Former Michigan staffer Connor Stalions referred to his advanced sign-stealing operation as both “counterintelligence” and “the KGB,” called the video it elicited “dirty film” and ultimately threw his phone in a pond rather than turn it over to NCAA investigators.

The NCAA decision in the University of Michigan advanced scouting case divulges many details from Stalions’ scheme, which captivated the country as it unspooled during Michigan’s 2023 national championship run.

The punishments for that operation, nearly two years after it was revealed, arrived on Friday.

They include a three-game suspension for current head coach Sherrone Moore — with two games already self-imposed to serve this year in Week 3 and 4 against Central Michigan and at Nebraska. He’s also slated to miss the first week of the 2026 season, a game against Western Michigan expected to be played in Germany.

There is also an 8-year show-cause penalty for Stalions, an additional 10-year show-cause for former head coach Jim Harbaugh and a fine expected to eclipse $30 million for the school.

Not included: either the vacating of past victories or a postseason ban going forward, sanctions many of the Wolverines’ rivals felt were deserved.

In a 74-page report, the NCAA’s Committee on Infractions details an unusually effective and nuanced investigation. Along the way, it offers a glimpse under the hood of Stalions’ KGB operation and the NCAA’s decreasing willingness to punish its schools with sanctions that directly impact the playing field. (Michigan should have been “required” to have a postseason ban in this case, per the report, but a new era of NCAA rules shifted that to unprecedented fines.)

The NCAA report, for example, reveals Stalions spent $35,000 on tickets in the secondary market of 2022 alone, part of the spend to help arrange for 52 games to be illicitly scouted. There’s even a mob-like reveal of what happened to the taped material from the illegal scouting trips. “My film is in the bottom of the pond,” Stalions is quoted saying.

At times, it reads like an espionage novel — taped phone calls, smuggled hard drives and a battle between former coach Jim Harbaugh’s staff and the university’ compliance offense that has spanned numerous NCAA investigations.

Harbaugh’s new 10-year show-cause, for example, doesn’t even kick in until 2028, when a previous four-year show-cause from a previous case is completed. It’s all a formality since Harbaugh, 61, is entering his second year as coach of the NFL’s Los Angeles Chargers. His NCAA penalties would end in 2038.

The report shows that one recruiting staff member said in a text about Michigan’s compliance staff: They are “s—ty at their jobs and actively working against us from the inside. True scum of the earth.”

Or as the Committee concluded, perhaps with a hint of comedy: “The relationship between Michigan’s football staff members and the compliance office was challenging at best.”

In the end, the case ends up unsatisfying for nearly every side. Big Ten fans, especially at rivals Ohio State and Michigan State, consider this a slap on the wrist.

And while Michigan fans mostly breathed a sigh of relief, the university quickly announced it will appeal the decision claiming the ruling “makes fundamental errors in interpreting NCAA bylaws” and “includes a number of conclusions that are directly contrary to the evidence — or lack of evidence.”

Among the revelations was the fate of former Michigan assistant Chris Partridge, who the school fired in November of 2023 in the middle of the scandal. Partridge, now an outside linebacker coach with the Seattle Seahawks, always maintained his innocence. He wound up cleared of wrongdoing in the NCAA report. He faces no sanctions.

“It feels like a weight lifted off my shoulders,” Partridge told ESPN on Friday. “I had faith because I didn’t do what I was accused of doing. I’m glad I could stand tall and the truth came out.”

For the true crime fans who jumped on the story, there’s no neat and tidy answer to the level of complicity at Michigan to Stalions’ elaborate scheme.

The report says: “Aspects of the record suggest that there may have been broader acceptance of the scheme throughout the program. At a minimum, there was a willful intent not to learn more about Stalions’ methods. However, the true scope and scale of the scheme – including the competitive advantage it conferred – will never be known due to individuals’ intentional destruction and withholding of materials and information.”

The Committee clearly was frustrated with what it believed was a lack of cooperation from key parties — from Harbaugh to Stalions to other assistants. As such, questions remain unanswered.

One question that was solved: Yes, Stalions admitted per the report, that was him on the Central Michigan sideline for a 2023 game at Michigan State.

Investigators didn’t uncover who funded the operation for Stalions, how the information initially left Michigan’s building and who engaged the private firm that ultimately brought the preponderance of evidence to the NCAA. (That allowed the Big Ten to ultimately issue the three-game sportsmanship violation for Harbaugh.)

Less ambiguous is the future of the NCAA enforcement and infractions process, as this decision potentially marks those groups’ final blockbuster case. And they went out amid a paradigm change of how to punish schools.

While the NCAA would still technically oversee a case like Stalions because it involves fair play, a majority of the high-profile cases in college sports will be shifted to the College Sports Commission, which doubles as a vote-of-no-confidence in the NCAA infractions process. For the NCAA, that allows them to outsource much of their least popular work.

The NCAA’s decision to hit Michigan with neither a postseason ban nor the vacating of victories is part of a recent sea change in the infraction process. For decades, such penalties were common even in cases featuring less serious violations.

The Committee on Infractions acknowledged that under part of the rulebook “a postseason ban is required in this case” and that “a multi-year postseason ban would be appropriate.” However, it also wrote that college athletics have moved away from any penalty that would impact student-athletes who weren’t implicated in the original case.

“The NCAA Constitution states, ‘Division and, as appropriate, conference regulations must ensure to the greatest extent possible that penalties imposed for infractions do not punish programs and student-athletes not involved nor implicated in the infractions,” the report states.

Therefore, “the panel determines that a postseason ban would unfairly penalize student-athletes for the actions of coaches and staff who are no longer associated with the Michigan football program,” the COI wrote. “Thus, a more appropriate penalty is an offsetting financial penalty.” (No retroactive penalties were given for games Michigan won, in part, because the case didn’t yield any ineligible players.)

While the fine is significant, Michigan, with its Big Ten membership and requisite rich media deals, massive fan base and largest home stadium in the country, can absorb nearly any financial punishment. Michigan’s athletic budget for the 2025-26 year is expected to be $266.3 million.

The results of the case will do little to impact the Wolverines potential to field a competitive team going forward. Michigan is ranked 14th in the preseason AP poll and has a top-10 national recruiting class verbally committed.

Also left unanswered in the report were pushbacks from Michigan and Stallions about what the genesis of the case was, the name of the “outside investigative firm” that brought the information to the NCAA and the use of an “unnamed” informant in the case. Michigan argued, per the report, that knowing “the individual’s identity was pertinent to the institution’s defense and ability to assess witness credibility.”

However, the Committee on Infractions countered that only evidence independently developed by the NCAA enforcement staff was considered in the case.

There still could be some drama remaining. Michigan’s appeal could go in any direction, after all. The school certainly has financial incentive to do so — the likely $30 million fine is nearly unprecedented.

Moore, meanwhile, could appeal the additional game suspension he received, which doesn’t come until the first game of 2026. But he didn’t indicate either way on Friday.

If all of this drama, tension and scheming sounds suited for Netflix. Well, it’s too late for that. Netflix released a Stalions documentary last summer.

Michigan received a series of fines that could eclipse $30 million but avoided punitive penalties such as a postseason ban or the vacating of victories, including during the 2023 national championship season, as the NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions ruled on the Wolverines’ advance-scouting case Friday.

The NCAA also imposed an additional game suspension for coach Sherrone Moore, which will be served for the first game of the 2026 season. Moore is expected to serve a two-game suspension in the upcoming season, which ESPN reported in May that the university proposed to self-impose. He also received a two-year show-cause penalty.

The 2025 games he will miss will be the Wolverines’ third and fourth of the season, a home contest against Central Michigan and a road matchup at Nebraska. The 2026 opener is expected to be against Western Michigan in Frankfurt, Germany.

The NCAA committee also levied an eight-year show-cause penalty for former Michigan staffer Connor Stalions and a 10-year show-cause for former coach Jim Harbaugh, who is now in the NFL with the Los Angeles Chargers. Those essentially act as barriers to schools hiring them in the future. Harbaugh’s new show-cause penalty will not begin until after he serves a current four-year show-cause that runs through 2028 from a previous NCAA case.

Later Friday, Michigan issued a statement saying it would appeal the NCAA ruling.

“We appreciate the work of the Committee on Infractions,” the statement read. “But, respectfully, in a number of instances the decision makes fundamental errors in interpreting NCAA bylaws; and it includes a number of conclusions that are directly contrary to the evidence — or lack of evidence — in the record. We will appeal this decision to ensure a fair result.”

The size of the fines is expected to be considerable, although an exact amount will not be immediately available. The fines include a $50,000 initial levy, 10% of the football budget, 10% of the cost of football scholarships for the 2025 season, and the loss of all postseason competition revenue sharing for the 2025 and 2026 seasons. That sum could easily eclipse $30 million.

Though there are variables on how much teams get from football postseason revenue, sources expect that number alone, based on past Big Ten income and projections, to be more than $20 million. Some of that will depend on the performance of Michigan and of the Big Ten. The football budget in 2024 was more than $70 million, which means the amount is likely to be at least $7 million for that part of the fine, depending on updated budgets.

Separately, former assistant coach Denard Robinson was hit with a three-year show-cause penalty for a combined role in recruiting violations that included, according to the NCAA, providing “limited inducements to a prospect and his family” and then failing to “respond to the notice of allegations or attend the hearing.”

“The true scope and scale of the [sign-stealing] scheme, including the competitive advantage it afforded, will never be fully known due to individuals’ intentional destruction and withholding of materials and information. But the intent was clear — to gain a substantial competitive advantage,” Norman Bay, the chief hearing officer for the NCAA committee on infractions panel, said at a news conference Friday. “You don’t put together a network of individuals called the ‘KGB’ that records what they call ‘dirty film’ where the cost of doing this is in the tens of thousands of dollars over three seasons unless you intend to gain a substantial competitive advantage.”

In the sign-stealing case, Michigan and its coaches and staffers were charged with six Level 1 violations, which are the most serious. The decision to fine the school heavily but not issue a penalty such as a postseason ban indicates a shift in NCAA enforcement rulings away from postseason prohibitions.

The NCAA committee said in its report that although Michigan’s violations would make a multiyear postseason ban appropriate, it aimed not to punish current Wolverines athletes based on its constitution.

“The panel determines that a postseason ban would unfairly penalize student-athletes for the actions of coaches and staff who are no longer associated with the Michigan football program,” the committee wrote. “Thus, a more appropriate penalty is an offsetting financial penalty.”

The committee used similar guidance in deciding not to implement a roster reduction on Michigan.

Because a show-cause penalty essentially acts as an employment ban, it is a significant punishment for Stalions, who masterminded the advance-scouting scheme. Punishments for Harbaugh aren’t likely to matter, and he was already essentially banned from coaching major college football through August 2028 because of the earlier show-cause order.

The NCAA committee concluded that Stalions “orchestrated” the advance-scouting operation designed to aid in the deciphering of opponents’ signals during the 2021, 2022 and 2023 seasons. The operation included 56 instances of off-campus, in-person scouting of 13 of Michigan’s future regular-season opponents.

“Stalions directed and arranged for individuals to conduct off-campus, in-person scouting of Michigan’s future regular-season opponents,” the report reads. “In doing so, Stalions purchased game tickets and transferred them to those individuals, who included another staff member, interns and acquaintances of Stalions. The network of individuals was referred to as the ‘KGB.’

“While in attendance, they filmed the signal callers on the future opponents’ sidelines and then provided that film to Stalions. Using the footage they collected — which Stalions referred to as ‘dirty film’ — Stalions then deciphered opponents’ signals. Stalions and other individuals involved in the scheme acknowledged or corroborated this process. Additionally, on one occasion, Stalions personally attended a future opponent’s contest.”

Other than Moore, the rest of the Michigan staffers in the NCAA’s crosshairs are no longer in college football.

The ruling marks one of the final significant turns in a scandal that captivated the college football world, divided the Big Ten and put Michigan’s reputation on the line. It turned Stalions, previously little known outside the program, into a household name and riddled Michigan’s championship run with accusations and anger from rivals around the Big Ten.

Harbaugh served a three-game sportsmanship suspension from the Big Ten related to the case to end the 2023 regular season. (He had also served a three-game suspension to start that season as part of self-imposed penalties tied to a separate NCAA recruiting case.)

The sign-stealing investigation introduced the world to Stalions, a Naval Academy graduate who bragged on his LinkedIn page that he could work “identifying and exploiting critical vulnerabilities and centers of gravity in the opponent scouting process.” He later told his side of the story in a Netflix documentary that focused on his ability to steal signs.

Michigan responded to the NCAA allegations via a 137-page document arguing that the case contains “numerous factually unsupported infractions, exaggerates aggravating factors and ignores mitigating facts.” The school also expressed concern over the genesis of the investigation.

For the NCAA’s controversial infractions process and often-ineffective enforcement division, this looms as perhaps the last blockbuster case the organization will oversee. With the confluence of enforcement power shifting to the new College Sports Commission and the sudden stripping away of amateurism rules, NCAA enforcement is expected to decline in relevance.

The decision is the latest example of the NCAA’s shift away from postseason bans in recent years.

A ruling on Tennessee in July 2023, which included 18 Level 1 infractions, led to a fine of $8 million. That was the equivalent of the financial impact of missing the postseason in 2023 and 2024, the NCAA said at the time.

On the field for Michigan this season, in the wake of an 8-5 campaign in 2024 after its undefeated championship run in 2023, the suspension of Moore looms as the most significant aspect. His suspension is tied to deleting a thread of 52 texts with Stalions, which were later recovered and did not include information to suggest Moore knew the extent of Stalions’ alleged actions.

Moore was considered a potential “repeat violator” by the NCAA because in August 2023, he negotiated a resolution to claims that he contacted recruits during a COVID-19 recruiting dead period. He later served a one-game suspension.

“I am glad that this part of the process has been completed,” Moore said in a statement after the ruling, adding that it is his “intent to have our program comply with the rules at all times” and that he “will continue to focus my attention on our team and the upcoming 2025 season.”

Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel also issued a statement Friday, saying, “I fully support Coach Sherrone Moore, our student-athletes and staff as they prepare for the season ahead. I appreciate Coach Moore’s continued commitment to ensuring his program operates in compliance with applicable rules.”

There is a major distinction between Moore’s suspension and those Harbaugh served to open and close the 2023 regular season. In those suspensions, one of which came from the NCAA and the other from the Big Ten, Harbaugh coached the team during the week in practice.

But because of an NCAA rule change in January 2024, Moore will not be able to coach in practice for the affected game weeks. That rule change expanded the suspension for coaches to include “all athletics activities between contests, rather than just the contests themselves.”

For the two games Michigan has agreed to self-impose, Moore will begin the suspension after the matchup at his alma mater, Oklahoma, which is set for Sept. 6.

In the separate NCAA case involving recruiting violations, Michigan received three years’ probation in August 2024.

The Wolverines open the 2025 season Aug. 30 against New Mexico.

Ole Miss defensive coordinator Pete Golding, on the heels of a record-setting season by the Rebels on defense, has signed a three-year contract extension that places him among the top four highest-paid defensive coordinators in college football.

Golding’s new deal averages $2.61 million annually. The only three defensive coordinators nationally with a higher annual average salary are Penn State‘s Jim Knowles ($3.1 million), Auburn‘s DJ Durkin ($2.7 million) and USC‘s D’Anton Lynn ($2.65 million).

Golding will make $2.55 million this season, $2.6 million in 2026 and $2.7 million in 2027. His raise to $2.55 million this season will make him the second-highest-paid assistant coach in college football in 2025.

Golding is entering his third season at Ole Miss after coming over from Alabama. Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin has put a premium on playing elite defense, and the Rebels — who have won 21 games during Golding’s two years on campus — are coming off one of their best defensive seasons in school history. They finished second nationally in scoring defense (14.4 PPG) and led the country in sacks per game with a school-record 52.

Ole Miss held nine of its 13 opponents to fewer than 100 rushing yards and finished second nationally in rushing defense (80.5 YPG), the fewest allowed by an Ole Miss defense since 1966.

The Rebels lost nine players who started on defense at some point in 2024, including five players taken in the NFL draft. One of those was All-America defensive tackle Walter Nolen, the No. 16 selection overall by the Arizona Cardinals.

Golding told reporters this week that he expects the 2025 defense to be on a similar level as last year’s record-setting unit with a “good mesh” of high school recruits the Rebels have brought into the program in recent years and key transfer additions.

“From a [defensive] front standpoint, I don’t think we’re going to take a step back from last year,” Golding said. “There’s going to be some different names, but obviously the big thing with these guys is that they’ve been in the system. I think we’re going to have some guys, and y’all know their names already — having been big-time recruits — and they’re going to have to have big years for us and they’ve been practicing really well.”

Zxavian Harris leads a returning cast of interior defensive linemen, a group talented enough that Golding said the Rebels didn’t need to address tackle in the portal. Edge rusher Suntarine Perkins is back after tying for the team lead with 10.5 sacks last season, while Ole Miss added defensive ends Princewill Umanmielen (Nebraska) and Da’Shawn Womack (LSU) in the portal to go along with five new defensive backs.

“I think you’re going to see some different names, some different numbers and see a lot of the same results because they understand what we do, understand the expectations and are good enough to do it,” said Golding, whose defense went from tied for 40th nationally in scoring in 2023 to second a year ago.