Blog/Mod appreciation & TGIF POSBANG
It’s been a helluva week. Thanks to the blog (and the mods) for this place and for thoughtfully tracking the story while managing and monitoring SO many posts.
Thanks to everyone for humor and commiserating.
Thanks to those remembering brother Hoek and fam… a reminder that we’re not just here for M, but for each other in whatever ways we can be.
It’s great to be a Michigan Wolverine! Have a BANG-tastic Friday!
October 27th, 2023 at 12:08 AM ^
We made it to Rebecca Black day, y’all. Things are looking up
October 27th, 2023 at 3:16 AM ^
Yeah, they are actually. Can confirm that Brian's "Signgate the Third" post looks basically spot on.
1. "Follow the Money" won't lead anywhere. The money indeed came from Stalions' personal funds. Stop biting your fingernails off.
2. No coaches/staff knew anything other than he appeared to be a Ray Babbitt-level savant at deciphering signals from the normal raw materials. This isn't escalating.
3. Only the Vast Network (TM) had the shared Google drive pw, but the drive link was installed on his work computer. Not clear if anyone in Schembechler could potentially have accessed but WaPo took this and spun it in the most click-maximizing, heartburn-inducing way.
4. Besides the manifesto, expect the eventual leak of a much lighter read: a one-page illustrated instruction document for the scouts cleverly codenamed How to Steal Signals because of course it is. Like The Warriors, it's good. Real good. Can you dig it?
Sourcing details have been provided to the MGoProprietors.
Have a great weekend. Breathe.
Sopw/
October 27th, 2023 at 4:39 AM ^
Appreciate the updates — hoping it all pans out that way!
Do you have any intel (or even hunches) on the engagement of the PI firm involved here and the source of their engagement?
October 27th, 2023 at 5:39 AM ^
That's how one posbangs
October 27th, 2023 at 6:03 AM ^
thank you sopwith. there is a reason you are the one we have to shoot down the red baron, and it's no coincidence that the bad guy wears....red
October 27th, 2023 at 8:05 AM ^
Sopwith = sopwith camel = camel = Thamel!
We’re being played!
No, actually this is great.
October 27th, 2023 at 6:10 AM ^
Man this is the best thing I've read in a while.
October 27th, 2023 at 7:11 AM ^
Thank you SopWith. Much appreciated. And the sourcing part is gravy and appreciate that as well. Enjoy your non UM football weekend and Go Badgers.
October 27th, 2023 at 8:31 AM ^
Little off topic but wanted to share with the group. Was just listening to Sam Webb's show. Joe Simon (sp??), the lawyer, was on. He had interesting legal takes on the shared drive. I think SQ, poster here, was spot on I think. Interesting listen. If you want to listen, WTKA posts those on their APP eventually during the day.
Ed: basically, even if he shared the password on Google drive, if it is UM's account, or one of his "recruits" shared, it is illegal to use it. It is legal if the person actually downloaded and shared. And a Google drive is similar to a C: on a local computer if Google drive is UM account. I might be misinterpreting and I am not a lawyer. Anyway, nobody might pursue this but this piece stinks. Hope I didn't mess with the spirit of this thread. Go Blue!
October 27th, 2023 at 7:26 AM ^
Love the Rainman reference. I bet Harbaugh would like to squeeze, pull, and hurt his neck right now!
October 27th, 2023 at 7:53 AM ^
Thanks for the insider intel, sir. You deserve a medal for talking us off the ledge (or at least saving our fingernails).
October 27th, 2023 at 7:56 AM ^
I can dig it Sopwith. Go Blue!
October 27th, 2023 at 7:56 AM ^
Mulling over the plot of the 1979 schlock classic the warriors where the guy in charge of the most powerful gang in New York City pitches continuing a truce between every gang in the city.
It's interesting looking back at it knowing that the urban decay played for camp with the warriors (there is a mime gang, lol) was a result of NYC racking up unsustainable debts under the rule of Robert Moses, intensified by shrinking revenue from white flight.
Then wall street using that debt to leverage austerity policies to extract wealth and power from the city.
The novel, oddly enough, more or less isn't campy at all and is much more heartfelt.
Cyrus never got a chance to try but it's an interesting plan, even if it's got plenty of flaws.
(Not the least being the way supposedly 900 gang members running from at most a couple dozen cops)
And it's got the best radio announcer in cinema.
October 27th, 2023 at 8:24 AM ^
Also, we know OSU hired a PR firm, and astroturfing the Internet is SOP for PR wars these days. The media-message board feedback loop is largely artificial, although I don't know to what extent.
Point is, the Internet is currently puking out an even more warped perversion of reality than usual.
October 27th, 2023 at 11:28 AM ^
File this under "hi preacher I am choir" but THIS is why Warde fails.
No he shouldn't be publicly flipping off OSU and the NCAA. Yes he should be leaking our side of the story to counteract a one-sided narrative, or at least get a PR firm to do something of the sort. What's he doing here anyways?
October 27th, 2023 at 5:27 PM ^
As a general rule, a counterattack is more effective if it's not launched until the attack has begun to falter. Let them attrit themselves first.
October 27th, 2023 at 8:27 AM ^
Sopwith, thank you so much for the update that one can only take as extremely positive. Michigan football is an unhealthy part of my life and I haven't slept much at all over this.
I personally believed this wasn't going to come back on Harbaugh the whole time because Harbaugh said it wouldn't. I just couldn't accept that at anytime Jim would think this was a good idea. He's too good of a coach and has too good of a team to ever need anything like this.
I see no reason not to continue with Harbaugh contract negotiations. Get him locked up for the next decade, please.
October 27th, 2023 at 1:36 PM ^
Doesn't matter if Harbaugh knew. According to NCAA rules, he's responsible for misdeeds of anyone on his staff. Buck stops here, etc.
October 27th, 2023 at 8:53 AM ^
If Stalions hadn't outted himself to this degree, I'm sure he would have had a future with the CIA.
October 27th, 2023 at 11:08 AM ^
I'm sure he would have had a future with the CIA.
Only if he was an analyst parked in some nondescript office at Langley poring over photos and transcripts of intercepted communications. He'd be an absolute disaster as an agent out in the field.
October 27th, 2023 at 12:36 PM ^
I think I saw that movie.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mMtwvqRcjmM
October 27th, 2023 at 10:51 AM ^
Number two helps support a thought i’ve had over the last week. The questions i asked myself were “why would he do it?” and “why wouldn’t the coaches know what he was doing?”Here’s are my thoughts:
- We already have multiple coaches and former players support that you can steal signs based off network/all-22 footage.
- One article stated that he impressed the coaches (before he was on staff or as a volunteer) with how he was able to decode signals based off network broadcasts
My guess is that he didn’t need this info to decode signals. He already proved he could do it from film that was already available to him and the public. He likely did this multiple times to demonstrate ability and gain the trust of the coaches. Thus, the benefit of getting film from the stands is that it likely sped up his process. I doubt you can get full footage on signs from every play from film, so this is a way he could accomplish that to give himself more time for other things.
My deep, tinfoil theory is that this helped give him more time to work on his overall goal of the manifesto (ie help him prepare for his eventual “Michigan takeover”). I don’t think he had much of a football background, so this probably opened up more time for him to learn about football from the coaches and/or how to coach.
October 27th, 2023 at 11:02 AM ^
I think what's clear is he was obviously good at stealing signs, and proved that well before developing this scheme.
What isn't so clear is why he needed or thought he needed to take things a step further. As about a million people have mentioned, you can do a perfectly fine job stealing signals from the All-22 and TV copies of games. You don't see the coaches in every play on either, obviously, but you see them enough and if you watch multiple games you can piece it together.
Maybe, like you alluded to, it was a time saving method. I'm not sure, it's hard to imagine it was THAT MUCH more useful than what he was already doing, but we'll probably never know.
October 27th, 2023 at 11:08 AM ^
Or maybe just a compulsive need to always do it better.
October 27th, 2023 at 11:09 AM ^
One word. Obsession.
October 27th, 2023 at 12:34 PM ^
I'll ask the obvious. Since it doesn't appear he has violated the letter of the rule how does he not retain his job especially with legal backing? What grounds? He could potentially save his job and sue the firm and its sponsor for defamation damages as well since he was not a public figure per se. Finding loopholes and doing something better than your peers all the while sharing with other schools and not hiding may be his best defense. Savants can be fanatic and I am not saying he is a savant but if he was that impressive on his own dime there may be something more to this.
Maybe I am way off but what say you?
October 27th, 2023 at 1:18 PM ^
You can fire people even if they don’t break rules. Unless he has a contract with guaranteed employment for a specific period of time, which is unlikely for a staffer making $55k. Also, lack of judgment even if not illegal could be an easy justification in risking UM compliance.
October 27th, 2023 at 1:45 PM ^
Even with excellent performance reviews? Even if you intentionally used a method not called out in the rules that now, in hindsight, is the end all be all smoking gun so to speak. Not prohibited and reviewed previously as minor or superfluous rules not broken while causing angst to the sensitive are what I question as a means of firing a possibly well thought of employee who we now know to be over the top.
I am coming at this as what his next moves could be and future employment potential if erroneously targeted and especially if his folks are as well off as Brian thinks. Just curious.
October 27th, 2023 at 5:59 PM ^
Yes. His employment is "at will" in the state of Michigan, meaning that both he and his employer are able to end his employment at any time for any reason. It doesn't matter what his performance was.
That said, I'm sure he'll find a job somewhere given his ability to grind harder than just about everyone else to an obsessive degree, and maybe also his ability to find those gray areas and loopholes to get sh*t done.
October 28th, 2023 at 4:30 PM ^
Any truth to the rumor going around that OSU asked the CFP if they could scout Georgia last year in the CFP semi-finals and were granted permission as the CFP is not sanctioned by the NCAA?
October 27th, 2023 at 12:14 AM ^
GO BLUE! Just win, crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of the women!
October 27th, 2023 at 12:17 AM ^
While I wish we didn't have to go through something like this, it sure helps to have this community. This is the real vast network. Go Blue!
October 27th, 2023 at 8:14 AM ^
Love this community - both for the wisdom and snark. Also good to see the self-policing negbang when someone really gets off the rails.
Happy Wife Day, ya’ll!!
October 27th, 2023 at 12:20 AM ^
I dunno about ya’ll but I am enjoying all of this immensely. They are all terrified of the Boa Constrictor!!! Ryan Day will do ANYTHING to make us go away. That means we have arrived, boys and girls. Buckle the f@$k up. We have four weeks of curb stompings to dish out with extreme prejudice before we secure our spot in the B1G championship and play with the corpse of whatever zombie emerges from the B1G West like a bored cat toying with half a mouse and then on to the playoffs. There is no stopping us. We are inevitable. LFG!!!
oh yeah also thanks mods for all ya’ll do.
October 27th, 2023 at 1:54 AM ^
Can a Boa constrict a Maserati?
October 27th, 2023 at 8:06 AM ^
Now we’re asking the real questions. If not a Maserati, at least a BMW.
October 27th, 2023 at 8:18 AM ^
okay, how about 400 boa constrictors vs. ditka*? who wins that one?
*full-size ditka, not mini ditka.
October 27th, 2023 at 9:01 AM ^
Lol, read that in the sports guys Chicago accent.
October 27th, 2023 at 9:36 AM ^
indeed, it is virtually impossible not to hear it in that chicago accent.
October 27th, 2023 at 9:30 AM ^
Ditka.
October 27th, 2023 at 12:23 AM ^
Breaking News: New Video Evidence Shows Connor Stalions Training OSU Sign Stealer
October 27th, 2023 at 12:34 AM ^
Thank you, "mi93". I wish I could upvote you a few hundred times for your mentioning of brother Hoek and his GoFundMe link that you posted in your OP.
And I'm going to request that, rather than POSBANG upvotes for me, that everyone please consider making a donation, whatever amount you can spare towards battling his wife's cancer and to help his young family.
October 27th, 2023 at 11:44 AM ^
How about both?
I trust the choir concert was fantastic. And thanks again for all y'all do.
October 27th, 2023 at 12:46 AM ^
Go Blue. Beat Ohio.
October 27th, 2023 at 12:53 AM ^
Its been a sucky week but we need to hang strong. It's been wearing on me but then I remember that this is all bullshit w/r/t all the other stuff going on in CFB right now and I can't wait to crush Nuts on 11/25/23.
I live in Orange Co CA and starting today* I have been making it a point to be out in my Michigan gear everywhere. I suggest all Wolverines everywhere do the same.
Go Fucking Blue.
* I tend to wear a lot, anyway.
October 27th, 2023 at 6:41 AM ^
Wearing all Michigan gear, right down to my socks and skivvies.
👍
October 27th, 2023 at 9:05 AM ^
Proof or it didn’t happen.
j/k.
not that there’s anything wrong with that.
October 27th, 2023 at 12:54 AM ^
1000%. Mods showed a lot of judgment and patience, and I think that kept things from spinning into RCMB-land, which was a real possibility. The MGoBlog Difference.
October 27th, 2023 at 7:07 AM ^
Well, to be fair to the readership here, I think one of the main differences between RCMB and this place is probably that, at least here, there are people with actual connections who can say informed things - or semi-informed things - and keep expectations real enough and speculation to a low boil at worst. Also, you have a lot of people who are quite good at putting pieces together and telling a very reasoned tale, if nothing else.
In the few trips that I have made to RCMB, I've seen comparatively little evidence of that. They are also obsessed, but it seems like they are obsessed about the wrong things and then not quite in the same way.
October 27th, 2023 at 12:59 AM ^
It’s been fun going through all of the range of emotions with everyone. I enjoy that most of us settled on defiant, it’s a good look for us. Go Blue!