Incriminating Video of Conor Stalions at Michigan's Blowout Win Over Notre Dame Has Surfaced. Now Things are Getting Serious.
I can personally relate to Dave Portnoy and all Michigan supporters in this dark and troubling time:
Like him, I too am emotionally attached to a football program that has been convicted of employing elaborate schemes in order to steal opponents' signs. Both in the court of public opinion, and in what a federal judge once referred to as Roger Goodell's "own brand of industrial justice." My team was found guilty of pointing a camera at the Jets sidelines from somewhere other than the area of every stadium that is set aside for pointing cameras at sidelines. And of having a film crew doing a feature on a member of the coaching staff working in the booth, advertently catching some of the back of the Bengals bench area:
For those misdemeanor offenses, the Patriots were given felony convictions. Sentenced to major losses of high draft picks, way out of proportion to the complete lack of harm done.
So you'd assume I'd have a great deal of empathy for the plight of Michigan fans at the moment. The way I did for, say, the way the New Orleans Saints got railroaded in the Nothingburger with Cheese that was Bullygate. But you'd be leaving out a key factor.
The Patriots did nothing wrong. The same cannot be said for Jim Harbaugh's team. Already we've seen plenty enough probable cause to bring charges:
And now the evidence is mounting.
Consider this, from the 2019 Michigan-Notre Dame game, which the Wolverines won 45-14. By way of perspective, that was the fewest points the Irish scored all season. The only other time they were even in the teens was 17 points, against No. 3 Georgia. In their other 12 games they averaged 38.7 points.
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So what made this game so different? Let's go to the videotape:
And the photographic evidence:
You read that right. Over 12 seasons and 153 games, Brian Kelly's teams scored fewer points than that only only one occasion.
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That game always seemed, as the kids put it, sus. Not easily dismissed as "just a bad night" or whatever. One that stood out to Fighting Irish beat writers who cover the team on a daily basis as extremely sketchy:
And it would appear we know why.
Look, I'm a fair man. Whatever else I may think about Jim Harbaugh and his brother John, who throughout his career in Baltimore has made a side hustle out of accusing the Patriots of cheating and getting the rules changed to prevent them from doing the highly legal things he couldn't stop, I'm not going to rush to judgment. Michigan is entitled to its day in court. If they're not guilty, if it just so happens that a low level assistant who has been running around to other team's games with a clear view of their sidelines ends up in the ear of the head coach by mere happenstance, then so be it. Let's hear them out. Gather all the facts. Get them out in the public. Sunlight makes the best disinfectant, and all that.
All I know for sure is that Notre Dame has been, is, and always will be an institution of higher learning where integrity matters. Where student athletes compete at a high level in accordance with their strict moral values, under the watchful eyes of an image of their Lord and Savior. Knute Rockne didn't need to break the rules. Neither did George Gipp or Joe Montana Joe Theismann or Manti Te'o. And Paul Hornung didn't get popped for betting on games until he went to Green Bay. In South Bend, he played by the rules.
I hope in the end it turns out Michigan is just as clean. But after seeing this, we should all have our doubts. But buy a shirt regardless: