Are you sure? This is 11.6.1:
11.6.1 Off-Campus, In-Person Scouting Prohibition. Off-campus, in-person scouting of future opponents (in the same season) is prohibited, except as provided in Bylaws 11.6.1.1 and 11.6.1.2. (Adopted: 1/11/94 effective 8/1/94, Revised: 1/14/97 effective 8/1/97, 1/19/13 effective 8/1/13, 1/15/14)
The exemptions are for attending a conference or ncaa championship game. There is no ‘coach gossip’ exemption.
Wetzel has a good article on this:
Whatever it is, just make it even, because the actions of Connor Stalions and the actions that Ohio State, Rutgers and Purdue allegedly engaged in are the exact same thing.
Yes, the exact same thing.
Stalions sent friends out to film the sideline signals of future Wolverine opponents. He then got the video and allegedly worked to decipher the play calls. It appears one time he even stood on a Central Michigan sideline comically wearing what looks like spy glasses to scout Michigan State.
These were blatant, brazen acts. While stealing signs isn’t against NCAA rules, advanced scouting is. Stalions was clearly engaging in that.
Last Friday, however, Michigan presented the Big Ten with evidence that someone on the Rutgers football staff provided Michigan’s defensive signals to Purdue in advance of the Boilermaker-Wolverine 2022 Big Ten title game. Meanwhile, someone at Ohio State handed over U of M’s offensive signals.
So in the Big Ten Championship Game, both teams had the other’s signals, both of which were gathered via advanced scouting. (Michigan won, 43-22.)
In Michigan’s case, the “advanced scouts” were Stalions’ band of iPhone-toting buddies.
In Purdue’s case, the “advanced scouts” were the professional coaching staffs of two other Big Ten teams that had just played the Wolverines, and thus could battle-test the signs they stole as accurate.
