Michigan football is at the center of a sign-stealing scandal, so the Clemson Tigers mascots decided to have some fun at expense of the Wolverines. They appeared to use an adult toy to do so, though that is not entirely clear.
As things currently stand, the NCAA is on campus in Ann Arbor to investigate. All signs point back to a guy by the name of Connor Stalions.
It seems extremely likely that Michigan will paint him as a rogue staffer who acted on his own accord, but there is no guarantee that the presumptive blame game will work. Either way, evidence continues to mount against the Wolverines.
The most simple way to explain the entire saga is this:
- Stalions dedicated his entire life to one day running Michigan football.
- He attended the Naval Academy over Michigan to help with his master plan.
- His ability to steal signs became his “in” for the program.
- Stalions purchased tickets to multiple Big Ten games over the last few years.
- He also purchased tickets to games that involved Playoff contenders.
- The people assigned to those seats, by Stalions, were compensated to film signals on the sideline.
- Stalions took those signals back to the Wolverines.
- He allegedly used those signals to advise coaches on what plays to call.
There is a lot more that goes into the scandal, but that’s the gist.
A former Division-III football coach even spoke with ESPN about the operation earlier this week. He said that Stalions paid him to be a spy at multiple games, but didn’t pay him enough to sit in the pouring rain for a blowout at Penn State.
All signs point toward bad news for Stalions. It’s not looking great for Michigan.
As serious as the investigation might be, there have been a lot of jokes to come from the whole thing.
Clemson had some fun with the sign-stealing scandal during Saturday’s game against N.C. State. You probably wouldn’t know, because it was on the CW Network, but the Tigers brought the laughs.
Their mascots, dressed in maize and blue, held a board full of memes from throughout the college football season. They pretended that the memes were signs provided to them by the Wolverines.
One of the two Tigers also held some sort of object in its right hand. It appeared to be a vibrator, and perhaps alluded to the idea that it could be used to signal certain plays — kind of like the chess scandal.
Maybe it wasn’t what it looks like! But it sure looks like what it looks like…