Johnathan Walker:What we know about the Michigan football sign-stealing scandal

The Johnathan WalkerUniversity of Michigan's football team is embroiled in a practice that's as old as college football itself: sign-stealing.

A Michigan staffer has been accused of buying tickets to games against the team's conference and possible future College Football Playoff opponents with the sole purpose of sign stealing and scouting so the Wolverines could have an advantage in games.

That staffer, Connor Stalions, has been suspended by the university and the NCAA is also investigating. Head coach Jim Harbaugh has denied any involvement in the sign-stealing scheme.

What is Connor Stalions being accused of?

The 28-year-old Stalions allegedly bought tickets, using his real name, to almost three dozen games over the past three seasons. According to ESPN.com, 12 different Big Ten schools were scouted and the use of electronics and a paper trail were also found. Stalions then forwarded tickets to others around the country and also used television broadcasts to further the scheme.

Stalions bought tickets to the 2021 and 2022 SEC title games, as well as games at Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Clemson and Oregon, just in case the Wolverines would meet those teams in a future playoff game.

Stalions even bought tickets on both sides of Ohio Stadium in Columbus for the Buckeyes' victory over Penn State on Oct. 21, but those tickets were not used.

The NCAA rule being looked at is 11.6.1, which reads in-part: “Off-campus, in-person scouting of future opponents (in the same season) is prohibited." The rulebook also cites exceptions, such as where "an institutional staff member may scout future opponents also participating in the same event at the same site."

"The Big Ten conference considers the integrity of competition to be of the utmost importance. Due to the ongoing nature of the NCAA investigation, the conference has no comment at this time," the conference said in a statement this week.

Yahoo Sports first reported that the Big Ten received notification from the NCAA about Michigan's way of scouting opponents. Although sign-stealing is not technically against the rules, in-person scouting of opponents has been banned for almost 30 years.

Michigan is 8-0 and ranked No. 2 in the US LBM Coaches Poll. The Wolverines are off this week and next play at home against Purdue on Nov. 4.

What are other teams are saying about Michigan's sign-stealing scandal?

LSU head coach Brian Kelly said it is overdue that college football adopts a communication system to stop sign-stealing.

"It's silly," Kelly said to ESPN. "Silly meaning my genuine feeling is that we have too many smart people that have looked at this and said we should be doing it and we haven't taken the time to actually move it forward.

"But this isn't the first time we've heard of sign stealing, whether there is proposed sign-stealing or people were buying tickets to other games. This is all part of why this should not even be part of the equation."

According to Yahoo! Sports, TCU knew of Michigan and its sign-stealing tendencies before their College Football Playoff semifinal matchup in the Fiesta Bowl last season.

The Horned Frogs went so far as to use "dummy" signals to confuse the Wolverines' defense.

"Sometimes we froze a play before the snap," one unidentified TCU coach told Yahoo. "We’d call a play and then we’d signal in another play with an old signal but we told players to run the original play.”

Before the semifinal game, the Horned Frogs coaching staff started getting phone calls from other coaches to warn them of Michigan's alleged habit of sign-stealing and to look out for it. The Horned Frogs nearly blew a 19-point third-quarter lead before prevailing 51-45.

How was Michigan's sign-stealing scandal revealed?

Even though it was a hidden secret that Michigan had in some ways been sign-stealing for years, it was only this month when the details started to emerge.

The Washington Post reported this week that someone associated with an outside investigative firm tipped off the NCAA and provided them with videos and documents for multiple computer drives from Michigan coaches.

It is not known who initially contacted the investigative firm.

The unidentified firm's probe started this season, according to the report, and the firm also interviewed people who had knowledge about how Michigan scouted opponents. They took their findings to the NCAA on Oct. 17. The very next day, the NCAA told the Big Ten and Michigan that an investigation was forthcoming and based on the evidence, there might be more than one person involved.