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Central Michigan still hasn’t explained how Michigan spy Connor Stalions seemingly ended up on the sidelines during a game against Michigan State last season, and that continued silence has sparked some theories involving the program’s decision to part ways with a coach who has some history with Jim Harbaugh and the Wolverines.
In 2023, the college football world was rocked by the truly wild scandal involving former Michigan staffer Connor Stalions, who was accused of traveling to dozens of games featuring teams the Wolverines were slated to face off against in order to steal the hand signals they used to communicate play calls to guys on the field.
While the NCAA cleared Jim Harbaugh of any wrongdoing, the Big Ten hit him with a three-game suspension toward the end of the season before he returned to lead Michigan to a national championship that plenty of people believe deserves an asterisk.
One of the stranger subplots of the Stalions saga was a picture that appeared to show him clad in Central Michigan gear while standing on the Chippewas sideline when they kicked off their season at Michigan State (the Spartans hosted Michigan in East Lansing midway through October).
CMU quickly announced it was looking into the circumstances surrounding the situation after the photo went viral in October, but nine months later, there haven’t been any notable developments in a case that appears to still be under investigation in conjunction with the NCAA.
However, things took an interesting turn this week when Football Scoop reported Central Michigan decided to do some reshuffling among its staff, which included the dismissal of quarterbacks coach Jake Kostner.
Why is that notable? Well, as the outlet (and CMU’s website) notes, Kostner graduated from Michigan in 2018 after spending four years serving as a student assistant under Harbaugh. The Wolverines didn’t employ Stalions in any official capacity until 2022, but he began working as a volunteer assistant for the program as early as 2015—which means there’s a chance he and Kostner knew each other.
As things currently stand, there’s no concrete evidence to support the theory Kostner’s departure has anything to do with Stalions’ presence at the Michigan State game, but the lack of any explanation on CMU’s end (both in regard to his dismissal and the investigation in general) hasn’t stopped it from gaining plenty of traction online.
Stalions will presumably shed some new light on what transpired based on his involvement in the “Sign Stealer” installment of Untold that’s slated to hit Netflix on August 27tth, so we’ll have to wait and see if any information comes to light before then.