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Michigan football punishment: NCAA suspends Sherrone Moore, show-cause for Connor Stalions
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- Michigan football punishment: NCAA suspends Sherrone Moore, show-cause for Connor Stalions
Nearly two full years after news broke of an investigation into alleged in-person scouting and sign-stealing from the Michigan football program , the Wolverines have been handed their punishment.
The NCAA has slapped Michigan with a sizable fine, handed Wolverines head coach Sherrone Moore a two-year show cause order and suspended him the first game of the 2026 season, and put Michigan on four years probation, the NCAA announced on Aug. 15 following an investigation from its committee on infractions. Michigan has already self-imposed a two-game suspension on Moore for the 2025 season.
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The fine for the Wolverines includes:
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$50,000, plus 10% of the football program's budget
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A sum equivalent to the anticipated loss of all postseason competition revenue sharing from the 2025 and 2026 football seasons
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A sum equivalent to the cost of 10% of the scholarships awarded in Michigan's football program for the 2025-26 academic year
The total from all of those fines is expected to be around $30 million .
The NCAA also handed former Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh, now the head coach of the NFL's Los Angeles Chargers , a 10-year show cause, which will take effect Aug. 7, 2028, when the four-year show cause he was given from a separate NCAA investigation concludes.
Connor Stalions, the former Michigan staffer who spearheaded the program's in-person scouting operation, has received an eight-year show cause. Stalions resigned from his position with the Wolverines in November 2023 and has been out of college athletics in an official capacity since.
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In May, Michigan announced the self-imposed suspension for Moore, which will force him to miss games against Central Michigan and Nebraska this season. Moore had been Harbaugh's offensive coordinator while the in-person scouting occurred from 2021-23.
In a statement, Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel said he "fully" supports Moore.
"I am glad that this part of the process has been completed," Moore said in a statement. "I greatly respect the rules governing collegiate athletics and it is my intent to have our program comply with those rules at all times. I will continue to focus my attention on our team and the upcoming 2025 season."
Other sanctions against the Wolverines include a 25% reduction in football official visits during the 2025-26 academic year, a 14-week prohibition on recruiting communications in the football program and a three-year show-cause order for former assistant director of player personnel Denard Robinson . Robinson, a star quarterback at the school from 2009-12, hasn't been with the program since May 2024 , shortly after he was charged with operating a vehicle while intoxicated.
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Michigan has since said it will appeal the NCAA's ruling.
The NCAA said it had "sufficient grounds" to levy Michigan with a multiyear postseason ban due to the severity of the transgressions and the program's status as a repeat violator, but elected not to do so because such a move "would unfairly penalize student-athletes for the actions of coaches and staff who are no longer associated with the Michigan football program."
The organization also declined to vacate any of the Wolverines' wins or records, which could have potentially included their national championship at the end of the 2023 season. Norman Bay, the chief hearing officer for the NCAA committee on infractions panel, said vacating records only occurs when there's an ineligible player competing, which wasn't a factor in Michigan's case. Additionally, Bay said after news of the sign-stealing probe broke in October 2023 that there was "no evidence" that Stalions did anything to affect the outcome of games.
The NCAA found that from 2021-23, Stalions directed and arranged for staff members, interns and acquaintances to conduct off-campus, in-person scouting of future Michigan opponents. Stalions would purchase game tickets and transfer them to the individuals, a network that was referred to as the "KGB." Those involved in the operation would film the signals used by coaches of future opponents and pass the film along to Stalions, who would decipher them. During games, Stalions had access to prominent coaching staff members, who he would stand next to.
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In all, 13 future Wolverines opponents were scouted across 52 different games. Stalions claimed he spent nearly $35,000 on tickets during the 2022 season alone. He denied receiving any outside funding for those purchases and the NCAA's enfocement staff was unable to substantiate the origin of that money.
"The true scope and scale of the scheme, including the competitive advantage it afforded, will never be fully known due to individuals' intentional destruction and withholding of materials and information. But the intent was clear — to gain a substantial competitive advantage," Bay said in a news conference. "You don't put together a network of individuals called the 'KGB' that records what they call 'dirty film' where the cost of doing this is in the tens of thousands of dollars over three seasons unless you intend to gain a substantial competitive advantage."
The findings against Stalions were corroborated by interview testimonies, ticket receipts and transfer data, and other evidence that included a master chart of Michigan's opponents and who could attend the games, a Google Calendar to track attendees and a document entitled "How to Steal Signals."
The show causes for Harbaugh, Moore, Stalions and Robinson came in part because the NCAA said "each failed to meet the membership's expectations of cooperation" during the investigation, conduct that ranged from destroying evidence to providing false and misleading information during interviews.
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Moore had deleted his entire 52-message text thread with Stalions after news of the former analyst's scheme first broke in October 2023. The NCAA said Moore initially blamed the deleted messages on storage space, but later admitted doing so as a reaction to the news.
Stalions had instructed an intern with the football program to "clear out" emails, photos, text messages and videos related to the scouting scheme. He also admitted during a hearing that he smashed his phone into 1,000 pieces and disposed of the remains, as well as a hard drive, in a pond.
The NCAA noted that Harbaugh "did not embrace or enforce a culture of compliance during his tenure" and that his program "had a contentious relationship with Michigan's compliance office, leading coaches and staff to disregard NCAA rules." One Wolverines staff member, according to the NCAA, described the school's compliance staff as the "scum of the earth."
Harbaugh refused to be interviewed by NCAA enforcement staff and never turned over any emails or text messages.
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Michigan football sign-stealing punishment
The full punishment for Michigan football included fines, show-cause penalties for several major figures within the Michigan program at the time of the infractions, and a suspension for then-offensive coordinator and current head coach Sherrone Moore.
Here is a look at the full punishment:
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Four-year probation
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$50,000 fine
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10% of the Michigan football program budget
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A fine equivalent to 2025 and 2026 postseason revenue sharing
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A fine equivalent to 10% of Michigan's 2025-26 scholarships
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25% reduction in official football visits for 2025
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14-week prohibition on recruiting comms in the football program during probation
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Eight-year show-cause for Connor Stalions
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10-year show-cause for Jim Harbaugh (on top of previous four-year show-cause for 14 years total)
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Three-year show-cause for Denard Robinson
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Two-year show-cause for Sherrone Moore, plus a one-game suspension on top of Michigan's self-imposed two-game suspension to be served in 2026
Michigan NCAA appeal
Hours after the NCAA released the findings and punishments from its investigation into Michigan's in-person scouting, the Wolverines announced they would be appealing the NCAA's ruling to "ensure a fair result."
The school added that it will "consider all other options."
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"We appreciate the work of the Committee on Infractions," the university wrote in a statement. "But, respectfully, in a number of instances the decision makes fundamental errors in interpreting NCAA bylaws; and it includes a number of conclusions that are directly contradictory to the evidence — or lack of evidence — in the record. "
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Michigan sign-stealing sanctions: NCAA hits Sherrone Moore, Jim Harabugh
