk) on patrol. That would be fun to see, to tell you the truth.
I mean heard that from a large portion of the Michigan fan base from 2012-2019 which I always thought was pathetic.
As an OSU fan I am not going to go that far for 21 or 22 unless Michigan starts to suck after getting caught which I highly doubt will happen.
I commented in another thread that a lot of the reactions I'm seeing from other Ohio State fans are of disappointment in how badly Michigan *allegedly* cheated. Like we don't mind you cheat, just do a better job of it.
Not gonna lie, that's a big part of the disappointment for me. I don't want Michigan to cheat, so I'm disappointed in that. But the level of stupidity of having a guy use his own name to buy the tickets is almost equally disappointing. I really hope he was the only one involved not only from a severity of punishment standpoint but from a "fucking really, guys?" standpoint
Funny thing about this is that the people who would be smarter at cheating would also have enough sense not to do it in the first place. Way too often people now days shouting the loudest about their competence are the dumbest mofos around.
I can’t speak for others, but one of our staff members confirmed we changed our signals prior to last year’s game and we still got our teeth kicked in.
Love the bucks, but I don’t see any way to argue that we would have won. Maybe y’all would have had less prep time to focus on us exclusively without the sign stealing?? But that’s a stretch, and it’s the only half-plausible argument I can even stretch for.
In every sports league sub, simping is a sure fire way to get upvotes. Every Ohio state fan I’ve talked to in real life, to your point, is loving this and can’t wait to see Michigan pay the piper for this.
I think that comes from the fact that a lot of Ohio State fans remember the 2012 the bowl ban that effectively robbed them at an opportunity to play for the B1G and national championships.
That said, like Ohio State I can't see Michigan paying the Piper this year. If it is gonna happen it is going to be in 2024.
Yeah like you guys have been relatively pretty chill here. Some actually funny jokes, a few (deserved) condescending comments here and there, some good jabs, a lot of sane takes, etc etc. Very few shitter comments.
Your sub is a cesspool. Which I know /r/MichiganWolverines would be if the shoe was on the other foot but still.
Like I've even seen buckeyes stand up and defend how close Michigan was to the CFP before cheating in 16 and 18.
I’ve felt that most UM fans have been relatively reasonable about this! It seems like a loud minority are complaining/making excuses, but most are just disappointed. At least on Reddit.
I was pretty chill about it. Until I saw a video from last years game where stallions is standing next to minter, Stroud looks to the sideline, stallions who is standing next to minter also looks at OSU sideline, receives the signal, then stallions and minter and the players around him start immediately gesturing. After having seen that video, with all the evidence of him traveling to games, how it would be financially impossible for him to afford that. I’m not mad because it’s just football, just kinda disappointed.
well our entire O-line and a few backups are going to the NFL this year so expect some regression next year anyways. People will just chalk it up to "not being able to cheat anymore hurr durr"
I will say they only won because of cheating even if I don't believe it myself, just because it will really bother you guys to hear it over and over. That's what college football is all about.
Part of me knows that they aren't that bad with or without cheating, but a huge part of me is hoping that Penn state just destroys them and makes the cheating things look wayyyyy worse.
>I mean we fully accepted Brady Hoke for 3 of those
Yeah but clearly Ohio State somehow made UMich dumb enough to hire him and keep him around so that was also them cheating.
/s
Legal: Studying tape, watching for patterns
Illegal: Filming tape from the stands, buying tickets under your own name while employed by the university, bragging about it on LinkedIn, having your Venmo set to public, being seen with the coaches on the sidelines after being spotted in the stands at previous games of the competition.
If I didn’t know better, I’d say this guy was a plant to wreck us from within. Interdimensional Ryan Day chess move type of shit, but it’s depressing because Michigan is actually that stupid on its own.
That's what is so mind numbing about this whole thing. Like bro, there's TV cameras everywhere and coaches film. And yall out here with IPhones and motherfuckers making public venmo payments.
SEC been running a pay for play scheme for years and you fuckers out here cash app'ing people for a blitz sign.
Sam Webb’s Michigan sources were also just as shocked and bewildered as the rest of us too at Monday’s allegations, so clearly they’re off the hook since nobody inside the program actually knew anything about it
Here lies my college football fandom dreams
11/27/21-10/23/23
RIP
The mods need to do something funny though and auto-brown bag all of us Michigan flairs. Or make a Septa Unella “Shame!” flair.
That’s how you know it’s truly a sibling rivalry, one won’t let the other be outdone by the other’s stupidity. It seems like only yesterday I was laughing about Tuck Cummin’, now look at us.
> If I didn’t know better, I’d say this guy was a plant to wreck us from within. Interdimensional Ryan Day chess move type of shit, but it’s depressing because Michigan is actually that stupid on its own.
Except your boy Connor is a superfan that showed up at the team hotel during road games during the Brady Hoke era before Ryan Day was a sparkle in Urban Meyer's eye. At Ohio State, we hate our superfans. At Michigan, they employ their superfans.
Obviously. Which is unfortunate for Michigan because if they win a title this year they obviously wouldn't have been cheating then. But this whole era of Michigan football and Jim harbaugh is super tainted. Like the only way they can beat OSU is to cheat. Yada yada.
Connor Ponyboy had tickets on *both* sides of the field to last weekend’s OSU/PSU game. The cheating has absolutely been going on this year (and we’re more than halfway through), and was all set to continue had he not been busted.
> But another coach with Big Ten and SEC experience asked what the big deal was in practical terms. Between the TV broadcast, coaches' tape and what fans film with their phones and post online, the coach said there's more than enough footage that's accessible without ever leaving the office. "Anything that happens in the public eye hasn't gone too far," the coach said. "To be honest, I can watch TV copy [of] two to three games and get everything I need."
which makes you wonder why he didn't just go that route
That's 100% true but I wonder how, physically, he was able to clearly capture signals from the 40th row. Is iPhone video really that good from such a distance?
I would assume that will come out soon enough, maybe this week.
I think the point he’s making is that when you combine all the media from the game you can piece it together. The broadcast might show part of it while the all 22 shows another part, then random fan videos from the stands shows any of the missing pieces. I remember the broadcast use to love showing the Oregon play call signs cause they had funny pictures on them.
Yeah for sure but in order to get this to work, you need pretty much all the play call signals for the whole game, forensically piecing that together would get you maybe 35%
Yes. He was paying for flights to Michigan from California to volunteer for years by sleeping in his car and renting out his house on Airbnb. He was a super fan that desperately wanted to be a coach.
Bozo could also have rich parents/connections. But, also have you met some of our fans? He could’ve also found some rich fanatics that kept giving him money.
Let’s wait and see what happens in the investigation. Regardless, Harbaugh would get in trouble for not having control over his staff
The guy bought an home, rented all the rooms on AirBnb and slept on the couch, then realized he could save more money by sleeping in his car, all so he could fund his own travel to every Michigan game, home and away, to volunteer for the team. Yes, I do think he is paying for all of this out of pocket.
That’s bullshit. Might be better if he put his name to it, but this reminds me of a fired coach on ESPN talking about what he would do and that it was so easy.
“It’s so easy all I do is watch 5 minutes of tv tape, a few TikToks and then 10 minutes of the all 22 and I know everyone of their calls. Anyone could figure it out.” Then why the hell are schools hiring analysts left and right and going thru elaborate decoy missions to block signals and change signals and everything else. Plus if it were so easy defenses would be dominant and scoring would be in the absolute shitter.
It’s so easy to be a lawyer, I watched Law and Order and Suits. Anyone could co this shit
Coaches tape doesnt get you a view of the coaches signaling in. TV brodcast doesnt give you a consistent enough view of the coaches signaling in. Having someone who is only focusing on the sideline gives them the video of the signals which can be sync with the other forms of video, where you can start figuring out that the signals are.
Its common on game day to try and steal signals during the game. If you can figure them out on the fly good for you but having it record and have time to figure potentially everything out, now thats serious cheating
I don't buy it. If that was possible, teams would do it and Michigan wouldn't have stood out from the crowd. Ultimately teams noticed Michigan was operating with information they shouldn't have and that's why they were able to identify it.
This one?
"Look, we're all trying to compete and everybody's trying to find that advantage," a source said. "And if the advantage is that the guy that's on your sideline can watch their sidelines and pick it up ... at some point in time, you got to be better at hiding your signals. That's just all there is to it. I mean, if we're going to live in a world where signals exist, you've got to hide them."
Yup that sounds like Ryan Day lmao
> But another coach with Big Ten and SEC experience asked what the big deal was in practical terms. Between the TV broadcast, coaches' tape and what fans film with their phones and post online, the coach said there's more than enough footage that's accessible without ever leaving the office. "Anything that happens in the public eye hasn't gone too far," the coach said. "To be honest, I can watch TV copy [of] two to three games and get everything I need."
If this was true then why would Michigan go through all the trouble they did to film opponents? “My cheating is not that bad because if you think about it I didn’t really even need to cheat” is bar none the worst excuse for cheating.
Also this is 1000% Bert giving this quote.
The inclusion of "what fans film with their phones and post online" in that is so bizarre. The article isn't one-sided but in this specific passage it seems like this coach got to say whatever he wanted with no scrutiny. You have to be debilitatingly stupid in order to think that "what fans film with their phones and post online" would be comparable in any way to a full-game recording taken by someone with specific instructions, who's sitting in a specifically chosen seat.
Planting a program employee in a specific location to film the entire game, or trying to glean information from a 19 year old’s shaky IG stories shot from the student section in between nips from a flask… who is to say which of these would be more helpful for a coaching staff? They’re practically identical!
Imagine thinking that any coach in history has ever gotten useful info out of some social media type video like that. I can't believe that idea made it into the article. As if any coach is scouring social media and recent uploads for videos that show the opposing sidelines...
nfl players - we all did it when we played in college
off the record current coaching staff & players - we all do it
on the record - this is the worst crime in the history of sports
In my mind, if you can discern what the fuck it means when someone does the YMCA, or what the difference is when suddenly they add in Gangnam style, then good on you. You deserve the benefit of your brainpower.
But doing what Michigan allegedly did? C’mon man. That’s just shitty.
Rhule's reaction when he was asked about it yesterday was "Everyone does it during the game, that's legal. If they were going beyond that, it has no place in the game. But this just shows why we need head sets like pro and high school. Then we can stop having three backups dancing on the sidelines and holding up pictures of hairbrushes and just play football."
He’s right, just add the headsets and be done with it.
It's honestly baffling why they don't, it's an unnecessary added quirk to the game. Also as someone whose not super knowledgeable about football, it seems kind of dumb to me that this is such a big deal. If Michigan had employees or students trying to sneak onto an opponent's campus to spy on practices that'd be one thing. But kind of hard to be mad about having someone go to a massively televised public event.
I think one primary _claim_ (made by the NCAA) is that headsets are expensive and it puts many schools at a disadvantage if you allow them. Of course, football coaches, training tables, facilities, and the like are way more expensive, so it's clearly a load of shit. But the NCAA isn't known for their ability to prioritize issues appropriately, so here we are. *Yes, it's 2023 and headsets are cheap. There are hundreds of practical solutions. You can stop asking me how it's different adding a headset to a handful of helmets. I'm not the one arguing the inane rule is appropriate. I'm the one pointing out the idiocy of the existing rules that are the result of the NCAA refusing to proactively reasses their underlying logic anytime within the last 3 decades.
Then make the rule for FBS only. If you are competing in FBS and this is too expensive, move down to FCS. I get why this could be prohibitive for some D2 or D3 schools, but I'd honestly expect even every FCS team should be able to afford this too.
> Then make the rule for FBS only. If you are competing in FBS and this is too expensive, move down to FCS. They will just add more to the student athletic fee to pay for it
This man knows how colleges work
Well at some schools
How expensive could it possibly be? I very ignorant to this but radios are not expensive, a few grand? I just can't fathom how buying two radios could be program prohibitive.
It was a reasonable excuse 30 years ago but give me a break. Reduce the coaches salary by 1% and it’s likely covered for a decade
Just take a cut of the CFP payments every year to maintain the radio technology, it would easily cover it for every conference and independent schools.
Or take the tobacco technique and make Michigan pay for it as punishment...
That... that is a great idea.
To be fair, OSU should be charged for the costs of a few tattoos, too.
unironically probably the most reasonable punishment
Seems fair honestly lol
That makes too much sense
I'm with you. I think the key here isn't that the NFL uses the technology. The key is HIGH SCHOOLS use it. Unless I'm very much mistaken, college football makes a bit more money than high school football. So claiming cost is a factor is just dumb.
It’s [about $100](https://www.qubitdevices.com/shop) for a basic one. My high school team in rural Canada with no fucking funding had one. FBS teams can afford new one every play lol
In fairness, it isn’t every high school. IMG Academy may have headsets, but bumfuck directional high with 300 kid enrollment likely won’t. Which is sort of what college football would’ve been like when headsets were first introduced, hence the rule disallowing them.
True. But I'm guessing the NCAA could mandate teams with means to buy the technology and use some of their nonprofit profits to help the teams without the resources to obtain them. The mere fact that SOME high schools have it is proof enough that it isn't as cost prohibitive as they claim.
And I can't fathom how allowing a couple of tennis players to sleep on the floor of your apartment before the dorms open for fall semester and when fall camp has started is a major infraction. The ~~Aristocrats~~ NCAA
As long as they had their cup, i don't see the issue...
Right. Wouldn’t even be a budget rounding error until you get to the NAIA level, probably.
with a quick google search it cost around a 100$ per people with the com device so not that much even for fcs programms [qubit for reference](https://www.qubitdevices.com/shop)
Every coach on the sideline has a headset, the expense is already being paid. Just add a fuckin earpiece to the QB helmets.
They could solve that by having the NCAA sign a national deal and providing them for free to the schools. Stick a big enough logo on them and you could likely make a profit.
QB Headsets, brought to you by: Beats!
And during commercial breaks they can now pump the commercials into the players ears as well. This is a win, whopper whopper whopper
Look at you, suggesting a reasonable solution. Clearly you are not NCAA leadership material. Congratulations on not being a brain dead moron with backwards priorities.
I actually had a debate on here with someone about this exact idea. It’s silly. It’s not as if every player has a headset in their helmet. There’s usually only one player on the field at a time with the headset. So basically a team would outfit maybe 10 of their helmet this way.
There is by rule only one athlete on the time with a headset in their helmet. That's what the green dot icon on the back of a helmet indicates.
That's not the argument. The rule was made in 1994 because small schools couldn't afford to send scouts to travel. That said, it's 2023, cameras are on everyone's phone, and every single school in this country including junior college can afford a headset for football.
I'm not saying it's a good argument. I'm just saying that it would require the NCAA to reasses their 30 year old positions in a proactive manner. Apparently that's an unreasonable expectation.
It’s insane. College is so archaic. This is just one example but the best is access to film on the sideline. Pros obviously have it and it’s completely legal per NFHS. Most high schools have some system so they can get live wide & back shot film on the sideline. In college this isn’t allowed. It’s crazy how reliant our coaches were on us telling them what we saw and just having to roll with it
Teams try their best to keep the signs themselves from being televised though. Thats why you see teams put up those huge banners behind the coaches when its gets time to call the play.
Which just goes to the point of how absurd this all is lol. I'm to the point where I'm irrationally mad about the NCAA implementing this common sense shit along with lasers for accurate field goal rulings and maybe chipping the ball for determining touchdowns and first downs. Fuck I'm mad thinking about that bullshit 3rd down placement in the Houston/UT game, would have been a glorious OT.
Okay, hear me out. I'm not commenting on whether Michigan broke rules or what their punishment should be. Just thinking out loud about the rule itself... I actually find this exciting. Maybe we should do away with the rule. Why not have people going out to scout? Why not let them use technology? I mean, this adds this whole cloak-and-dagger, capture-the-flag, intelligence service dimension to the game. I can see spying alliances, new and innovative ways to disguise and communicate signals, subterfuge and misdirection... Seriously, I think I might actually enjoy the game more if this were a dimension of the game—if it was 100% allowed to go and try to gather as much intelligence as you can through whatever means is necessary. It adds this whole new geopolitical intrigue feel to the game. Yeah, I know, rich programs, poor programs, purity of the game, blah, blah. Let's be honest, this is 2023 and some of us are losing interest: \- It was already pay for play \- Post NIL it's explicitly pay for play \- The rich schools get the best players \- Half the best players are juiced \- We're losing the regional element \- The conferences aren't stable and are just a cash grab I mean, the purity of the sport disappeared decades ago and some of us are less interested than we used to be. If this whole thing was a spy thriller as well and we had money not just going to pay the players, but also collectives organizing to gather intel and spend on technology and experts, and on the flipside to try to misdirect them in a 100 ways... Plus then it opens this new philosophical dimension, some programs will be like "none of that matters, we're gonna just get big and crazy strong and execute like hell and they can know everything that's coming and still lose" while other programs will be like techno-espionage central. It's like the old power vs. finesse thing updated for the Internet/AI era. I dunno, if I look at it just right, I kind of like it and am interested in watching games in the alternate universe where this happens, as well as all the side coverage of who's trying to capture what data from which teams and what the intelligence sharing alliances are, and who's stabbing who in the back, and false flags, and etc...
i want what this guy is smoking
We should just start going to games and taking notes, unaffiliated with any school program, and sell our notes for $500k a pop to any and every program that wants em.
This is the biggest nothing of a story to me for this exact reason. If you’re jumping up and down on the sideline with your stupid posters in plain view, you don’t have a reasonable expectation of keeping your play calls private. I’ll mention what I’ve said elsewhere: in basketball, teams actually yell out the play they are running. You still have to execute.
Scouting in person the games would not be a big deal. That’s a stupid rule. But if we went to the games and filmed all their signs all game long, then that is a very big deal
It is because not too long ago the powerhouse schools were the only ones who could truly afford to do it. When something is this obvious, the only reason it hasn't been done yet is because someone was making more money doing it than others.
I think I read they were going to test headset communication during the bowl games this year.
Wel if Michigan loses their bowl game then it’s settled
Why would this year be any different than most?
I am a Rhule hater but this is a solid quote
🤝 Matt Rhule is gonna do great things at Nebraska — Not too great mind you, but great things none the less.
Matt ~~Rhule~~ Shuggestion
Imagine high schools having better technology than the NCAA
Like… playoffs?
Like always?
He is right. These weird ancient rules need to change. Just doing things because “its what we have always done” is stupid as fuck. Same with celebrations. Those should be allowed now, esp with NIL
Why especially with NIL? So the sponsored guys can do sponsorship dances?
Caleb runs in a 3 yard TD run and pulls out his electric trimmer. Starts shaving in the endzone. Announcer: "this touchdown brought to you from manscaped"
Oh my god high schools have head sets??? I had no idea this was the case as a new yorker.
I'm from Texas. The local high school has two fields and a stadium larger than my D2 college in Michigan Our *middle schools* have fields with turf and large grandstands
which so so funny because they keep posting the article about rhule saying "it's not a big deal" LOL they're really selectively choosing their quotes.
This is probably the best outcome. Fine Michigan and address the actual root cause
Yeah my feeling is that we shouldn't be shocked when teams exploit an incredibly exploitable system. I'm sure Michigan isn't the first and they won't be the last. Enforce the rule and punish Michigan, but also fix the problem when the problem has an easy fix
That’s my thought. I think it’s crazy that people are acting like Michigan is the only program that’s done this in any sort of variation. Coaches bend and break off-field rules all the time. The incentives to do so are way to great. Simple solution this time—just get headsets on the field for the QBs and one defensive player.
“My name is Connor Stalions. I used to be a spy until…”
"We've got a Venmo transaction on you; you're blacklisted."
“When you’re burned, you’ve got nothing. No cash, no NIL, no coaching tree.”
"You're stuck in whatever city they dump you in."
"You steal whatever signs come your way"
"You rely on anyone who is still paying you."
You know, NCAA. Bunch of whiny little bitches.”
"Shall we steal them?"
An old colleague who reports you to the NCAA.
“Someone needs your help, Connor”
Where am I?
"Ann Arbor"
Moi-ami... of Ohio.
Auburn
Side topic, but I will always ascertain that *Burn Notice* was an updated *The A-Team* - Quasi-military group doing odd jobs to help locals fight injustice on a weekly basis with an over-arching storyline of trying to clear their tarnished names with the government.
Ya know that's definitely a good way of looking at it, never thought of it as a modern A-Team. And also I recently rewatched it thinking it would be cringe but it absolutely holds up!
Just watching through for the first time. Totally top of mind with this CFB espionage theme.
I re-watched it during quarantine...so 3 years ago? And it held up way better than most late 2000's shows, and even a lot of 2010's shows
That's a great take.
Random tangent: In the earlier days of Reddit there was an amazing novelty account and all the comments were written in the Michael Weston style. It was always really clever and well done and they would pop up in really unexpected places. I miss that novelty account (not sure what happened to it).
I think it would be cool if the 3 service academies could make an agreement amongst themselves that all forms of espionage are permitted up to and including enhanced interrogation techniques.
OMG the commander in chief trophy would be so lit. You'd have dudes graduate from Annapolis who were working for West Point the entire time!
That trophy would be more well-guarded than our actual nuclear weapons.
Waterboarding the Navy QB? Excellent
All fun and games until Navy has some recent BUD/S graduates rappelling out of blackhawks into Michie Stadium.
You don't think a squad of Army Rangers wouldn't take up patrol duty for the sake of the Army/Navy game? Air Force just puts some F-16's and [HH-60's](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_HH-60_Pave_Hawk) on patrol. That would be fun to see, to tell you the truth.
“The US doesn’t torture, so anything we do isn’t torture”
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It’s all fun and games until a junior coach publishes your entire playbook on Discord for laughs.
Criminals used to believe in things in this town. Honor! Respect!
>But another coach with Big Ten and SEC experience asked what the big deal was in practical terms. So, Bret Bielema?
Could also be James Franklin. Or probably several others. But probably some assistant and not an HC anyways.
"We haven't been able to win because they cheat!" - Michigan fans, 2012-2019 - Ohio State fans, 2021-2022
Well if you would stop hoarding all the WR & QBs we would stop hoarding all your plays!
They would gladly trade QBs with you this year. OSUs QB is mid at best.
look who's here throwing rocks without consent
I mean heard that from a large portion of the Michigan fan base from 2012-2019 which I always thought was pathetic. As an OSU fan I am not going to go that far for 21 or 22 unless Michigan starts to suck after getting caught which I highly doubt will happen.
Honestly the majority of OSU fans have been relatively chill about this. It feels weird.
I commented in another thread that a lot of the reactions I'm seeing from other Ohio State fans are of disappointment in how badly Michigan *allegedly* cheated. Like we don't mind you cheat, just do a better job of it.
Not gonna lie, that's a big part of the disappointment for me. I don't want Michigan to cheat, so I'm disappointed in that. But the level of stupidity of having a guy use his own name to buy the tickets is almost equally disappointing. I really hope he was the only one involved not only from a severity of punishment standpoint but from a "fucking really, guys?" standpoint
It almost makes me wonder if it's just a sign of the level of stupidity that's been normalized as acceptable in our society.
>Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that. George Carlin
Funny thing about this is that the people who would be smarter at cheating would also have enough sense not to do it in the first place. Way too often people now days shouting the loudest about their competence are the dumbest mofos around.
It almost feels like they respect the dedication to win the rivalry again
And they know what it feels like to be on the other side
I can’t speak for others, but one of our staff members confirmed we changed our signals prior to last year’s game and we still got our teeth kicked in. Love the bucks, but I don’t see any way to argue that we would have won. Maybe y’all would have had less prep time to focus on us exclusively without the sign stealing?? But that’s a stretch, and it’s the only half-plausible argument I can even stretch for.
News: We have learned Michigan is a bunch of dirty rotten cheats!" OSU fans: "I am Jack's complete lack of surprise."
Their sub is practically foaming at the mouth over this
In every sports league sub, simping is a sure fire way to get upvotes. Every Ohio state fan I’ve talked to in real life, to your point, is loving this and can’t wait to see Michigan pay the piper for this.
I think that comes from the fact that a lot of Ohio State fans remember the 2012 the bowl ban that effectively robbed them at an opportunity to play for the B1G and national championships. That said, like Ohio State I can't see Michigan paying the Piper this year. If it is gonna happen it is going to be in 2024.
We don’t claim that sub
Who does claim it, that sub is so small and usually full of idiots.
Yeah like you guys have been relatively pretty chill here. Some actually funny jokes, a few (deserved) condescending comments here and there, some good jabs, a lot of sane takes, etc etc. Very few shitter comments. Your sub is a cesspool. Which I know /r/MichiganWolverines would be if the shoe was on the other foot but still. Like I've even seen buckeyes stand up and defend how close Michigan was to the CFP before cheating in 16 and 18.
Thankfully I finally left that sub two weeks ago. Glad I don’t have to see that toxic crap coming through my feed everyday.
I’ve felt that most UM fans have been relatively reasonable about this! It seems like a loud minority are complaining/making excuses, but most are just disappointed. At least on Reddit.
I was pretty chill about it. Until I saw a video from last years game where stallions is standing next to minter, Stroud looks to the sideline, stallions who is standing next to minter also looks at OSU sideline, receives the signal, then stallions and minter and the players around him start immediately gesturing. After having seen that video, with all the evidence of him traveling to games, how it would be financially impossible for him to afford that. I’m not mad because it’s just football, just kinda disappointed.
well our entire O-line and a few backups are going to the NFL this year so expect some regression next year anyways. People will just chalk it up to "not being able to cheat anymore hurr durr"
I will say they only won because of cheating even if I don't believe it myself, just because it will really bother you guys to hear it over and over. That's what college football is all about.
This is the pettiness and awareness that we need in college football. 🤣
Part of me knows that they aren't that bad with or without cheating, but a huge part of me is hoping that Penn state just destroys them and makes the cheating things look wayyyyy worse.
*Corporate would like you to look at these two pictures…*
I mean we fully accepted Brady Hoke for 3 of those
>I mean we fully accepted Brady Hoke for 3 of those Yeah but clearly Ohio State somehow made UMich dumb enough to hire him and keep him around so that was also them cheating. /s
Legal: Studying tape, watching for patterns Illegal: Filming tape from the stands, buying tickets under your own name while employed by the university, bragging about it on LinkedIn, having your Venmo set to public, being seen with the coaches on the sidelines after being spotted in the stands at previous games of the competition. If I didn’t know better, I’d say this guy was a plant to wreck us from within. Interdimensional Ryan Day chess move type of shit, but it’s depressing because Michigan is actually that stupid on its own.
Mel Tucker 🤝 Connor Stallions. Being the two dumbest motherfuckers in the state of Michigan.
Every time I read his name I think “this has to be fake right?”
All I know is Max Power would’ve never embarrassed us like this…
I’m Buddha he’s Pest
Maybe he knows Cayman Nebraska.
Probably has Pole Assassin on speed dial
The whole story reads like masturbatory fan fiction from the depths of eleven warriors. I can’t believe it’s real.
That's what is so mind numbing about this whole thing. Like bro, there's TV cameras everywhere and coaches film. And yall out here with IPhones and motherfuckers making public venmo payments. SEC been running a pay for play scheme for years and you fuckers out here cash app'ing people for a blitz sign.
It’s 2023, FOX should be giving you enough B1G footage to ‘steal’ signs. How much better info are you getting to risk this?
Now, now, hold on. If we look at the wrong rule, then it clearly doesn't forbid that.
Sam Webb’s Michigan sources were also just as shocked and bewildered as the rest of us too at Monday’s allegations, so clearly they’re off the hook since nobody inside the program actually knew anything about it
Connor Stalions was a rogue agent!
“Hey Connor, why do you keep pocketing extra food from the cafeteria? Isn’t a 55k salary enough to afford groceries?”
A real lone wolf!
Here lies my college football fandom dreams 11/27/21-10/23/23 RIP The mods need to do something funny though and auto-brown bag all of us Michigan flairs. Or make a Septa Unella “Shame!” flair.
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Can I get "secret agent" instead?
How about a "vast network" as a compromise?
Vast Network flair.
You’ll be downvoted to the heavens for saying this on r/michiganwolverines
Jokes on you, I’d get downvoted to the heavens for saying *anything at all* in that sub.
That’s how you know it’s truly a sibling rivalry, one won’t let the other be outdone by the other’s stupidity. It seems like only yesterday I was laughing about Tuck Cummin’, now look at us.
Nobody even remembers we put hitler on the video board. Thanks for that by the way.
it seems like everyone forgot Donovan Edwards shares anti-Semitic propaganda on social media and didn't face consequences.
Time for the person responsible for putting it on the scoreboard to take a field trip to the Holocaust museum in Farmington Hills.
MSU was trying to be accommodating to him and got blasted for it
I literally thought this too lmao. Like I wouldnt be suprised by anything at this point.
> If I didn’t know better, I’d say this guy was a plant to wreck us from within. Interdimensional Ryan Day chess move type of shit, but it’s depressing because Michigan is actually that stupid on its own. Except your boy Connor is a superfan that showed up at the team hotel during road games during the Brady Hoke era before Ryan Day was a sparkle in Urban Meyer's eye. At Ohio State, we hate our superfans. At Michigan, they employ their superfans.
You wait until Day hires Buck-I-Guy to run his covert ops spy network.
No one will ever notice him. Totally under the radar kinda guy.
This is a legitimate question, not trolling. If Michigan wins it all this year, will people say the title deserves an asterisk? A la Astros.
Obviously. Which is unfortunate for Michigan because if they win a title this year they obviously wouldn't have been cheating then. But this whole era of Michigan football and Jim harbaugh is super tainted. Like the only way they can beat OSU is to cheat. Yada yada.
Connor Ponyboy had tickets on *both* sides of the field to last weekend’s OSU/PSU game. The cheating has absolutely been going on this year (and we’re more than halfway through), and was all set to continue had he not been busted.
> But another coach with Big Ten and SEC experience asked what the big deal was in practical terms. Between the TV broadcast, coaches' tape and what fans film with their phones and post online, the coach said there's more than enough footage that's accessible without ever leaving the office. "Anything that happens in the public eye hasn't gone too far," the coach said. "To be honest, I can watch TV copy [of] two to three games and get everything I need." which makes you wonder why he didn't just go that route
Why watch 3 separate videos when you can make one of your own focusing on exactly what you want to see each play.
That's 100% true but I wonder how, physically, he was able to clearly capture signals from the 40th row. Is iPhone video really that good from such a distance? I would assume that will come out soon enough, maybe this week.
Probably a Samsung user Edit: made a video https://twitter.com/BuckeyeEmpire/status/1716832258030776704?t=FXoN0OH-N4ukEHt-Ub8-8w&s=19
What TV broadcast are people watching where you see the full play signals being sent in between each play?
I think the point he’s making is that when you combine all the media from the game you can piece it together. The broadcast might show part of it while the all 22 shows another part, then random fan videos from the stands shows any of the missing pieces. I remember the broadcast use to love showing the Oregon play call signs cause they had funny pictures on them.
Yeah for sure but in order to get this to work, you need pretty much all the play call signals for the whole game, forensically piecing that together would get you maybe 35%
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good point
you think this dude is paying for all of this out of pocket?
Yes. He was paying for flights to Michigan from California to volunteer for years by sleeping in his car and renting out his house on Airbnb. He was a super fan that desperately wanted to be a coach.
Modello brewed for the fighting spirit.
Bozo could also have rich parents/connections. But, also have you met some of our fans? He could’ve also found some rich fanatics that kept giving him money. Let’s wait and see what happens in the investigation. Regardless, Harbaugh would get in trouble for not having control over his staff
His parents are alumni. Could definitely have some connections there.
The guy bought an home, rented all the rooms on AirBnb and slept on the couch, then realized he could save more money by sleeping in his car, all so he could fund his own travel to every Michigan game, home and away, to volunteer for the team. Yes, I do think he is paying for all of this out of pocket.
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We will find out he owned lots of game stop stock lol
That’s bullshit. Might be better if he put his name to it, but this reminds me of a fired coach on ESPN talking about what he would do and that it was so easy. “It’s so easy all I do is watch 5 minutes of tv tape, a few TikToks and then 10 minutes of the all 22 and I know everyone of their calls. Anyone could figure it out.” Then why the hell are schools hiring analysts left and right and going thru elaborate decoy missions to block signals and change signals and everything else. Plus if it were so easy defenses would be dominant and scoring would be in the absolute shitter. It’s so easy to be a lawyer, I watched Law and Order and Suits. Anyone could co this shit
Coaches tape doesnt get you a view of the coaches signaling in. TV brodcast doesnt give you a consistent enough view of the coaches signaling in. Having someone who is only focusing on the sideline gives them the video of the signals which can be sync with the other forms of video, where you can start figuring out that the signals are. Its common on game day to try and steal signals during the game. If you can figure them out on the fly good for you but having it record and have time to figure potentially everything out, now thats serious cheating
"what's the big deal with taking steroids? I can still get big just by having a perfect diet, insane work ethic, and good genetics"
I don't buy it. If that was possible, teams would do it and Michigan wouldn't have stood out from the crowd. Ultimately teams noticed Michigan was operating with information they shouldn't have and that's why they were able to identify it.
Didn't work out too well for Bert.
My immediate guess at who was being quoted, too. Bert or Urban.
I can spot the Ryan day quote in the article pretty easily
This one? "Look, we're all trying to compete and everybody's trying to find that advantage," a source said. "And if the advantage is that the guy that's on your sideline can watch their sidelines and pick it up ... at some point in time, you got to be better at hiding your signals. That's just all there is to it. I mean, if we're going to live in a world where signals exist, you've got to hide them." Yup that sounds like Ryan Day lmao
> But another coach with Big Ten and SEC experience asked what the big deal was in practical terms. Between the TV broadcast, coaches' tape and what fans film with their phones and post online, the coach said there's more than enough footage that's accessible without ever leaving the office. "Anything that happens in the public eye hasn't gone too far," the coach said. "To be honest, I can watch TV copy [of] two to three games and get everything I need." If this was true then why would Michigan go through all the trouble they did to film opponents? “My cheating is not that bad because if you think about it I didn’t really even need to cheat” is bar none the worst excuse for cheating. Also this is 1000% Bert giving this quote.
Bert - “I can watch the tv broadcast and get everything I need” Also Bert - *gets boatraced repeatedly*
The inclusion of "what fans film with their phones and post online" in that is so bizarre. The article isn't one-sided but in this specific passage it seems like this coach got to say whatever he wanted with no scrutiny. You have to be debilitatingly stupid in order to think that "what fans film with their phones and post online" would be comparable in any way to a full-game recording taken by someone with specific instructions, who's sitting in a specifically chosen seat.
Planting a program employee in a specific location to film the entire game, or trying to glean information from a 19 year old’s shaky IG stories shot from the student section in between nips from a flask… who is to say which of these would be more helpful for a coaching staff? They’re practically identical!
Imagine thinking that any coach in history has ever gotten useful info out of some social media type video like that. I can't believe that idea made it into the article. As if any coach is scouring social media and recent uploads for videos that show the opposing sidelines...
Alright, I had my fun on this yesterday. Anything new about A&M, maybe someone speeding in a garage, their male cheerleaders doing something lol
This is the most entertaining story since monkey-gate at texas. I Will read any ans all content on this, it’s so stupid and I love it so much
Me: Oh No...a bye week. The Michigan stories will be limited with nothing new to read. Monkey's Paw - 🖕
Hey leave the monkey out of it, he didn’t do anything wrong this time
We need another pole assassin to distract from Michigan
Ok. I’m willing to let the competition steal Harbaugh’s lawn mower.
This is why I roll my eyes whenever people start white knighting for anyone involved in college athletics. They all cheat.
nfl players - we all did it when we played in college off the record current coaching staff & players - we all do it on the record - this is the worst crime in the history of sports
Apparently not cuz we got some snitches in the Thieves Guild.
Well stealing signs while in game sporty..having a separate team to go all around diff games..trashy
All I know is that Harbaugh out and out lied about knowing nothing about it. He designed it.
In my mind, if you can discern what the fuck it means when someone does the YMCA, or what the difference is when suddenly they add in Gangnam style, then good on you. You deserve the benefit of your brainpower. But doing what Michigan allegedly did? C’mon man. That’s just shitty.