The NCAA has officially punished Michigan for Connor Stalions’ advance scouting scheme.
The governing body gave former coach Jim Harbaugh a 10-year show-cause penalty (on top of a four-year show-cause Harbaugh received in 2024 for a different investigation) and gave Stalions an eight-year show-cause. Additionally, the school was fined in multiple ways and those fines could exceed $20 million.
Current head coach Sherrone Moore was given a two-year show-cause penalty and had a third game added onto his two-game suspension for the 2025 season. That suspension was self-imposed by Michigan earlier this year and will take place in Week 3 and Week 4. The third game of the suspension will happen in 2026.
The NCAA’s full report for the infractions can be found here. Below are some key takeaways from the NCAA’s findings over the course of its investigation into the Wolverines’ scheme.
The infractions report says with authority that Stalions was dressed in Central Michigan gear on the Chippewas sideline for their Week 1 game at Michigan State in 2023. A man who looked like Stalions was spotted on the sidelines in video footage of the game as the scandal blew up later in the 2023 season, but his presence had not been officially confirmed.
The NCAA is currently investigating Central Michigan regarding the Stalions incident and the school has said its working towards a resolution with the governing body.
The infractions report outlines how Stalions would purchase tickets to games in the lower level of stadiums so that the ticket holders could see the sideline of the team they were scouting. Per the report, Stalions used a network of individuals to scout 13 future opponents a total of 56 times across 52 separate contests. Those individuals included Stalions acquaintances, another Michigan football staff member, current and former interns and their friends, and football student-athletes and their friends.
Stalions would refer to the group as counterintelligence and called them the KGB.
Its been widely known that Sherrone Moore deleted his text message thread with Stalions as the scandal emerged. According to the NCAAs report, Moore deleted those texts roughly 30 minutes after Yahoo Sports first broke the the story on Oct. 19, 2023. Michigan employees were told to preserve all materials by the school on Oct. 20.
Netflix released a documentary about Stalions in August of 2024 that included Stalions own words about his scouting scheme. The NCAA noted multiple times in the infractions report that Stalions was much more boastful about the impact of his work on camera than he was to NCAA investigators.
The report notes that Harbaugh did not see eye-to-eye with Michigans own compliance office. In addition to the advance scouting scandal, Harbaugh was the subject of another NCAA investigation for recruiting violations during his time at Michigan. He was given a year-long suspension and a four-year show-cause penalty in August of 2024.
Per a recorded phone call, Stalions told a Michigan athlete that he should lie to the NCAA about the athletes role in the scouting scheme and his knowledge of it.
The report details Stalions refusal to comply with the NCAAs requests for data and records multiple times. His interview with the NCAAs enforcement staff was held in April of 2024 and footage of it was included in the documentary.
The NCAA said the conversation in the interview was not productive in yielding information about the scheme. Specifically, the enforcement staff cited frequent interruptions, objections, and side conversations by Stalions counsel that prevented the enforcement staff from asking the relevant questions. However, Stalions did deny obtaining signals via in-person scouting of future opponents, directing individuals to attend games for the purpose of filming future opponents, or personally attending any games of future opponents.