What is going on with this "Outside Investigative Firm"?
The most shocking thing about yesterday's Washington Post article was the casual revelation that an "outside firm" accessed internal UM servers and then reported that material to the NCAA.
I have seen some speculation that this firm was working on behalf of Michigan. That makes absolutely no sense to me: first, a vendor hired by the University would be bound by multiple confidentiality and disclsoure provisions. There could be certain contractual stipulations that, upon subpoena, the vendor would be required to disclose its materials, but again that obligation would have to be legally compelled and to a law enforcement agency (not a organization like the NCAA). And if the vendor was hired by Michigan for an internal audit, Michigan would be the party turning over the materials in exchange for leniency and self-reporting mitigation.
Assuming that the firm is thus not a UM-affiliated vendor, this becomes a very troubling starting point for the entire bruhaha. Either someone at UM, with requisite access, provided the firm with access in a deliberate attempt to sabotage, or the investigative firm received that access either through false pretense or possible criminal intrusion. Law firms often times use "investigative firms" (some big ones are Nardello, Kroll) to take actions that you don't want to trace back to yourself, or to provide some degree of anonymity. But I am not aware of any reputable firm green-lighting access another institution's email servers without their explicit consent. That steps into federal privacy and computer crimes which very few reputable firms would want to risk violating (and most likely their liability insurance wouldn't even cover).
Which brings me back to Matt Weiss. Did the community ever reach any sense of what happened there? Could he have been downloading the materials from servers without requisite permission and the investigative firm got it from him?
If I'm Michigan (and clearly the U approaches everything it feels different than I would), I would focus in like a laser on this. It's one thing for us to have scouted live games which 100,000 attendees are also witnessing. It's another for an interested party to retain a firm and traffic in materials that were obtained through either an unlawful breach of contract, corporate espionage, or hacking. And need as much pressure as possible on the press to dig into exactly who this is.
October 26th, 2023 at 2:07 PM ^
This is what the WAPO reported:
On Oct. 17, those people said, the firm presented its evidence to top NCAA officials. The next day, the Big Ten later confirmed, the NCAA informed the conference and Michigan that it had opened an investigation.
October 26th, 2023 at 2:38 PM ^
Let's say that's the case. How would said firm know to flag that? It has nothing to do with recruiting. How ethical is it to report unrelated but suspicious content to a third party rather than informing Michigan that they found it? There's a post from yesterday that said the NCAA just received this information last Tuesday, so what was that firm doing? Sitting on it?
October 26th, 2023 at 2:47 PM ^
my understanding is that this is how many NCAA investigations go - they get wind of some minor issue and then keep peeling back the onion for a larger problem. in this situation, it goes like:
- ncaa investigates M for recruiting violations
- M cooperates, turns over computers, makes staff available for interviews, etc.
- NCAA, or in this case, a third party firm, investigates what they found then reports back
Likely, this firm does a full comprehensive review and summarizes all their findings at once to the NCAA. Given that, I don't think a couple months is unreasonable timeframe.
October 26th, 2023 at 1:54 PM ^
Also, if it was an NCAA firm, the article last night would've said so. There'd be no reason to obscure the source of the investigation.
October 26th, 2023 at 1:08 PM ^
As I get older, my gut instincts are almost never wrong anymore. I would bet this was instigated by a rich, grumpy, Ohio State alum loosely affiliated enough with Buckeye brass to get a tip on the scouting angle, and then he did the rest, hiring the firm, making sure to keep Day disassociated. Makes too much sense.
October 26th, 2023 at 2:22 PM ^
Agreed. I used a Coach K comparison recently. Duke paid players for years, but you can bet tying that to "K" would've been near impossible because there were several layers between him and the dirty deed. Same with Day, I'll bet. I'd expect OSU's scouting operation to be similarly distant from Day on paper.
October 26th, 2023 at 1:13 PM ^
Given how sloppy the rest of Connor's operation was I think its likely that
- Stallions setup a server or drive that his 'scouts' could submit videos to
- He did not have good security setup on this and it was probably 'anyone with a link can open this'
- One of his scouts was contacted by the firm, paid (see Auerbach), and the link was shared
- The firm could see the users in the database which included staff and is where WaPo is getting this "maintained and accessed" by Michigan staff verbiage
October 26th, 2023 at 2:29 PM ^
How would the firm find the scout?
October 26th, 2023 at 3:28 PM ^
Probably the same way internet sleuths are. Once they picked out Connor Stallions as a person of interest
- His venmos are public - so you can find names there receiving suspicious payments
- His ticket sales are known - it's possible schools can see the names of who the tickets are transferred to. I believe this is in StubHubs terms that they give info to the venue on who owns the tickets for example
Once you get a few names you can reach out and see if anyones interested in talking.
October 26th, 2023 at 1:14 PM ^
i'm guessing it was just a publicly accessible dropbox/google drive that the vast network could upload to, and someone found it, started snooping into what's in it, and said "this looks concerning let's tell the ncaa"
#1 rule of getting hacked is if you didn't lock down your stuff, you don't go around complaining that someone did a bad thing by hacking you
October 26th, 2023 at 1:22 PM ^
How would they know it is there in the first place? And they didn’t tell the NCAA. They passed it on to a firm that was hired to investigate Michigan. They were tipped off to it’s existence.
October 26th, 2023 at 1:17 PM ^
So, let's say the investigation was started due to information illegally obtained via computer/networking breach. Would the Fruit of the Poisonous Tree doctrine come into play, deeming all evidence collected inadmissible? Or, does that not come into play for an NCAA type investigation?
October 26th, 2023 at 1:21 PM ^
No, they could still use the information. But whoever illegally obtained the information would be in bigger trouble than Michigan.
I actually think the NCAA may refer this to the FBI. This entire thing raises issues the NCAA is not equipped to handle.
And frankly, ALL of this is certainly contrary to the spirit of the game and is frankly just really disappointing on all sides.
October 26th, 2023 at 1:30 PM ^
Spirit of the game is so dead it’s not even funny. Every single player in college football can legally be paid an infinite amount of money to be added to a new team. For decades, men, women, and children have had crimes and tragedies committed against them and covered up in the name of winning college football games. People comparing this to Penn State and MSU is proof that there are no moral standards anymore, college football is only about winning games and making as much money as possible
October 26th, 2023 at 1:36 PM ^
I don't look at it in the same lens at all as like Sandusky and the MSU stuff. Apples to oranges. I just mean seriously. This is the best all of these people can do? Leaders of men? Right.
October 26th, 2023 at 1:57 PM ^
Correct
When people ask me how I feel about Signgate, I just shrug and say, "nothing."
College football is a coin-operated enterprise, nothing more, nothing less.
October 26th, 2023 at 1:22 PM ^
just.
stop.
October 26th, 2023 at 1:29 PM ^
Ohio State is hiring private firms to cancel us. If nothing can be done to punish them for this then it's time to fucking retaliate.
October 26th, 2023 at 1:29 PM ^
It might be interesting, depending on what seemingly credible data points and/or assertions UM's Athletic Department becomes aware of, to begin launching a few strategic Notice to Preserve letters to any entities / persons who might presently enjoy "leaking" info and/or who were part of any "unauthorized access" scheme (e.g. outside of the UM AD team) if there's merit to such assertions.
If there is merit to these concerns (e.g., leaking and/or especially unauthorized data access), and if it hits the right desk, whether it's a competing school, private investigative organization, the NCAA, members of committees, etc., putting folks on notice of the potential for pending litigation coming from the university and/or its employees may get more attention from many of the folks who might presently be having fun messing with other's careers, reputations, financial livelihood, university equipment / resources, etc.
Freedom of the Press and Whistleblower, while I very much support in concept and philosophy, are certainly not a free pass for employees, third-parties, or others to recklessly breach an entity's security / data / proprietary information, etc., nor to bribe, threaten or coerce an employee or agent of another entity to do the same, simply because they believe that something might be afoot.
There are certainly MGoLegal types that can speak to these concepts much more intelligently if there's any merit to some of the assertions that have been made on the blogosphere. Harbaugh, Manuel and so many others within the Athletic Department have always seemed to carry themselves with integrity, ignoring the outside noise, even if they're not always on the same page.
It's just too bad that there's a bunch of great kids (and coaches) who have worked hard, carried themselves and represented the university community so well, that they even have to listen to questions about this nonsense.
It's 2023 and OSU still passes on 4th and short because they're OLine is soft, and no one needed a sign when we all witnessed Knowles mindlessly, repeatedly going DonBrownOnSteroids with his safeties when he knew full well that Edwards would be handed the ball and where The Don would be tossing it to the ref if/when he hit the hole.
Go Blue!
October 26th, 2023 at 1:33 PM ^
If this outside firm was working on behalf of Michigan, then that would mean the University started this entire mess and is trying to tarnish the football program? To me that would make no sense, but if this were the case, then I can definitely see Warde being the guy to hire the firm. It seems like he is the one that has not pushed hard for Harbaugh's contract extension, but that is a long reach on my opinion. I believe a rival hired this outside firm to dig into possibilities and the firm found some evidence that turned into plenty of evidence.
October 26th, 2023 at 1:39 PM ^
Right now every university is scrubbing ticket lists with the names staff memebers known or suspected to be the designated 'sign theif' of their rivals....
As soon as there are another two or three of these individuals identified (specifically if ohio state, alabama, georgia, notre dame, etc are included) this whole "bigger than the Patriots, bigger than the Astros" goes away and the story withers from view.
October 26th, 2023 at 2:16 PM ^
Can't happen soon enough.
October 26th, 2023 at 1:55 PM ^
This is an absurd post and should be deleted for being insanely inaccurate with facts.
The article does not say they had access to servers. It says:
“the firm said it had obtained from computer drives maintained and accessed by multiple Michigan coaches”
a hard drive is not a server. A computer maintained and accessed by multiple coaches is not necessarily a UM department computer. And, finally, wouldn’t it be plausible for an individual requesting video to send a Chromebook, university owned or not, for uploading the videos?
that’s not a firm accessing confidential university property. It’s one of this guy’s game filmers ratting him out and handing over the computer he had for this purpose.
Jesus
October 26th, 2023 at 1:56 PM ^
I think Brian had the best theory that I have seen yet on the WTKA roundtable today.
.
Sound like this info was on a shared cloud drive. Most-likely it was where Stalions' "helpers" uploaded the sideline footage.
Someone who had access to that drive provided that info/access to the 3rd party.......probably one of the "helpers" who was either disgruntled or got caught in the act.
My guess is that the 3rd-party is most-likely the Private detective firm allegedly hired by OSU. Quite possibly they identified and confronted the individual who was doing/had done the sideline filming at their games, who subsequently "rolled over". (This also ties in nicely with where the original leaks about news coming came from)
All of this still really doesn't prove anything extended beyond Stalions - the wording of the story that the drive was "accessible by other M coaches" seems to indicate that it was on a UM cloud drive but isn't clear. I find just as telling the wording that the budget for the operation was over $15k.......not the Michigan budget or the Program/Team budget, just "the budget". If they had any proof or indication this would be the spelled out.
Which leads back to:
Occam's Razor -- Stalions is an aspiring coach and a Michigan Superfan to a level that makes WD look like a slacker. He volunteers at the program (at large personal expense) for years before finding an avenue that will get him on staff. The "In" is his expertise at analyzing film/stealing signals which impresses the coaches. This was probably done with the added assistance of the in-person sideline film but that is NOT something you bring up in a job interview. Once on staff the operation continued -- almost certainly at his own expense. === What would M coaches think if he couldn't replicate the results that got him the job? Too late to 'come clean" so he keeps digging the hole deeper.
Opinion -- IF there is evidence that Stalions had lower-level opponents scouted just like he did for OSU, UGA, etc., it is even a stronger indicator that this was all about promoting himself and his "abilities" than a massive conspiracy by the department.
Opinion Part 2 -- Repeating Myself from earlier in the week. None of these allegations to date is a clear violation of NCAA rules as far as I can tell. It may delve into the gray areas of the rules, nit-pick the interpretation of the wording in the rules, and - in the worst examples - crap all over the spirit of the rules but does not clearly break them.
October 26th, 2023 at 2:47 PM ^
Chris Balas, mentioned earlier that he was spotted at one of the games, Balas heard this from someone else as well. This story keeps getting juicier and juicer. I’m waiting for the final outcome lol.
October 26th, 2023 at 1:59 PM ^
Objection! Speculation.
October 26th, 2023 at 2:54 PM ^
Everything is speculation right now. We don’t know what evidence there is. How many games the “scouts” attended??. How many games did they record?. What was the dates of the purchases and scouting operations?? Etc
Thats why I’m saving my energy for the outcome. Be it good or bad. Till then I’ll enjoy my nothing burgers.. 😂😂😂 and $15k for 40 games is hella cheap. No way this was a budget set by the Athletic Department. Anyways enjoy, I’m out. Just figured I’d chip my 2 cents in since everyone is chipping in lmao
October 26th, 2023 at 2:01 PM ^
I hope we are still actively scouting OSU and their signals because I'm sure they are ours...even if nothing was done against NCAA rules, UM has to be good boys now and have probably halted scouting all together...and I think that was a major chess move by the opponent that seems to have succeeded
October 26th, 2023 at 2:01 PM ^
To add some weirdness to an already weird story, Clayton Sayfie, Trevor Woods and others are now tweeting some very cryptic stuff that gives off the impression that things are turning in Michigan's favor. Who knows what the hell is happening at this point.
October 26th, 2023 at 2:23 PM ^
what specifically are they tweeting?
October 26th, 2023 at 2:10 PM ^
Is it wrong to say that I'm not worrying about this until there's an actual notice of allegations? Who knows how many NCAA investigations have started out like this just to fizzle. The only difference I see, at this point, is we reportedly have a very jealous snitch at the heart of this.
October 26th, 2023 at 2:14 PM ^
The real scandal here will be whether OSU was in fact involved in hiring a PI firm to leak this information to water-carrying media. How would or could the NCAA see that as appropriate conduct? If OSU did this, then the spotlight is pointed in the wrong direction.
October 26th, 2023 at 2:27 PM ^
User name ... checks out. :)
October 26th, 2023 at 2:36 PM ^
This whole thing is just a shit show. Why can't the the season just be boring with wins?
October 26th, 2023 at 3:03 PM ^
"What's the deal with outside investigative firms?"
October 26th, 2023 at 3:39 PM ^
We need to know what the consulting firm was. James Stapleton ran a consulting firm, didn’t he? Even if that wasn’t the firm, we need to critically evaluate the firm’s practices. When the NFL hired a outside firm for “deflategate,” they chose one with multiple top executives having just come from Arthur Anderson, a firm found guilty of shredding evidence, leading to the loss of their licenses, dissolution of the firm and the bankruptcy of Enron. The firm also had represented cigarette companies to “prove” that cigarettes were not harmful. Likewise, their “evidence” about the deflation of footballs was found by MIT scientists and many others to be worthless, based in part on “doctored” graphs and inaccurate analyses.
October 26th, 2023 at 5:57 PM ^
Maybe this "firm" is part of an elaborate scheme to get OSU and Ryan Day to commit NCAA penalties. "have to let the criminals commit the crime before arresting them". It's all a rouse to bring down OSU, we just have to look ridiculously stupid, while all the crimes are committed and the "investigations" are done. "It's a Trap!!!"