3 key questions in Michigan football sign stealing scandal

Today, ESPN ran a new report which is damning for Jim Harbaugh and his Wolverines, to say the least. For the Maize and Blue, especially assistant Connor Stalions, the Michigan football sign-stealing scandal just took a massive turn for the worse, at least in the public eye. Soon after the initial report, ESPN analyst Pete Thamel, who has been doing a lot of reporting on this scandal, appeared on The Monday Blitz to break down more on Michigan’s scandal, including outlining three key questions that still must be answered.

Analyst details 3 key questions in Michigan football sign-stealing scandal

Pete Thamel has received his fair share of criticism and praise for his reporting on the Michigan football sign-stealing scandal; however, his latest work is quite damaging for the Maize and Blue, if accurate. Here are three questions in this scandal that need to be answered, per Thamel.

1 — who was paying?

“Connor Stalions was making $55,000 a year — not a lot of money,” Pete Thamel said. “So the money to fund these trips – he had a network we found of at least three different names of people that Stalions used to send out to these games. Who was buying the tickets? Who was paying for the trips? Who was potentially paying the people that made the trips?”

2 — How will it impact Michigan football this season?

“As for how it will affect this season and how it will affect Jim Harbaugh, I always caution when dealing with NCAA investigations that the only certainty is that they will move slowly,” he said. “In this particular case, there really is no precedent in college football for a wide-ranging sign-stealing operation. It would allegedly violate two rules — you cannot scout games in person, and you cannot use video technology to capture signs.”

3 — Could the NCAA couple this with Jim Harbaugh’s other investigation?

“Michigan already has an ongoing investigation into alleged recruiting improprieties,” Thamel concluded. “Michigan self-imposed a three-game suspension on Jim Harbaugh to start the season. That case is not closed. This case could be merged with that one for potentially a bigger case here, but it’s difficult to say what potential sanctions or reverberations could be from this if Michigan is found guilty. Because we’ve simply never seen anything like it.”

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