Sports

Michigan Could Have Another Head Coach Suspended As Sherrone Moore Implicated In Spying Scandal

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Getty Image / Michael Hickey


Last year’s Michigan football season was full of ups and downs like few other in the history of college football. They started the year with Head Coach Jim Harbaugh suspended, ended the regular season with Jim Harbaugh suspended, and went on to win the national title anyways, their first outright title since 1948.

Now, it seems like They could see yet another head coach suspended, as former offensive coordinator and current head coach Sherrone Moore has been implicated in the Michigan sign-stealing scandal that centers around former team employee Connor Stalions.

According to a report by ESPN’s Dan Murphy and Pete Thamel, the NCAA Notice of Allegations is expected to accuse Sherrone Moore of deleting text messages with Connor Stalions. Stalions ran a ring of people going to games of future opponents and filming their signs, which the NCAA is claiming is not illegal.

New Michigan head coach Sherrone Moore is one of seven members from the 2023 football program accused of violating NCAA rules in a draft of the NCAA’s notice of allegations obtained by ESPN.

The draft, which could be subject to change, states Moore could face a show-cause penalty and possibly a suspension for allegedly deleting a thread of 52 text messages with former Michigan staffer Connor Stalions in October 2023 on the same day that media reports revealed Stalions was leading an effort to capture the playcalling signals of future opponents.

The draft states that the texts were later recovered via “device imaging” and Moore “subsequently produced them to enforcement staff.” Moore is accused of committing a Level 2 violation, according to the draft.
So, it seems like all of those people who claimed that Stalions wasn’t communicating with Michigan’s most important coaches like Harbaugh, Moore, or then-defensive coordinator Jesse Minter were wrong.
It seems pretty clear now that not only did Stalions break the rules, but at the least, other Michigan coaches were aware of the wrongdoing. The question is, how much punishment will the NCAA risk doling out? A suspension for Moore seems possible, as hinted at in the article, and a show-cause penalty is also possible.  Could they risk stripping them of their wins? Maybe, but I’m not sure the NCAA has the juice to do that any longer.
The other side of this is that they beat all of the best teams on their schedule last year after the scandal came to light. Wins over Penn State, Ohio State, and all three postseason games were without Stalions relaying signals on the sidelines and presumably without any advantage from the alleged rules violations.
The NCAA is also set to confirm that it was indeed Connor Stalions in disguise on the sideline of Central Michigan when they were playing Michigan State last year.
No matter what happens, it seems like there are a lot more twists and turns in this case coming.
Garrett Carr BroBible avatar
Garrett Carr is a recent graduate of Penn State University and a BroBible writer who focuses on NFL, College Football, MLB, and he currently resides in Pennsylvania.