Where did the "OSU knew there would be an investigation before anyone else" narrative come from?
I remember reading a LOT of commentary here on the Blog in the weeks leading up to the news breaking about the investigation about how the OSU blogs/forums/message boards were way out in front of the investigation. That led to a lot of discussion after the fact about how that prescience seems to be an argument that OSU hired the PI.
What I don't know is where that narrative came from. Was it Eleven Warriors? Some of the paywalled sites?
Feel free to downvote me into oblivion if no one wants to revisit this, I was just curious.
November 30th, 2023 at 4:05 PM ^
From Connor Stallions.
November 30th, 2023 at 4:07 PM ^
Doesn't need its own thread... but anyway.
It isn't a narrative, it's reality. There were multiple OSU "insiders" who were talking about something major coming down on Michigan, at least a month before any Michigan "insiders" got wind of it. I'm not sure what you're even asking. Seems like you answer your own question in the OP.
November 30th, 2023 at 4:09 PM ^
I was asking where, specifically, it came from. I remember the general conversation, but not anyone coming right out and saying where they were seeing it in the OSU community.
November 30th, 2023 at 4:14 PM ^
No snark, but, what does it matter, exactly? Do you need Comment Zero from the OSU message board to believe the narrative?
Similarly, I asked the other day--and did not receive an answer--who the first person was on the internet to post a picture of the guy at the CMU-MSU game and say "This is Connor Stalions!"
Someone said Yood was likely involved in outing CS there, but Yood is not the one who posted it on the internet.
The reason I want to know is because I'm trying to understand why everyone assumes it is actually Stalions and also figure out who was ratting him out (although the answer to that is, apparently, believed to be Yood, which kind of makes sense).
November 30th, 2023 at 4:17 PM ^
As I said in the post, it's mainly curiosity as to whether there's any kind of clear Ur-post on some board that led to the narrative or whether it was something that just got amplified here on the Blog and it took on a life of its own. I'm not on the paywalled sites, so I wondered if maybe that's where people were getting their information.
November 30th, 2023 at 4:31 PM ^
In the first link, the OP asks:
Now, you wonder, what is the WHAC? It's the Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference! See https://www.whac.net/ for details.
WHAC here actually stands for Woody Hayes Athletic Center - the OSU football complex.
November 30th, 2023 at 6:32 PM ^
<that's the joke.gif>
November 30th, 2023 at 4:36 PM ^
Looks like Henson has the OP’s answer. +10
November 30th, 2023 at 5:01 PM ^
The OP needs to dedicate much more time to what people say on this blog, instead of embarrassing himself asking questions like this. How could he not have remembered that random post from December 4, 2022? Does the OP even care about Michigan football or this blog?
November 30th, 2023 at 5:07 PM ^
LOL
To be fair, I probably (almost certainly) read those posts and they didn't stick with me for some reason. There's an element of "I've been on this Blog a long time and if there's one thing I know it's that there are some really sharp people who know/remember a helluva lot more than I do" in my post. I understand the snark I got and am happy to soak any negs they feel are necessary.
November 30th, 2023 at 5:13 PM ^
I remembered the post from the day this went down this year. I did not remember 2022. I did a search on MGoBlog and this is what came up.
If you cared about negs (I understand that you don't) board etiquette is that you would threadjack somewhere with this question, preferably somewhere it is relevant or in a horrible thread that shouldn't exist.
November 30th, 2023 at 5:17 PM ^
I understand what you're saying, but I was more interested in getting the question answered than hoping someone stumbled over it in an unrelated thread.
I knew the negs were coming because of that, but I got the answers I was looking for in an easily referenced snapshot, so I consider it worth it. :D
November 30th, 2023 at 5:14 PM ^
High-quality snark. +1
November 30th, 2023 at 4:53 PM ^
Wow a lot of people in the comments there look pretty silly in retrospect.
November 30th, 2023 at 5:02 PM ^
Roman officer 1: There's a rumor swirling that Carthage might be invading.
Roman officer 2: Whatever. What's Hannibal gonna do, cross the Alps with elephants. GTFO.
November 30th, 2023 at 5:20 PM ^
Those who enjoyed revisiting the December 2022 post may also enjoy this comment:
November 30th, 2023 at 4:57 PM ^
More recently, Thamel also reported Harbaugh's 3 game suspension from the B1G a full 30 minutes prior to the conference even notifying Michigan or Harbaugh. That says all I need to know about who is being fed information and why. That's an unnatural connection and clear orchestration behind the scenes to a mouthpiece that had already been heavily biased in the situation.
Also, the B1G staffer that provided the information on sign stealing/sharing among coaches of Michigan's signals that also then went to Purdue prior to the BTC game, apparently sent that evidence to Thamel first....who of course intentionally buried it because it went against the narrative he was participating in pushing. Even after it broke on the AP site, he and ESPN barely covered it and only posted a tiny article on it like full day after everyone picked it up.
November 30th, 2023 at 4:58 PM ^
Thanks, Henson. That was exactly what I was looking for.
November 30th, 2023 at 5:11 PM ^
wow, I didn't realize the discussion went back to last December, even though that post seems to be pure speculation rather than rumblings with any actual "insider knowledge"
I do remember the rumblings a day or two before the story broke nationally that something bad was about to happen to Michigan, and those rumblings came specifically from bucknuts I believe. That's basically why there is so much speculation about OSU's involvement, clearly some OSU insider had advanced knowledge of thing before literally anyone else did.
December 1st, 2023 at 6:41 AM ^
To me, CMU's lack of comment makes it obvious that it must actually have been Stalions.
By not denying it, they look guilty, of something. Either
A) they didn't know he was there and their security protocols were severely breached
Or
B) they knew he was there because they asked for his help in decoding signs.
Those are the only two conclusions from their silence. Certainly, if they had any proof at all that it was not CS ("our strength coach has a goatee and wears sunglasses at night!"), we would have heard it by now.
November 30th, 2023 at 4:15 PM ^
I want to say Sam indicated it was Bill Green(e?) who dropped hints months in advance. He is formerly of 24/7 but I believe is now over at Buckeye Huddle or something. No, i do not care enough to actually go look.
November 30th, 2023 at 4:17 PM ^
Thank you. I appreciate you taking the time to answer.
November 30th, 2023 at 4:27 PM ^
there was also some rumors that OSU guys got it from Tenneessee message boards last year where some guy was posting about how Michigan paid his friend or cousin or someone to scout their game.
November 30th, 2023 at 4:52 PM ^
More importantly than who said it first, is the point that it was being said a lot, and in only one realm. Not too hard to connect the dots of where this all came from.
November 30th, 2023 at 4:33 PM ^
Sir Yacht
November 30th, 2023 at 5:20 PM ^
There was a lot of chatter for a few weeks on the 247 Buckeye message board (I think it was formerly Bucknuts and now is called "the Front Row" or something). They said that something was coming down against Michigan and it was going to be be big and bad for them (us). There was a lot of talk from one of the posters about knowing a guy who was somehow connected to the Days and he had heard that they were investigating Michigan and it was going to be real bad, something that would destroy the program. That was a week or two before the news broke (and well before the Big Ten allegedly knew about it).
November 30th, 2023 at 5:39 PM ^
Links were posted here. If you dig enough, you can find them. I don't remember at all which threads to look for. But if you want to find it badly enough... dig
November 30th, 2023 at 6:12 PM ^
I saw it on Eleven Warriors before it broke on ESPN, etc. They even said the investigator was former FBI (Day’s brother is former DEA).
November 30th, 2023 at 4:13 PM ^
In fairness, I have not seen any actual evidence of such OSU posts just as I have not seen any evidence of the so-called “established facts” regarding ticket purchases, stadium surveillance, anything.
For all I “know” Georgia Southern hired the PI and Connor Stalions never hired anybody to film any games.
November 30th, 2023 at 4:15 PM ^
I mean did you not see the Harbaugh post below? It's possible Connor Stalions isn't even a real person who ever existed.
November 30th, 2023 at 4:21 PM ^
He may not be. Or maybe there are multiple Connor Stalions. Connor Stalions I only seems to exist in still frames near Michigan assistants as they think really hard, and Connor Stalions II (who only bears a superficial resemblance to Connor Stalions I) exists only on Central Michigan’s sidelines and for a brief moment on Barstool Sports.
November 30th, 2023 at 6:37 PM ^
Why are you so butthurt about someone asking a totally normal question?
November 30th, 2023 at 4:11 PM ^
Scott Frost's mom
November 30th, 2023 at 4:15 PM ^
Always the correct answer.
November 30th, 2023 at 4:16 PM ^
She wears a 2-piece, which is why Scott had such troubles with the Nebraska locker room.
November 30th, 2023 at 4:18 PM ^
yeah - you really want the locker room in 1 piece
November 30th, 2023 at 4:15 PM ^
I remember seeing OSU flairs on Reddit complaining about UM doing so well in the 2nd halves of games last year and saying it must be sign stealing.
Someone, either in or heavily personally invested in their program has the highest probability of being motivated enough to hire a PI and PR firm to push the narrative. Occam’s Razor.
November 30th, 2023 at 4:25 PM ^
I remember seeing OSU flairs on Reddit complaining about UM doing so well in the 2nd halves of games last year and saying it must be sign stealing.
That argument would fly for "legal" sign-stealing (i.e. the kind that happens during the game and everyone seems to be okay with) but makes no sense for advanced scouting as Michigan has been accused of. If you advanced scouted, why would you wait until the second half to implement the knowledge you had acquired?
November 30th, 2023 at 5:13 PM ^
Exactly. Why would they only do well in the 2nd half if they had signs all game?
November 30th, 2023 at 6:11 PM ^
I asked this very question a few weeks ago on Reddit I think, and the explanation I received (who knows how credible it is) is that it still takes time to figure out who is throwing up the dummy signs and who has the real signs each game. The gist of it is that teams already employ several different people holding up signs, only one of which has the "real" signs, as a countermeasure to prevent teams from stealing. So even if you know the real signs, you don't necessarily know who is holding up the real signs and who is holding up the fake ones and it takes at least several drives to sort that out. Hence the improvement as the game goes on.
Anyway, who knows if the above is true, but it at least seemed like a credible explanation to me. The sad/frustrating part about about all this is it seems quite clear that we didn't need to do this to win most, if not all, of the games we won.
November 30th, 2023 at 8:18 PM ^
I don't see why it would take more than a few plays, if you really have a full set of signals (like, for example, the set Purdue was sent). They run a play, you know what the signal for it was, only one of their signalers gave it. You watch that guy the next play and confirm it.
Of course you probably have to wait out the beginning-of-game script before you can start, but I don't know why it would take several drives unless you didn't have all the signals going in.
I can see some variations that might make a little harder (different signaler depending on down, say) but I still don't see why it would take a full half if you know what you're doing.
November 30th, 2023 at 4:54 PM ^
Would be kinda hilarious if they had their own stallions type, overzealous staffer or fan who hired his own PI firm with mommy and daddy's money.
November 30th, 2023 at 8:19 PM ^
Chris Day is Connor Stalions with a nasty temper.
November 30th, 2023 at 4:31 PM ^
The day before the world learned about Connor Stallions and the signs investigation, there was a reddit post that caused a big stir and turned out to be right: https://www.reddit.com/r/CFB/comments/17bb3yc/is_michigan_football_under_investigation/
The post and his follow up post have been deleted, but if you click on the OP's profile you see that he made a comment explaining the reason he knew something was coming was because there were posts alluding to the investigation on BuckeyeHuddle and the Michigan 247 board.
Also in one of the Signgate posts or game columns, Brian alluded to OSU insider people acting all giddy on Twitter about big Michigan news in the weeks before it actually dropped.
November 30th, 2023 at 5:01 PM ^
Thank you, Wampa. I'm getting a lot of good info in this thread. Exactly what I was hoping for.
November 30th, 2023 at 4:37 PM ^
OP-
I had this same question, as a friend who is an OSU alum challenged my assertion that OSU message boards knew about it ahead of time. The closest thing I could find in print is Brian's statement here, regarding Buckeye Scoop: https://mgoblog.com/content/i-got-your-sign
In that piece, Brian states as follows:
"The first person to allude to this investigation was Ohio State insider Bill Greene of Buckeye Scoop, the site that was blackballed by OSU for paying a walk-on to give them access to internal Ohio State information. The message board rumors that started up a couple of days ago also came from OSU sources, which point's a big ol' finger at Ryan Day as the primary complainer. I do not believe the message board rumor that Ryan Day hired a private investigator to get at all this… but I kind of do."
I believe I heard Brian say on WTKA or a podcast that once the news broke nationally, those posts had been scrubbed from Buckeye Scoop, FWIW.
November 30th, 2023 at 5:03 PM ^
Excellent. Thank you, 03 Blue. This is the stuff I was looking for.