Michigan HC Sherrone Moore Implicated in Spy Scandal

Michigan football had a season full of ups and downs like few in college football history last year. They started the year with coach Jim Harbaugh suspended, finished the regular season with Jim Harbaugh suspended, and still won the national title, their first since 1948.

Now, it appears they are facing the possibility of suspending yet another coach, as former offensive coordinator and current head coach Sherrone Moore has been implicated in the Michigan sign-stealing scandal involving former team employee Connor Stallions.

According to a report by ESPN’s Dan Murphy and Pete Thamel, the NCAA Notice of Allegations is set to accuse Sherrone Moore of deleting text messages from Connor Stalions. The Stalions ran a ring of people who would go to future opponents’ games and film their signs, which the NCAA says is not illegal.

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

The draft, which is subject to change, calls for Moore to face a show-cause penalty and potentially a suspension for allegedly deleting a 52-text message thread with former Michigan commit Connor Stalions in October 2023, the same day media reports revealed Stalions spearheaded an effort to intercept future opponents’ play signals.

The bill said the texts were later recovered using an “imaging device” and Moore “then presented them to enforcement personnel.” Moore is charged with committing a Level 2 violation, according to the bill.

So it looks like all those who said Stallions didn’t communicate with key Michigan coaches like Harbaugh, Moore and then-defensive coordinator Jesse Minter were wrong.

It now seems pretty clear that not only did the Stallions break the rules, but at least other Michigan coaches were aware of the infraction. The question is what kind of punishment will the NCAA risk? A suspension for Moore seems possible, as the article suggests, and a showdown penalty is also possible. Could they risk having their wins stripped? Maybe, but I’m not sure the NCAA has the power to do that anymore.

The flip side of that is that they beat every top team on their schedule last year after the scandal came to light. Wins over Penn State, Ohio State and all three postseason games came without Stallions giving signals on the sideline and presumably without any advantage from alleged rules violations.

No matter what happens, it looks like there will be a lot of twists and turns in this case.