The 15 Unusual Suspects We Met in the 2023–24 College Sports Season

From Connor Stalions and Michigan’s sign-stealing scheme to Erin Matson’s field hockey dominance and the record-holders Caitlin Clark passed, it was a wild ride across the collegiate landscape.

Connor Stalions, right, was the top person we never expected to be talking about in the 2023–24 college season. / Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch / USA

With the Tennessee Volunteers winning the baseball national championship this week, the 2023–24 college athletic season has come to a close. It was a wild ride.

There was glory, drama, exalted performances and memorable moments. There also was enough controversy, stupidity and absurdity to last a few lifetimes. That combination is college sports in its modern form.

Along the way, we wound up talking about a lot of people we never expected to be talking about. Here’s a list of the unusual suspects we met in 2023–24:

1. Connor Stalions

Nobody in college athletics rocketed from anonymity to infamy to quasi-cult hero quite like Stalions, the Michigan Wolverines football staffer-turned-spymaster whose sign-stealing network traveled the Big Ten and beyond to impermissibly record opponent play signals. In the baroque and bewildering history of college sports cheating scandals, this was a new one. And a weird one. It led to a three-game suspension of head coach Jim Harbaugh (his second three-game suspension of the season), and the potential still exists for further sanctions to come down upon the Michigan football program. It also led to every Michigan law school grad in the country becoming instant experts on NCAA rules and determining the Wolverines were being unjustly persecuted. The rest of the fan base immersed itself in whataboutism or blamed it on Ryan Day and Ohio State.

2. Grant House

He wasn’t the best Arizona State Sun Devils swimmer of recent vintage (that’s Leon Marchand, on his way to gold medals in Paris next month), but House will go down in history as the named plaintiff on the lawsuit against the NCAA that ended amateurism and is sending billions of dollars into the coffers of former, current and future college athletes. If the settlement is approved in that case, athletes now will be quite literally playing with House money.

3. Steve Holwerda

The chair of the Oregon Ducks Board of Trustees logged into that group’s momentous, historic meeting in which it decided to leave the Pac-12 for the Big Ten while in the middle of a round of golf. While you have to respect the commitment to keeping a tee time (see: Scottie Scheffler being sprung from jail in Louisville), Holwerda’s role in destroying the Pac-12 between sand wedges was emblematic of the realignment travesty of 2023. Hope the Oregon athletes who will be shuffling off to the East Coast and Midwest understand. (The kicker: Holwerda apparently was playing that round with his father-in-law and former legendary Oregon football coach Rich Brooks.)

4. Jack Gohlke 

A tiny portion of America was aware Gohlke existed before the night of March 21. Then the former Division II player at Hillsdale College, who had transferred to Oakland of the Horizon League, shot the No. 2 NCAA tournament seed Kentucky Wildcats out of the Big Dance and John Calipari out of Lexington. (It took a while for the latter to happen, see below.) The 6'3" guard came into that game against the Wildcats averaging 12.2 points per game, then shredded them for 32 on 10 made three-pointers. It was the last straw for Big Blue fans who were fed up with Kentucky’s early ousters in postseason play, as a team that was loaded with NBA talent couldn’t guard a 24-year-old Horizon League player with a receding hairline.

Gohlke was a Division II transfer then had an improbable game against Kentucky in the NCAA tournament. / Robert Goddin-USA TODAY Sports

5. Boo Corrigan

The North Carolina State athletic director had the thankless task of being the chair—and thus the public face—of the College Football Playoff selection committee in 2023. Which means he had to answer for it when the committee snubbed the 13–0 Florida State Seminoles in favor of the 12–1 Alabama Crimson Tide for the fourth and final CFP spot. The committee cited the season-ending injury to star Seminoles quarterback Jordan Travis, but that explanation failed to satisfy FSU fans and many others who believe the Noles earned the chance after winning two games (including the ACC championship) without Travis. The ensuing backlash broke all established outrage records in CFP history.

6. Kalen DeBoer

He was hardly anonymous after going 11–2 in his first season with the Washington Huskies, but that was just a prelude to two massive developments—taking the Huskies to the CFP championship game and then being named to succeed Nick Saban at Alabama. It wasn’t that long ago (2009, to be specific) that DeBoer was coaching the NAIA Sioux Falls Cougars. Now he’s replacing the greatest coach in college football history, in a part of the country where he has never worked.

7. Kelsey Plum, Lynette Woodard and Pete Maravich

They all held career college basketball scoring records. Then Caitlin Clark came along. Breaking the Maravich record was especially controversial, given the differences between men’s and women’s hoops and Maravich playing before the three-point shot existed. But in retrospect, maybe those were just starter controversies before people really invested in losing their minds over everything Clark-related.

8. Rob Lanier

His firing as men’s basketball coach at SMU wasn’t terribly notable at the time, which was March 21 (the same day Gohlke killed Kentucky). But it started a domino effect that—unlike most coaching changes—kept getting bigger instead of smaller. Andy Enfield jumped from USC to SMU, then USC hired Eric Musselman away from Arkansas, then Calipari shocked the sport by bailing for Fayetteville. That, in turn, brought Mark Pope to Kentucky and Kevin Young to BYU. Never before has a coaching change at SMU ultimately led to a national championship coach leaving Kentucky.

Calipari shocked the college basketball world when he left Kentucky for Arkansas. / Sam Upshaw Jr. / Courier Journal / USA

9. Erin Matson

She was named the head coach of the North Carolina field hockey juggernaut at age 22 in early 2023, after leading the Tar Heels to three NCAA titles as a player. Then she led them to another natty as the coach in her first season. And after that she was controversially excluded from the U.S. Olympic field hockey team, despite general acclimation that she’s the best player in America.

10. Reed Sheppard

He was rated the No. 79 player in the high school class of 2023 by 247, and the No. 5 signee by Kentucky. He was the first American collegian drafted Wednesday night at No. 3 to the Houston Rockets. In terms of draft stock, nobody soared over the course of a single season like Sheppard, the son of former Kentucky greats Jeff and Stacey Sheppard.

Sheppard was the first college player selected in the 2024 NBA draft. / Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

11. Sherrone Moore

He was a respected offensive coordinator at Michigan but ended up serving as part-time head coach while Harbaugh was suspended. Moore aced the emergency coach test so well that there was virtually no doubt who would replace Harbaugh when he left for the NFL.

12. DJ Burns

He went from a novelty act—a rotund post player who spent three seasons at Winthrop—to the force that led North Carolina State to a stunning Final Four berth. By the time his March run was done, everyone loved his gap-toothed smile and feathery touch in the paint.

13. Isaiah Bond

He was a good-but-not-spectacular wide receiver at Alabama, until the very end of the Iron Bowl. That’s when Bond hauled in a desperation, fourth-and-31 pass from Jalen Milroe to shock Auburn, prevent a massive upset and keep the Crimson Tide on the path to the playoff. 

Bond scores the winning touchdown over Auburn cornerback D.J. James. / John Reed-USA TODAY Sports

14. Henry Blackburn

The Colorado State Rams safety injected himself into the Month of Deion in Boulder with a cheap shot that knocked star Colorado Buffaloes receiver/defensive back Travis Hunter out of action for three games. The play resulted in a vicious public backlash against Blackburn, who was publicly forgiven by Hunter. That was Peak Prime, with Deion Sanders captivating the nation by leading the downtrodden Buffaloes to a 3–0 start that ultimately dissolved into a 4–8 record.  

15. Someone at Central Michigan

Whoever provided Stalions with his Chippewas coaching staff getup when he spied on Michigan State in the season opener from the CMU sideline deserves a spot in the lore of 2023–24.