Last week, Michigan found itself at the center of its second major NCAA investigation of the year when Yahoo Sports reported that the school had allegedly violated rules related to sign-stealing.
In the past few days, more details about Michigan's shady dealings have come to light. On Monday, ESPN reported that Michigan staffer Connor Stalions bought tickets in his own name for more than 30 games over the past three years spread out across 11 different Big Ten schools.
Stalions has since been suspended. Based on ESPN's report, he may have been part of a wider web of an "elaborate" scouting system that was kept in the dark at Michigan. Sources say Stalions bought those tickets with his own credit card often at online retailers like StubHub and SeatGeek.
This new discovery prompted internet sleuths to do a little digging of their own, and lo and behold, someone found a potentially incriminating transaction in Stalion's Venmo history.
Dating back to December 30 of 2022, Stalions made a payment to Michigan intern Chase Evans with the description "GA." The day after that transaction, Georgia played Ohio State in the Peach Bowl.
Michigan staffer Conor Stalions is feeling the heat in ongoing NCAA sign-stealing investigation
It's not totally damning evidence. Still, something smells a little fishy.
A few questions pop up: Why didn't Stalions make his Venmo transaction private? Venmo has an option to make any transaction public or private at the time of payment, and if Stalions was breaking the NCAA's scouting rules, one would think he would cover his tracks.
Stalions also could have named the transaction literally anything else. "GA" isn't incriminating in itself, yet it would have been just as easy to label it as a food item or errand.
Given what sources have already said about Stalion's ticket purchases, this crumb of evidence only buries Stalion in a bigger hole.
Additionally, as ESPN reports, after Stalions was identified as the "central part of the probe," Stalions erased multiple social media accounts. Not exactly an act of innocence.
For a refresher, the NCAA does not prohibit sign-stealing by default. What the league does prohibit is scouting opponents in person and using any kind of audio or video equipment to film opponents for the purpose of sign-stealing.
So far, the growing evidence seems to suggest Conor Stalions was involved in some capacity in an alleged illegal scouting operation for the Wolverines. More Michigan staffer names may follow.
