“Oh my gosh. (That is) one of the dozens of conspiracies that are out there,” Stalions said on The Athletic’s “Bunch Formation,” a podcast released on Sept. 4. “I’ve never met anyone at South Carolina. … There was no trying to screw over Tennessee.”
Stalions had talked about his background and his sign-stealing in other interviews, a practice that essentially banned him from working in college football and put Michigan football on probation. He even talked about it in a Netflix documentary about his extensive sign-stealing scheme, which was released in 2024.
But Stalions had not previously addressed his alleged involvement in specific games. Many Tennessee fans believed that Stalions’ sign-stealing aided the Gamecocks in a 63-38 upset, which knocked the Vols out of the 2022 College Football Playoff and quarterback Hendon Hooker out of the Heisman Trophy race.
“I’ve never watched any Tennessee film to try to decipher signals,” Stalions said. “I do know they’re up-tempo, and I’m not going to speculate whether they steal signals or not. I don’t know much about Tennessee other than the fact that they’re very wide splits, up-tempo team, snapping the ball within eight seconds of the previous play.”
On Aug. 15, the NCAA Committee on Infractions released findings and penalties in the Michigan sign-stealing case. It included four years of probation for the Wolverines’ football program, an eight-year show-cause order for Stalions, a former staff member, and a 10-year show-cause for head coach Jim Harbaugh among other sanctions.
There are many theories about which games were impacted by Stalions’ sign-stealing, but most of them involve Big Ten teams.
The theory that Stalions helped South Carolina beat Tennessee points to the potential that Michigan could’ve faced the Vols and their No. 1 ranked offense in the playoff that season unless they were knocked out of the playoff hunt.
The fact that South Carolina defensive coordinator Clayton White worked under Harbaugh at Stanford stirred up suspicion among fans. But Stalions said if he had Tennessee’s signals, he would’ve kept them for Michigan to use.
“Let’s us just say that if I had everything on a team. Why would I not want to play them in the playoffs?” Stalions said. “If I had everything on Tennessee … In theory, it could be Tennessee or anyone, if I had the team’s signals and felt confident that it’s this competitive advantage that’s going to cause an advantage like in that South Carolina game, why would I want another team to do it rather than us?”
Stalions said he only had dealings with an SEC team once, and that was in advance of Michigan’s game against Alabama in the Citrus Bowl to cap the 2019 season. He said he swapped intel with an SEC team that was set to play a Big Ten team in another bowl. In the exchange, Stalions got Alabama’s signals, and the other SEC team got their Big Ten opponent’s signals.
Alabama beat Michigan 35-16 in that Citrus Bowl. Stalions did not identify the SEC team he traded intel with.
But one link had already been established between Tennessee and Stalions’ malfeasance.
NCAA investigators found that Stalions arranged in-person scouting on at least 58 different occasions from 2021-23. The operations involved upcoming opponents on the Wolverines’ schedule or schools Michigan may be in line to face in the College Football Playoff, including Tennessee in 2022.
In 2022, Stalions, then a Michigan football staff member, bought a ticket to Tennessee’s game against Kentucky at Neyland Stadium. That was first reported by Yahoo! Sports and confirmed by Knox News.
Stalions bought a ticket within viewing range of the Tennessee sideline and the coaching staff’s signals and transferred the ticket to someone else who used it on Oct. 29, 2022. That would’ve violated multiple NCAA rules.
Stealing an opponent’s signals during a game is not against NCAA rules. However, scouting future opponents’ games in-person has been a NCAA violation for about 30 years. And the use of recording video devices to steal signals in advance violates a separate NCAA rule.
Tennessee beat Kentucky 44-6 in that 2022 game at Neyland Stadium, and it was ranked No. 1 in the initial College Football Playoff rankings three days later.
Tennessee was in contention for a CFP bid, meaning it potentially could’ve played Michigan in the playoff. Instead, the Vols didn’t make the playoff and Michigan lost to TCU in the CFP semifinal.
Three weeks after Stalions’ associate attended that Kentucky-Tennessee game, the Vols lost to South Carolina and dropped out of the CFP picture.
The Vols touted the No. 1 offense in college football that season and the fastest-operating offense. Any advanced knowledge of the signals for their up-tempo attack would’ve been an advantage.
In 2023, when it was first reported that Stalions had bought a ticket for his associate to attend Tennessee’s game against Kentucky, Vols coach Josh Heupel said sign-stealing could impact a game.
“Every team in the country certainly tries to hide your signals and constantly change them up and make sure nobody is getting a beat on you,” Heupel said on Oct. 25, 2023. “For us, that’s obviously important to this form of communication that we have with our guys that are out on the field.
“(Sign stealing) has the ability as (an opposing) play-caller to change what they’re calling. It’s not that you’re going to go execute that call perfectly. But it may give you an advantage as far as what structure you might be playing in any phase of the football game.”
Adam Sparks is the Tennessee football beat reporter. Email [email protected]. X, formerly known as Twitter@AdamSparks. Support strong local journalism by subscribing at knoxnews.com/subscribe.
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