Michigan’s Connor Stalions Texted That He ‘Stole Opponent Signals’ From TV—and Had a Vision for the Wolverines

In a lengthy text exchange from 2021, Stalions boasted of sign-stealing and close relations with the Wolverines’ ‘whole staff.’ He said he envisioned leading Michigan football one day and to prepare was creating a hundreds-page-long document he called ‘the Michigan Manifesto.’

It did not take Connor Stalions long into the text conversation to start boasting about his connections to the Michigan football team: “I’m close with the whole staff,” he wrote. Particularly, he said, he “became close with CP and Jay Harbs,” apparently referring to current linebackers coach Chris Partridge and running backs and assistant special teams coach Jay Harbaugh, who is the son of head coach Jim Harbaugh.

“Pre-covid, stole opponent signals during the week watching tv copies then flew to the game and stood next to [then Michigan offensive coordinator Josh] Gattis and told him what coverage/pressure he was gettin,” Stalions continued.

These texts are part of a lengthy back-and-forth in January and February 2021 between Stalions and a then student at a Power 5 school who was looking to break into the college football industry. The specific act Stalions described—deciphering opponents’ signals off of TV footage—is not against NCAA rules. In the last week, though, the now suspended Michigan staffer has become a household name across college football following accusations and reports that he orchestrated an elaborate scheme to place unnamed associates of his in stadiums of Michigan’s opponents to scout and, in some cases, film opposing coaches’ signals (both acts very much against the rules).

Stalions, with papers in hand, stood near Jim Harbaugh during last season’s game against rival Ohio State :: Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch/USA TODAY NETWORK

The former Power 5 student shared the full text conversation with Sports Illustrated, verifying the messages’ origin by removing Stalions’s name in his contacts to reveal a phone number. That number was linked to Stalions’s name on the public database WhitePages. There was no response when SI called and texted the number. Stalions’s text messages to the student provide a vivid picture of his motivations, revealing an aspiring coach obsessed with helping Michigan while looking to build his own career and one day lead the program.

A Michigan spokesperson said that due to the ongoing NCAA investigation, the university, Jim Harbaugh, Jay Harbaugh and Partridge had nothing to add to previous statements. Michigan has said that it is “fully cooperating with the Big Ten and NCAA” and that “At the University of Michigan, we are committed to the highest ethical and integrity standards for all members of the community.”

Jim Harbaugh has also denied knowledge of any plan to illegally steal signals and said he did not direct any staff members to participate in off-campus scouting. “I do not condone or tolerate anyone doing anything illegal or against NCAA rules,” he said.

Gattis is now Maryland’s offensive coordinator. The university declined to make him available for comment.

SI could not independently confirm the veracity of Stalions’s claims about his relationships with Michigan coaches. Several pictures of him have emerged in recent days, though, of him standing in prominent positions on the Wolverines’ sideline. A review of Stalions’s now deleted Venmo account did show that Jay Harbaugh sent Stalions money in 2017, with the O.K. hand gesture emoji in the memo line, though no purpose or amount for the transfer was indicated.

A Michigan native, Stalions officially joined the Wolverines’ staff in the spring of 2022. ESPN has reported that, on his now deactivated LinkedIn page, Stalions said he served as a Marine from ’17 to ’22 and, starting in ’15, also helped Michigan football as a volunteer assistant, in hopes of building the platform for a future career. That was the position he apparently held during the text exchange.

Stalions, now 28, revealed that he was part of a small group of people—two of whom he said were at low-level positions on different college football coaching staffs—who were putting their heads together on a long-term plan to run the Michigan football program. Stalions claimed to have a Google document between 550 and 600 pages long that he managed daily, containing a blueprint for the Wolverines’ future. He referred the document as a movement more than a plan, dubbing it “the Michigan Manifesto.”

“Any idea you could ever have,” he wrote, “there’s a place where it belongs in the document. It’s super organized.”

Stalions wrote, “I think it’s pretty rare to find the right type of people who can grasp a vision of the future and want to team up and run s---. And we all got our own stuff goin on, but we all got some pretty unique approaches. Basically the way I see it, there’s a future Ohio State head coach and staff out there somewhere preparing for it whether they know it or not. And we have a group of a half dozen actively planning s--- 15 or so years out. And another dozen or two on board. So by the time it’s ready to rock, we’re all on the same page and we quickly make Michigan the ultimate standard.”

Stalions, stroking his chin, stood alongside Michigan offensive coordinator Sherrone Moore and nearby Jim Harbaugh during a game last season against Colorado State :: Aaron J. Thornton/Getty Images

Stalions graduated from the Naval Academy in 2017. During his time in Annapolis, he worked as a student assistant with the football team (curiously, this includes an overlap with the time his LinkedIn reportedly says he volunteered for Michigan). In the course of his conversation with the Power 5 student, which extended over about three weeks, Stalions would claim that shortly after graduation, he obtained a decade’s worth of high school national standardized test scores and GPAs for approximately 500 Midshipmen football players—data that he should not have been allowed to possess. He claimed that he simply went to the Naval Academy’s admissions office and “name dropped” coach Ken Niumatalolo. While he said the admissions office told him to delete the data the following day, Stalions was coy over whether he had and made clear that he used the data to inform his recruiting philosophy.

The Naval Academy neither confirmed nor denied that it had shared the data with Stalions.

“Individual data obtained through the Naval Academy admissions process, to include high school test scores and GPAs, is protected under the Privacy Act and not shared or made available outside the Office of Admissions,” a U.S, Naval Academy public affairs officer wrote in a statement to SI. “Any Naval Academy official who inappropriately accessed that data would be subject to criminal and civil penalties associated with the Privacy Act.”

Stalions told the student that the data led him to conclude there is a direct relationship among test scores, GPAs and the work habits of athletes. Stalions’s pet theory was that athletes with lower SAT or ACT scores but high GPAs would be strong performers on the field because while test scores indicate intelligence, GPAs “give you work ethic.” Those students, essentially, were outworking their natural abilities. However specious the theory, Stalions claimed he had presented it to other coaches.

In his conversation with the student, Stalions described working along two tracks. One was long-term: the Michigan Manifesto. The other was short-term: creating what he called “products,” apparently meaning pieces of analysis or insight that coaches would find useful. The analysis of recruits’ GPAs and test scores is one example.

“Basically for providing products to coaches, what I’m sayin is they have a paid staff they utilize to get what they need,” he texted. “You can’t ask them what they need. You have to tell them what they need. But it can’t be up for interpretation. It has to be very straightforward, unique, and useful. If it’s not one of those 3 things, it’s pointless.”

While at the Naval Academy, a source close to the football program described Stalions as obsessed with Michigan to an excessive degree. It was not uncommon for Stalions, even as a Navy student assistant, to attend Michigan games while the Midshipmen weren’t playing at home in Annapolis. A photo from 2014 on Stalions’s now-deleted Facebook page showed him in his Midshipmen dress uniform with former Wolverines defensive end Frank Clark. Stalions claimed he assisted then Navy director of player personnel Sean Magee and defensive line coach Shaun Nua. Both went on to work with the Wolverines. Magee is now chief of staff with the Chicago Bears, while Nua is the defensive line coach at USC.

Stalions chose to attend the Naval Academy despite, he said, getting into Michigan, where both his parents attended. An article awarding him Coach of the Month honors from an organization called Soldiers to Sidelines said Stalions chose the Naval Academy because famous coaches from Bo Schembechler to Bill Belichick had either served in the military or had strong connections to the academies.

“I’ve grown up my entire life with a vision to coach football at Michigan,” Stalions told the publication.

Paper in hand, Stalions was once again near Jim Harbaugh during the Wolverines win over Rutgers in September at the Big House :: Kirthmon F. Dozier/USA TODAY NETWORK

Citing Stalions’s LinkedIn, ESPN reported that he was stationed at Camp Pendleton in California during his Marines service. In addition to his travels to Michigan, Stalions claimed he would drive to Tucson, Ariz., to help former Michigan offensive coordinator Jedd Fisch as he transitioned to his new Wildcats coaching job. While Stalions wrote that he did odd jobs for Fisch at times in Ann Arbor, the initial connection was through Partridge, the Michigan linebackers coach whom Stalions called one of his “closest friends.” He said Partridge gave him his initial inroad at Michigan, allowing him to help out at the school while he was on spring break from the Naval Academy. Stalions wrote that he went to Fisch’s house in California while he was working as an offensive assistant for the Los Angeles Rams to help him organize his coaching materials. When Fisch got the Arizona job, that led to, as Stalions claims, his essentially being assistant to Fisch’s chief of staff, with a hand in the Wildcats’ roster management.

A spokesperson for Arizona denied most of Stalions’s claims, saying Fisch has never been aware of nor directed any efforts to steal signs, nor has he benefited from them, either at Michigan or Arizona. The spokesperson said that while Stalions did assist Fisch with “organizing some materials for head coach interviews in 2018 … Stalions has not been a chief of staff nor any other type of member of Fisch’s staff during his three seasons as the head coach at Arizona.”

The controversy around Stalions has hardly been the only issue in Ann Arbor this year. Michigan is dealing with an NCAA probe into improper recruiting during the 2020 COVID-19 season, for which Jim Harbaugh already served a self-imposed suspension during the first three games of this season. And former offensive coordinator Matt Weiss was suspended and then dismissed last winter amid a University of Michigan Police Department investigation into a “computer access crime” inside the football facility. Melissa Overton, deputy chief of UMPD, told SI’s Pat Forde that the Weiss case is “still under investigation” but “not at all associated” with Stalions’s situation.

ESPN reported Tuesday that over the last three seasons, Stalions is believed to have purchased tickets to more than 30 games at 12 Big Ten schools as well as four other games involving College Football Playoff contenders. Video evidence is expected to be received by the NCAA regarding the investigation sometime this week. Stalions was suspended with pay on Oct. 20.