Today, a lot of new reports surfaced surrounding the Michigan football program, Jim Harbaugh, his coaching staff, Connor Stalions, and the infamous sign-stealing scandal. With the Michigan Wolverines (10-0, 7-0 Big Ten) set to face off against two key Big Ten Conference opponents — Maryland and Ohio State — in the next ten days, here is what we make of all that came out on Friday.
Michigan football fires long-time Jim Harbaugh assistant Chris Partridge
This morning, the Michigan football program announced that it has fired Chris Partridge, who was one of the school’s top recruiters during his tenure with the Wolverines. Partridge had served with Jim Harbaugh at Michigan from 2015 through 2019 before becoming a key defensive coach for Lane Kiffen at Ole Miss — a position he held from 2020-2022. This year, Partridge was brought back on staff to coach linebackers.
The bad news
The bad news for Michigan hear is pretty obvious: Partridge reportedly destroyed evidence in an attempt to cover for someone else — perhaps Connor Stalions. Additionally, reports suggest that U-M fired Partridge for telling some of the players what to say when the NCAA began its interview phase. Seeing as, Partridge was a major part of the staff and a great recruiter, so he is a very notable loss for Jim Harbaugh.
The good news
The same reports state that Partridge was destroying evidence, including a key factor for Michigan football: he did not know of — or the extent of — Connor Stalions’ sign-stealing methods. Why is this good? Well, for Michigan football, all this shows is that Partridge found out about the sign-stealing and tried to cover for Stalions, though he was not directly involved. That’s how it looks right now, at least.
Partridge was only brought back to Ann Arbor this fall, and Stalions was officially hired in 2022, so it would make sense that he did not know much (or anything) of the sign-stealing before last month’s reports.
U-M booster tied to sign-stealing scheme
The second report that came out today states that a Michigan football booster, known as “Uncle T,” was partially funding Connor Stalions’ sign-stealing scheme. Yahoo Sports states that the booster is believed to be Tim Smith, who has since been removed from the Wolverines’ NIL collective. Smith, who spoke with Yahoo Sports and was quoted in the report, denies the connection and rumors that tie him to the sign-stealing scandal.
The bad news
Once again, the bad news here is pretty obvious — if Connor Stalions was getting outside money for the scheme, it’s a bad look and shows that multiple people involved with Michigan football were looking to steal signs in hopes of giving Jim Harbaugh and the Wolverines an advantage.
The good news
There is some good news here when it comes to “Uncle T” and Connor Stalions. First off, Tim Smith says that Stalions financed everything himself and denies the allegations that he helped with sign-stealing — that is something that will eventually be settled, though. The NCAA apparently has evidence that “Uncle T” helped pay for the sign-stealing, and there will eventually be some explanation for that.
The better news for Michigan here is that if a booster helped pay for anything, the school and staff are still not tied to the sign-stealing and what Connor Stalions was doing. Does this change the allegations? Nope — but at first, many believed that U-M was directly funding this; however, if it was a booster, that is an outside source of cash that is not directly coming from the university and its football program.
Obviously, none of this is good for Jim Harbaugh and the University of Michigan football program, but there are still a lot of unknowns, and there were some subtle pros amidst the cons that came with today’s reports.
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