Michigan Sign Stealing Scandal
Why Connor Stallions story of being a lone wolf may not be so crazy.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, the story of how Connor Stallions supposedly attended many games he was not supposed to attend in-person against NCAA rules to steal offensive signs as they were relayed by coaches to their teams has rocked college football. Stallions has been called a savant by some for his sign reading abilities, and a cheat by many others.
It’s a silly rule that doesn’t exist either in the next level down (high school) or the next level up (pros). It was put in place mainly by the poorer football schools to save money. They could not afford to send a person to away games of teams they may play to “scout.” The NCAA in pure NCAA logic said if some schools can’t afford it then no school is allowed to do it.
The pros don’t have this issue and have largely solved sign stealing by having electronics on the sideline and in the offensive and defensive signal callers’ helmets. College football is allowing these electronics in the playoff and bowl games this season and may make the change permanent. Meaning what Stallions is accused of doing may become moot anyway.
Back to Connor Stallions.
When I was younger I worked for a Fortune 50 company that had a division that was a distributor. My territory was 13 states, from Maine, down to Virginia, and out to Ohio with six reps. One of the products we handled was something I used to sell and was familiar with. Without checking with anyone I expensed a trip to DC to the Library of Congress to check the Yellow Pages listing for these companies and if we were missing any. The product had coop dollars available for total revenue and all companies spent those dollars at the time on Yellow Pages. I knew this from experience.
Connor Stallion as a Naval Academy graduate and Marine had a different set of experiences than most college football coaches. He used these experiences to better read opposing team’s signs. To give him credit, it is my understanding, that he first checked to make sure his planned loophole was OK with NCAA rules. I never checked with anyone but like Stallion did not explain my method to anyone because being a young savant was a title we both seem to have relished (we were about the same ages).
When he says his boss or even Jim Harbaugh had no idea of what he was doing - I believe him. My boss had no idea of how I was identifying these companies - just that I was finding them somehow. Must be my innate genius right? Not much different from the Connor Stallion situation.
Think this is purely a case of jealousy and “they hate us because they ain’t us.” Also think that Connor Stallion has had his reputation destroyed nationally and there will be hell to pay in the end.
So let it be written - so let it be done.