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Michigan State football vs. Michigan: How rivalry turned toxic

Gene Myers
 |  Special to Detroit Free Press

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The Wolverines and Spartans renew their football hostilities at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Michigan Stadium (BTN). It will be the first time that first-year coaches at the schools — Michigan’s Sherrone Moore and Michigan State’s Jonathan Smith — square off in the rivalry game since Nov. 4, 1995.

On that cold and occasionally snowy late afternoon at Spartan Stadium, MSU’s Nick Saban upset U-M’s Lloyd Carr, 28-25. The Spartans were 13-point underdogs against the seventh-ranked Wolverines and answered U-M’s late 22-yard field goal with a 25-yard touchdown pass from Tony Banks to Nigea Carter with 1:24 left in the game.

Here are a series of excerpts from the Free Press book “Maize & Grand!” that chronicled the Wolverines’ 2023 national championship. The excerpts — with a few updates in italic type for context — look at the bizarre runup to last season’s U-M/MSU game, including sensational accusations of sexual misconduct in East Lansing and sign stealing in Ann Arbor. The excerpts also recount U-M’s 49-0 destruction of MSU, its worst loss in 100 years of football at Spartan Stadium, and a warning for U-M from MSU’s interim coach, Harlon Barnett, who said, “It don’t get ya until it gets ya. Just remember that.”

Hard to believe that was just a year ago. And this weekend, a Michigan State victory would be far from shocking.

Some copies of “Maize & Grand!” are still available online through Amazon and Barnes & Noble. The hardcover book also is available through Pediment Publishing.

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How the Michigan-Michigan State rivalry escalated

The news broke during the Big Ten media days in late July 2023: The 116th football game between Michigan and Michigan State, scheduled for Oct. 21 at Spartan Stadium, would be played at night. NBC wanted to showcase the in-state feud during its debut season of televising the Big Ten in primetime.

That announcement stirred all kinds of emotions — and a fair share of fears. The forever-heated rivalry had turned borderline toxic in the 21st century, fueled especially by combustible moments in 2007 and 2022.

In 2007, Michigan tailback Mike Hart, later the running backs coach, referred to MSU as “Little Brother” after the Spartans blew a late 10-point lead in a 28-24 loss, their sixth straight in the series. Two days later at his weekly news conference, MSU’s first-year coach, Mark Dantonio, launched into a rant about Hart’s mocking and U-M in general. “Let’s just remember,” he said, “pride comes before the fall. … It’s not over, and it will never be over here. It’s just starting.” Over the years, Dantonio had said he regretted his emotional outburst, but it helped endear him to MSU fans. And so did beating the Wolverines seven of the next eight seasons.

In 2022, “Tuck Comin’ ” became a popular slogan and T-shirt among the Spartans’ faithful. By beating U-M in 2020 (as a 24½-point underdog) and in 2021 (in a battle of top 10 teams), Dantonio’s successor, Mel Tucker, became the first MSU coach to beat U-M in his first two tries. His third — and unexpectedly last — attempt long would be remembered, but not for anything that happened on the field. Although ranked in the top 10 early in the 2022 season, the Spartans were reeling at 3-4 and installed as 22½-point underdogs for the primetime game at the Big House. They threw a scare into U-M fans by leading in the first quarter and trailing by only six points at the half. But the fourth-ranked Wolverines grinded their way to a 29-7 victory. Afterward, maybe channeling the spirit of his position coach, tailback Blake Corum opened his remarks to the media by chuckling as he said, “I thought Tuck was coming! … I just saw him running!”

Despite its 22-point lead, U-M ended the game not with a kneel-down, but a J.J. McCarthy handoff to CJ Stokes for five yards. Pushing, shoving and jawing by the teams ensued. As the U-M band broke into “The Victors,” the Spartans retreated, the Wolverines celebrated and coaches on both sides tried to keep Blue and Green apart. Tucker weaved through a sea of Wolverines to find Jim Harbaugh, a respectful handshake followed and ABC’s announcers reminded viewers of a recent confrontation in the lone tunnel to the locker rooms during the Penn State game. The broadcast ended with a large group of Wolverines running the Paul Bunyan Trophy to the student section and a parade of hugs and smiles.

Meanwhile, in the Lloyd Carr Tunnel at Michigan Stadium, so named during the season for the College Football Hall of Fame coach who won the 1997 national championship, the Spartans were headed to their locker room. Stationary TV cameras and reporters’ smartphones captured videos of the violence and chaos that erupted and left a scar on the rivalry.

Two Wolverines — cornerbacks Gemon Green, a starting fifth-year senior, and Ja’Den McBurrows, a redshirt freshman who wore No. 1 but had yet to play that season —walked and skipped into the MSU entourage. Each carried his helmet. Three newspaper beat reporters heard noise swelling in the tunnel and reached for their phones.

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A cluster of Spartans was pulling a helmetless player toward them. Other Spartans attempted to pull their teammates away from the player. There was punching and kicking. The player was tossed against metal doors. MSU defensive end Itayvion (Tank) Brown picked up the player — later ID’d as McBurrows — and threw him back through the doors, upon which defensive end Zion Young and defensive back Angelo Grose landed punches and shoved him to the ground. Young kicked at McBurrows as he popped up and spun away from the pile toward his locker room’s side of the tunnel.

Matt Charboneau of the Detroit News tweeted a 24-second video at 11:07 p.m. Kyle Austin of MLive.com tweeted a 15-second video a minute later. Within an instant, the world knew about the mayhem. It would not know until Sunday about a damning video from a stationary ESPN tunnel camera that showed MSU’s Khary Crump swinging at — and striking — Green with his white helmet.

Eight MSU players were suspended by their school, and seven of them were criminally charged by Washtenaw County’s prosecutor, Eli Savit, who grew up in Ann Arbor, graduated from U-M’s law school and still lectured at the school. Six charges were misdemeanors. Crump, a redshirt sophomore defensive back, faced a charge of felonious assault with a deadly weapon, which carried a maximum sentence of four years in prison.

In January 2023, Crump pled down to misdemeanor counts of assault/battery and disorderly conduct person-jostling and avoided jail time. He also wrote a letter of apology to Green. Crump received early discharge from his 12-month probation in August 2023 and had all charges wiped from his record through the Holmes Youthful Trainee Act.

The Big Ten still made him sit out the first eight games of the 2023 season. He not only made his first career start in the ninth game, against Nebraska, he made a tackle on the first play. At the end of the season, Crump made the Big Ten all-academic team.

The other Spartans enrolled in a court-supervised diversionary program that dismissed their charges in exchange for community service and good behavior. Young, however, was removed from the program — his attorney told MLive.com for missing a few meetings — and later pled guilty to misdemeanor aggravated assault, to be stricken from his record if he completed probation.

A month after the tunnel assaults, Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren levied a $100,000 fine against MSU, the largest in conference history, surpassing the $40,000 fine assessed to U-M basketball coach Juwan Howard for hitting a Wisconsin assistant in February 2022. Warren had attended the game; his son, Powers, was a seldom-used sixth-year tight end for MSU but did not make the traveling squad that night.

Michigan was reprimanded for failing “to provide adequate protection for personnel of both home and visiting teams when entering and leaving playing arenas.” U-M previously had been privately reprimanded by the Big Ten; other tunnel incidents occurred against Ohio State in 2021 and Penn State in 2022.

In January 2023, U-M announced it would remove 45 seats to widen access to and from the tunnel.

Mel Tucker: An $80-million firing

Because of all that vitriol in the rivalry, Tucker was asked during the 2023 media days in Indianapolis about playing U-M at night.

“Is that concrete?” he said. “It is? Yep. We’ll be there.”

Then he was asked whether there should be a break in the rivalry.

“I don’t know how you do that,” he said. “There’s not a day that’s gone by that I haven’t heard something about that game. I mean, every day of my life, I hear about that game. So I don’t know how you rein that in.”

The Spartans, indeed, would be there to play the Wolverines on Oct. 21, 2023. Tucker, though, wouldn’t.

In what should have been the state’s most unexpected college football scandal of 2023, Tucker was fired in late September for not conducting himself “professionally and ethically, with integrity and sportsmanship at all times,” according to his termination letter.

His life unraveled Sept. 10, hours after the Spartans raised their record to 2-0 with an uninspiring blowout of Richmond the previous afternoon. A USA TODAY investigation revealed that two years after Tucker — one of the country’s highest-paid coaches — and Brenda Tracy — a prominent rape survivor — teamed up to fight sexual violence in sports, the activist accused the coach of the same misconduct they spoke out against.

USA TODAY’s Kenny Jacoby reported that over eight months, Tucker and Tracy developed a professional relationship centered on her advocacy work with her nonprofit, Set The Expectation. He invited her to MSU three times — twice to talk with his players and staff and once to be an honorary captain at the spring game. She was paid $10,000 for her first visit in August 2021.

But on April 28, 2022, a phone call changed everything. According to a complaint Tracy filed in December 2022 with MSU’s Title IX office, Tucker made sexual comments about her and masturbated during the call. She said that triggered wounds from her 1998 gang rape by four football players at Oregon State. 

“The idea that someone could know me and say they understand my trauma but then re-inflict that trauma on me is so disgusting to me, it’s hard for me to even wrap my mind around it,” she told USA TODAY. “It’s like he sought me out just to betray me.”

Tucker told a Title IX investigator that he had masturbated but characterized the call as consensual phone sex. The Title IX inquiry remained open with a hearing scheduled for MSU’s bye week in early October.

On that Sunday evening, MSU suspended Tucker without pay. On Monday, MSU’s interim president, Teresa Woodruff, said the university followed established protocols. She said “interim measures” were placed on Tucker the previous December by athletic director Alan Haller, she did not learn the complainant’s identity until July, and she and the Board of Trustees did not know the details of Tracy’s accusations until the USA TODAY report.

In a statement from his lawyer, Tucker called Tracy’s allegations “completely false,” said they had a “personal relationship” and accused MSU of using the investigation to avoid paying off his hefty contract.

On Sept. 18, following the terms of Tucker’s contract, Haller sent a letter saying that he would be terminated for cause the following week but had seven days to provide reasons he should be retained. MSU did not need to wait for the Title IX hearing, Haller wrote, because Tucker admitted to behavior in clear violation of his contract.

“It is decidedly unprofessional and unethical to flirt, make sexual comments, and masturbate while on the phone with a university vendor,” Haller wrote. “The unprofessional and unethical behavior is particularly egregious given that the vendor at issue was contracted by the university for the sole purpose of educating student-athletes on, and preventing instances of, inappropriate sexual misconduct.”

The letter also said Tucker had “brought public disrespect, contempt and ridicule upon the university.”

Tucker and his attorney replied with a 25-page letter. Unswayed, Haller fired Tucker on Sept. 27.

Tucker elected to skip the Title IX hearing. On Oct. 25, in a 73-page report, a university hearing officer determined Tucker sexually harassed and exploited Tracy during their April 2022 phone call, made unwanted sexual advances in the months before the call and engaged in quid pro quo sexual harassment after the call by ending their business relationship.

“My first reaction was tears of relief,” Tracy told USA TODAY.

In November 2021, MSU feared that Tucker would be lured elsewhere, a la Nick Saban two decades earlier. Tucker, in his second season, signed a 10-year, $95-million contract while the Spartans were en route to an 11-2 record and a top-10 finish. After upsetting Michigan in 2021, Tucker’s teams went 10-9 — with a 6-9 mark against Power Five schools — before he was ousted. He exited with a 20-14 record (.588).

At issue remained the roughly $80 million left on Tucker’s contract. MSU reckoned it owed zilch. Tucker wanted about $80 million more. As the calendar flipped to 2024, no signs of money changing hands or of lawsuits being filed were apparent. On Jan. 11, an outside attorney hired by MSU to review Tucker’s challenge of the Title IX ruling denied his appeal, declaring “this decision is final” in a 24-page report.

A messy divorce for Tucker over marital assets unfolded in the spring, just as Tracy revealed she intended to sue Tucker and MSU for $75 million in damages. On July 31, Tucker filed a suit in federal court for an unspecified amount while alleging MSU wrongfully terminated and defamed him. The suit accused MSU of an “improper, biased and sham investigation” that violated Tucker’s rights to due process and discriminated against him because he was Black, causing “severe emotional harm and suffering” and “hundreds of millions in damages.”

In October 2024, Tracy sued Tucker for unspecified damages for tarnishing her name, reputation and business by saying they had a mutual romance. Her lawsuit also accused Tucker of breach of contract, stealing business records, accessing her email and concocting a false narrative that she plotted to extort money from the coach and MSU. To date, Tracy had yet to sue MSU.

Also in October, Tracy agreed to an hourlong interview with Lansing’s Channel 10, WILX-TV, which she then posted on X. Early on, anchor Ann Emmerich asked why Tracy did not hang up on Tucker when he masturbated during that phone conversation, for better or probably worse, a contact topic of discussion on message boards and among fans for a year.

“What sometimes get lost in this discussion … is that I’m a gang rape survivor,” Tracy replied as tears flowed and her voice quivered. “I have prior trauma. This call was extremely triggering for me. I remember that when I first realized what he was doing, my immediate response was, ‘Oh, my god, this is happening whether he’d like it or not. And whether you like it or not. … You’re just going to have to get through it.’ Which is very reminiscent of when I was gang raped. … I could hear my voice screaming in my head, ‘You have to say something. You have to say something. You can’t let this happen again.’ So I managed to get out the words that, ‘If you do this, I don’t ever want to hear about it again. I don’t want to talk about it. We are just friends.’ … I feel like I just kinda slipped away. … I had a traumatic response, which was a freeze response. … That’s what I had to do to get through it.”

Tracy later added: “What would have changed if I hung up? He still did it. The violation had already happened. … He still did it without my consent. He still violated my autonomy, my agency. And he’s a person who says he’s an ally. … This was extremely predatory. … Asking me why I didn’t hang up is the wrong question. Ask him why he did it in the first place.”

Another investigation: Connor Stalions

By the time U-M/MSU week rolled around in mid-October 2023, the Spartans were in disarray at 2-4 overall and 0-3 in the Big Ten. Already a suspect team when Tucker was suspended, they lost their next four games — two were blowouts, two were close — with assistant Harlon Barnett as interim head coach.

Barnett, 56, was a long-time favorite of MSU fans. He was a three-year starting defensive back for coach George Perles in the late 1980s, including on the Rose Bowl winners in the 1987 season. A fourth-round draft pick, he played seven seasons in the NFL. He spent 14 of his previous 20 seasons in college coaching at his alma mater, the last three as Tucker’s secondary coach and 11 as an assistant for Dantonio.

Haller convinced Dantonio, at 67, to come out of retirement as an associate head coach to advise Barnett. He would be on the field during games but not wear a headset due to an NCAA limit on assistants.

In Barnett’s first game at the helm, against No. 8 Washington, the Spartans surrendered a school-record 713 yards — 536 passing, 177 rushing — in a 41-7 loss. Against Maryland, they fell in an early 21-0 hole en route to a 31-9 loss. Against Iowa, MSU led, 16-13, until the Hawkeyes kicked two field goals and scored on a 70-yard punt return in the final 5:19 for a 26-16 victory. Against Rutgers, MSU led, 24-6, entering the fourth quarter only to lose, 27-24.

The Wolverines, meanwhile, were steamrolling every opponent, although much of the opposition bordered on the creampuff variety. East Carolina, 30-3. UNLV, 35-7. Bowling Green, 31-6. Rutgers, 31-7. Nebraska, 45-7. Minnesota, 52-10. Indiana, 52-7. At 7-0 overall and 4-0 in the Big Ten, Michigan was ranked second behind Georgia in the US LBM coaches poll and the Associated Press media poll.

Since the Wolverines’ disastrous COVID-19 season of 2020, when a 2-4 implosion led athletic director Warde Manuel to cut Harbaugh’s salary in half, Michigan had lost only three times — to Georgia and Texas Christian in College Football Playoff semifinals and to Tucker’s Spartans in a battle of top-10 teams on Oct. 30, 2021. Plus, Harbaugh insisted week after week that his 2023 team, at long last, was his team of destiny.

To start game week in 2023, at their weekly Monday news conferences, Barnett and Harbaugh spent little time reflecting on the postgame violence in the Big House tunnel the previous season. Free Presscolumnist Carlos Monarrez timed the coaches: Harbaugh spent 59 seconds on the topic, Barnett spent 22 seconds.

“That seems like a long time ago,” Harbaugh said. “I like what J.J. (McCarthy) said, maybe last week: It’s a goldfish mentality. So it’s onward.”

“We’re focused on this year and just playing the game 11-on-11 on the football field because that’s all that matters,” Barnett said. “And all the other stuff, you know, we’re moving forward past that.”

On Thursday of game week, though, the hot topic turned from turmoil in the tunnel, the Spartans’ next coach and the Wolverines’ soaring national title hopes to bombshell news that the NCAA had launched another investigation of Michigan’s program. An earlier investigation had yet to wrap up into improper recruiting during a COVID-19 dead period, although Manuel had thrown the NCAA a bone by suspending Harbaugh for the 2023 season’s first three games because of the violations, all low-level except for a charge that the coach lied to investigators.

The NCAA investigation this time was much juicier: Did Michigan violate rules related to stealing opponents’ signs through in-person scouting?

Yahoo! Sports broke the story and also reported that two of U-M’s opponents became aware U-M knew their play signals. The Big Ten released a statement that the conference and U-M were notified of the investigation late Wednesday and that the conference had notified MSU and future opponents.

Sign stealing wasn’t illegal in college football; to the contrary, it was a timeless and colorful practice for teams to try to decipher their rivals’ signals. And teams usually went to great lengths to disguise those signals, often using multiple signalers on the sideline to add confusion.

In 1994, the NCAA outlawed in-person scouting of opponents, largely as a cost-saving measure. According to NCAA bylaw 11.6.1: “Off-campus, in-person scouting of future opponents (in the same season) is prohibited.” However, teams generally were provided extensive video footage of their opponents, which in turn could be used to scout tendencies and decode signals.

The NCAA football rule book also stated that “any attempt to record, either through audio or video means, any signals given by an opposing player, coach or other team personnel is prohibited” (though with exceptions).

No specific penalties were listed for such violations.

Michigan reacted swiftly. In a statement, a spokesperson confirmed the investigation and said U-M would cooperate fully with the NCAA and Big Ten. Later, in separate statements, Harbaugh and Manuel pledged cooperation, and Harbaugh denied participating in a sign-stealing scheme.

“I do not have any knowledge or information regarding the University of Michigan football program illegally stealing signals, nor have I directed any staff member or others to participate in an off-campus scouting assignment,” he said. “I have no awareness of anyone on our staff having done that or having directed that action.

“I do not condone or tolerate anyone doing anything illegal or against NCAA rules. No matter what program or organization that I have led throughout my career, my instructions and awareness of how we scout opponents have always been firmly within the rules.”

Effective for 2023, the NCAA strengthened bylaw 11.1.1.1 to put the onus for all violations on the head coach, an effort to stop coaches from turning a blind eye to infractions to maintain deniability. The bylaw read: “An institution’s head coach shall be responsible for the head coach’s actions and the actions of all institutional staff members who report, directly or indirectly, to the head coach.”

U-M and MSU insisted the brouhaha would not impact Saturday’s rivalry game, although MSU’s Woodruff, the interim president, took a few digs at U-M in a statement, calling the allegations “concerning” and saying “we are chagrined by the news of the NCAA investigation.”

Thursday’s developments turned out to be a drip from a faucet. Friday, the faucet was turned on full force. A new revelation, allegation or hot take seemed to pop up every few days for the rest of the season. Allegations of cheating by one of the sport’s iconic schools piqued a frenzy across the country — even though every pundit and fan knew every team, in one way or another, sought to swipe its rivals’ signals.

“SEC Shorts,” posted weekly on YouTube by a sketch comedy troupe, deviated from its usual Southeastern Conference topics to parody U-M’s plight. Its 2½-minute skit, as good as anything on “Saturday Night Live,” included a maize-and-blue T-shirt emblazoned on the front with a Block M, the Jumpman logo and the words “ESPIONAGE VIDEO DEPT.” On the back were the words “DO NOT BLOCK CAMERA” in big type and “ACTIVELY FILMING SIDELINES” in smaller type. The shirts were available online for $25.99, plus shipping and handling.

On Friday morning, college football was introduced to a low-level U-M staffer named Connor Stalions. By Friday afternoon, Michigan had suspended Stalions — with pay.

ESPN.com identified Stalions, a 28-year-old off-the-field analyst with a military background, as “a person of interest” in the NCAA’s investigation into whether Michigan stole signs with in-person scouting. Citing a variety of unnamed sources in its report, including ones with U-M and Big Ten ties, ESPN also said that the NCAA’s enforcement staff sought immediate access to Stalions’ computer and that U-M had used an “elaborate” scouting system to swipe signals from future opponents since at least 2021.

No details about how the system operated were provided. However, ESPN said coaches and administrators around the Big Ten were rattled by the allegations and feared it involved the use of recording devices.

“This is worse than both the Astros and the Patriots,” ESPN quoted a conference source as saying. “It’s both use of technology for a competitive advantage, and there’s allegations that they are filming prior games, not just in-game. If it was just an in-game situation, that’s different. Going and filming somewhere you’re not supposed to be, it’s illegal. It’s too much of an advantage.”

Yahoo! Sports soon after reported that other Big Ten football staffs knew of Stalions and his sign-stealing expertise well before the NCAA got involved. An unidentified head coach told the website: “We were told to be careful because they had a guy who could pick plays. It was too late in the week to change our signals, but another staff did tell us about (Stalions).” And another conference coach went further: “I once told him, ‘We know what kind of (expletive) you are doing and it’s (expletive) up.”

Manuel announced that Stalions had been suspended with pay until the conclusion of the NCAA investigation. A U-M source told the Detroit News that Stalions indeed was the focal point of the investigation.

In the next week, news report after news report painted a picture of how Stalions allegedly tried to master the signals for opposing teams. But on this day, the rush was to figure out who heck this guy was and how a superfan from Lake Orion rose to be a full-time staffer whose Instagram account included photos on the sideline next to former defensive coordinators Don Brown and Mike Macdonald.

After ESPN’s report, Stalions’ social media accounts were deleted or deactivated. Pieced together was that Stalions graduated from Lake Orion High in 2013 and the U.S. Naval Academy in 2017. He was stationed at Camp Pendleton in Southern California as a captain in the Marines. He left the military after his five-year commitment and was hired as an analyst by U-M in May 2022, at an annual salary of $55,000.

ESPN reported that although Stalions technically worked in the recruiting department, it was well-known around Schembechler Hall that he spent his time decoding opponents’ signals, often watching television copies of games. “He had one role,” according to a source with knowledge of U-M’s staff.

On his LinkedIn profile, Stalions wrote that he tried to “employ Marine Corps philosophies and tactics into the sport of football regarding strategies in staffing, recruiting, scouting, intelligence, planning and more.” He listed among his skills “identifying the opponent’s most likely course of action and most dangerous course of action” and “identifying and exploiting critical vulnerabilities and centers of gravity in the opponent scouting process.”

Also on LinkedIn, he said he had been a volunteer assistant since May 2015, apparently at first working at camps and clinics during his summers and then “flying back (and) forth on my own dime, assisting the defensive staff.”

Later profiles, by news organizations local and national, fleshed out Stalions’ rise from obscurity to notoriety. All portrayed him as driven, ambitious, analytical and intelligent. All underscored that from an early age he wanted to be associated with Michigan football, as the head coach in the best of all possible gridiron worlds.

“I’ve grown up my entire life with a vision to coach football at Michigan,” Stalions told the nonprofit Soldiers to Sidelines after being selected its coach of the month for January 2022. “I stopped playing football junior year of high school to coach with my dad’s eighth-grade football team.”

Stalions’ profile ran with 2021 locker-room photos of him holding the Stagg Trophy and hugging Aidan Hutchinson, runner-up for the Heisman Trophy, after the Big Ten championship game. 

Stalions’ parents were U-M graduates, season-ticket holders, thrilled when Brady Hoke was fired and Harbaugh hired, and honored as a teacher-of-the-year at Scripps Middle School in Lake Orion, located about a half-hour from Detroit and sporting the motto “where living is a vacation.”

In high school, Stalions won numerous awards, served as a class officer, was a National Honor Society member and played basketball. Although accepted by U-M, Stalions chose to attend Navy. He told Soldiers to Sidelines that because most Power Five coaches were collegiate players and he lacked that talent, he needed a different path to his dream career. He said he realized numerous notable coaches — Bo Schembechler, Woody Hayes, John Wooden, Vince Lombardi, Nick Saban and Bill Belichick — served in the military or had strong ties to a military academy.

At Navy, Stalions volunteered with the football program, spending one year in the video department and three in recruiting. He also worked to ingratiate himself with Michigan’s staff. Once stationed in Southern California, according to the Detroit News, Stalions purchased a five-bedroom, three-bathroom home for $465,000, which he told Soldiers to Sidelines he rented through Airbnb to finance his trips to Ann Arbor. At times, he said, he slept on his couch or in his car.

Sports Illustrated reviewed texts from early 2021 between Stalions and an unnamed student at a Power Five school aiming for a career in college football. Stalions boasted: “I’m close to the whole staff” and “pre-COVID, stole opponent signals during the week watching TV copies then flew to the game and stood next to Gattis and told him what coverage/pressure he was gettin’.” Josh Gattis was the offensive coordinator at the time.

Stalions texted that he had a Google document 550 to 600 pages long that he curated daily and called the Michigan Manifesto. It was supposedly a long-range plan to run the U-M program, crafted with two low-level staffers at other college programs. “Any idea you could ever have,” he texted, “there’s a place where it belongs in the document. It’s super organized.”

Within a few weeks, Stalions refused to participated in a U-M disciplinary hearing and resigned. The other Big Ten members applied the heat on new commissioner Tony Petitti to punish the Wolverines before an NCAA investigation ran its course by calling the evidence irrefutable. After dramatics, legal action and harsh words, Harbaugh sat out the last three regular-season games, his second three-game suspension of the season. His offensive coordinator, Sherrone Moore, took the reins for dramatic victories at Penn State, at Maryland and against Ohio State. Harbaugh returned to win the conference title game and the College Football Playoff. Soon after, he left to coach the NFL’s Los Angeles Chargers, and Moore quickly was appointed his successor.

In April 2024, the NCAA approved coach-to-player wireless communication through a helmet with one player on the field, to be disabled when the play clock reached 15 seconds or the ball was snapped.

In August 2024, right before the opener, the NCAA sent U-M a formal notice of allegations for the sign-stealing scandal, and Stalions starred in a Netflix documentary called “Sign Stealer,” in which he portrayed himself as hard-working, misunderstood, analytical football genius made a scapegoat by the NCAA. The governing body accused Michigan and Harbaugh, Stalions, former recruiting staffer Denard Robinson and former linebackers coach Chris Partridge of Level I infractions, the highest degree possible. Moore was accused of a Level II infraction for allegedly deleting 52 text messages with Stalions the day the scandal erupted, although the texts later were recovered and turned over to investigators. Whenever the case concluded, likely in 2025, Moore could be considered a repeat offender by the NCAA because of a one-game suspension he served early in the 2023 season for recruiting violations during the COVID-19 dead period.

Stalions became a volunteer defensive coordinator at Mumford High in Detroit and the interim head coach when his boss fell ill. With one game left in the season, the Mustangs were 1-7, had been shut out four times and had endured losses by the lopsided scores such as 71-0, 60-0 and 47-6.

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