Looks like the Connor Stalions show just got renewed for another season! This time it’s the Big Ten rivals who poured into the mission to strip him off. Last year in October, when Jim Harbaugh still headed Michigan Wolverines, the player personnel analyst, Stalions had to go through a rough patch. He got tangled in legal woes as sign-stealing allegations were brought up against him. And the incident had taken a back seat until Netflix decided to make a documentary. This came at the right time for the NCAA to hand out a notice to Sherrone Moore’s program. The only thing positive thing surrounding this incident is analyst Joel Klatt taking a stand for Harbaugh.  

During the 2023 season, Stalions had been dragged through the dirt after he was accused of orchestrating a sly plan. As per the allegations, he handed out tickets to the game for Wolverines’ rivals and assigned people to record the hand signals. Going by ESPN reports, Harbaugh’s personnel analyst purchased tickets “for more than 30 games at 11 Big Ten schools over the past three years.” Ten months later now that the NCAA has held Moore and the squad responsible by dropping the NOA, the Big Ten rivals weighed in to land their takes. Mind you, as their names stay anonymous, they were not from the arch-rivals, Ohio State Buckeyes.  

One of them held Stalions responsible for tarnishing the years-old clean record of the yellow and blue squad.  “I think their sign-stealing operation was a big deal. It cut at the integrity of the game.” The same coach along with Stalions had put Harbaugh on the guilty chair,  “As far as Harbaugh is concerned, not a single head coach in the country would allow a ‘recruiting’ staff member to be talking to his coordinators on game day. Somehow, Connor was allowed to.”

Another Big Ten assistant coach is sending the NCAA a reminder to serve up the penalty,  “Based on the public info it’s surprising that there has been nothing adding to their penalty.” The coach even wants the NCAA to look in-depth since he is sure of the fact that “there are more folks involved.”  And here arrives Joel Klatt, the Harbaugh hype machine.

Joel Klatt dismisses Connor Stalions’ impact on the Wolverines’ success

What FOX Sports lead college football game analyst strongly believes is that Stalions had got nothing to do with how the Wolverines aced their games. On August 28, on his The Joel Klatt Show podcast, he addressed the mishap on a positive note. According to Klatt, no force on the face of the earth could question the rage of Michigan’s Nation Championship run, “The National Championship in 2023 is not even close to tainted. Not even close. It’s not even close to an asterisk, not even close.”

Obviously, he had his reasons to come up with the big claim. Klatt had spread some calculations for the Harbaugh haters to keep track of. By the time, the Stalions hoopla came to the forefront, the program already  “were blowing people out.”

And do the Connor Stalions allegations hamper their performance in the aftermath? No not at all. As Joel Klatt highlighted, while haters were waiting with bated breath to see Jim Harbaugh and Co. have a nasty fall, the Wolverines pulled out a UNO-Reverse! They defeated the Michigan State 49-0. Wondering if Stalions must have applied his sly tricks again? To break your bubble, by then Stalions already got the red card.