DG. versus Sam Webb

Until the ncaa clarifies about "3rd parties", we technically haven't even been proven to have broken the rule yet.

Even if Stalions broke a rule -- and it's not absolutely clear to me that he did -- it's a level 3 violation.  It's a slap on the wrist kind of thing.  The whole thing is ridiculous.  Now, I don't like sign stealing, but it's not cheating.  And if we broke a rule is was a poorly worded minor rule.

And if we broke the rule, then so did Ohio State/Rutgers/Purdue with their collusion. I have yet to see a single explanation, rooted in the actual text of the bylaw, that distinguishes the two schemes for the purposes of determining whether the bylaw was broken.

And if the B1G does not take leadership with helmet communications, it proves what BS this whole thing has been.  

Tony Petitti called this "the worst scandal in the history of the Big Ten"

Seriously

From where I've been sitting, whether M broke a rule or not will come down to two relatively simple questions:

1) Was it in fact CS on the CMU sideline during CMU/MSU?

2) Does the NCAA's 2013 revision of the in-person scouting rule green-light 3rd party scouting?

if the answer to #1 is "yes", then yes, M broke a rule once.

if the answer to # 2 is "no", then M broke that rule several times.

Cool, how did Michigan cheat? 

It's not that sign stealing is completely meaningless. It's that you bet your ass that every single big college football program is breaking the rules to get as much intel on opponents signs as we did. You'd honestly be stupid not to. The only difference is that someone hired a private investigation firm to accrue evidence that we were doing it. 

Addressing your compassion/charity question, I've thought about that a lot. I can totally see Harbaugh hiring a hustling, Naval Academy grad, ex-Marine superfan out of compassion and/or charity.

i think it's possible to acknowledge our bias as M fans, but to also say that our bias is at least somewhat justified by the NCAA's own commentary on the rule in question.

from various things i've read, posted here and elsewhere over the last 6 weeks, commentary in the NCAA's internal debate about scrapping the rule included the notions that:

- the rule was implemented as a financial leveler

- there is no measurable on-field competitive advantage gained by the activity the rule prohibits

- the rule has been rendered obsolete by the modern college football landscape, and modern technology.

So, if the NCAA determines Michigan broke the rule, so be it, punish them accordingly.

but the NCAA's own commentary destroys the "cheating" narrative, imo.

Everyone works to decipher other teams' signs.  To believe M "cheated" or "compromised the competitive integrity of the sport" is to believe that A) the ncaa's opinions about their own rule are wrong; and B) TV network footage and All-22 footage is fine, but adding fan video shot from the bleachers creates a sizable advantage such that it compromises competitive integrity.

Maybe it's my fan bias talking, but that's a hard sell to me. ymmv.

I think you're wrong on a couple of points here.

1. Deciphering opponent signals is part of the game.  It is not against the rules.  The crux of the entire scandal as its being reported is the fallacy that getting your opponent's signs is cheating.  It is perfectly legal, allowed, and as CR has pointed out is at least passively encouraged by the NCAA.  There is nothing untoward about getting our opponent signals.  It is literally a part of the game.

1a. The entirety of the real rule breaking has nothing to do with getting opponent signals, it has only to do with Stalions paying some dudes to attend a game in person and get the publicly presented signals.  It was later proven that Michigan could not have gained any advantage from this whatsoever because OSU and Rutgers have been giving everyone in football Michigan's fully deciphered and organized signals for years.

Thus, any "competitive advantage" or "player safety" talk is 100% pure bullshit, and is only deployed for the uninformed masses to be brainwashed and to provide cover for the Big Ten to hammer Harbaugh.

2. Michigan was never going to get out of the crossfire with a good faith response.  In fact, they attempted that by removing Scalions and immediately acquiescing to the NCAA to investigate our program mid-season.  This behavior is unheard of in programs who actually cheat.  The only thing Michigan could have done immediately that they did not do would have been to fire Warde as a sacrificial head.  That may have worked to tamp down or confuse the media blitz and should have been done in my opinion, but who knows if it would have worked.  This was an organized media assault, a political hit, intended to eliminate Harbaugh.  Not realizing this at first, Michigan played very very soft.  Their acquiescence actually fanned the flames, or at least did nothing to unfan them.

Wrongful termination? Stalions resigned, wasn't fired. Even when he was suspended, it was with pay.

There are a number of ways to obtain the same information.

We know other teams had M's signals decoded and were backroom dealing to share this advance-scouted analysis among our rivals.

Assuming that activity doesn't formally break any rules, and isn't "poor sportsmanship" per the B1G, then why is it qualitatively worse, more unethical, more unsportsmanlike, etc. to get original footage of future opponents and analyze it ourselves?

The point is, if M violated any rule, it was only by technicality and whether the NCAA is going to allege this activity violated any rules is still TBD. Further, while that is TBD, the following are certain: 1) M's activity did not constitute some major competitive advantage (as recognized by the NCAA itself) and 2) the final product yielded from this activity --an accurate breakdown of how to interpret opponents' signs-- is not different from what other teams had in their possession.

The point you are missing is that all the info was out there before we ever stood our ground at all. Everything was leaked in a coordinated way. We were silent for a long time and actually stood our ground for about 1 twenty four hour period. The coordinated leaks, the conference call with coaches financially vested in Jim Harbaugh going down, the suspension mid flight.. come on man.

Whatever we did is 1/1000th what was done to us. That isnt homer talk it there in plain sight. All the shit was slung at us before we ever stood our ground.

I mean, we did have someone on the staff whose job it was to decode the other team's signs. Seems bizarre for us to be sooooo 100% sure that decoding the other team's signs is meaningless. I just don't get that. So did we hire Stalions out of ... compassion? Charity? 

 

I’ll put this as plainly as I can. Stealing signs is not against the rules. That is not now, nor has it ever, been the issue. That’s not the rule Michigan is accused of breaking. EVERY team has someone on their sidelines dedicated to watching the opponent’s sideline and trying to decode their signals. Most schools, if not all, also employ people who use game film to try and crack the codes. None of this is uncommon, or illegal. 
 

Michigan, via Stalions’ network that we have zero proof of anyone else knowing about, is accused of breaking a rule involving in-game scouting of future opponents. Ultimately, we’re being accused of technically breaking a rule. “Cheating” isn’t accurate. We’re not gaining any competitive advantage by obtaining the exact same information everyone else is obtaining, but the way that information was obtained is technically illegal because 30 years ago, smaller schools couldn’t afford to send people out to scout games so they created a rule against it. 
 

Or do college teams — yes, including Michigan — believe that an advantage is gained by having the other team's signs

Look at it this way. If everyone is doing something, there is no advantage. It’s a level playing field. If you’re not doing what everyone else is doing however, you’re putting yourself at a competitive DISadvantage. If everyone knows everyone’s signs, it’s a fair game. 

In my opinion, you're stating what people who want to come down on Michigan want the rule to say as opposed to what it actually says. 

So coaches are not paid? It feels like the rule is being used in a way that will punish UM but not others.

So, this past Saturday, I could have recorded the entire Michigan - OSU game on a device, made it available to others who were interested - via a centralized server, DVD, or videotape.   And, as long as I didn't "charge" for access - or provide any analysis, this is perfectly within the rules.

Right! Except that this is totally irrelevant, bc that's not what CS did. No one got mad about UM fans having youtube accounts with full game-sideline recordings. 

I find the "you can't prove we did anything wrong!" crowd to be insufferable at this point - they're about as mature as me at 8 years old trying to get out of trouble by arguing technicalities with my parents. We know what he did, and it was phenomenally stupid given how easy an alternative should have been. Then the Partridge coverup is all the more bizarre.

That said, the justifications for the Big Ten's penalties are nonsensical. Everything should have waited for the NCAA to do its thing first.