An ex-Michigan football coach alleges in a lawsuit that the university intentionally concealed evidence that former employee Connor Stalions was stealing signs to keep the scandal under wraps.
The former coach, Chris Partridge, alleges that school leadership was fully aware of the sign-stealing scandal and discovered the evidence during a separate investigation into football assistant Matthew Weiss in January 2023, the New York Post reports.
The university fired Partridge in 2023 after it was alleged that he tried to destroy evidence in the sign-stealing imbroglio. However, he was later cleared following an NCAA investigation. Partridge, who is now on the coaching staff of the Seattle Seahawks, filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against the University of Michigan in March of this year.
In his suit, Partridge says that then Michigan president Santa Ono and athletic director Warde Manuel had found evidence of the scandal on a hard drive owned by Matthew Weiss when they were investigating him. Partridge adds that neither Ono nor Manuel turned the evidence over to the NCAA and kept it hidden.
The lawsuit alleges that Ono told his staffers not to take any handwritten notes about the Weiss investigation to avoid having to turn them over in any possible disclosure proceedings.
Partridge also claims that school officials were fully aware of the “inappropriate relationship between former head football coach Sherrone Moore and a subordinate employee for years without taking action to protect the employee.”
Moore was later arrested for harassing executive assistant Paige Shiver at her home. The university also fired him over the incident. In addition, Matthew Weiss was arrested and charged with 14 counts of unauthorized access to computers and 10 counts of aggravated identity theft.
The sign-stealing controversy ended up getting Connor Stalions fired and spurred the NCAA to hand Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh a three-game suspension. The scandal also ended with the NCAA giving Harbaugh a ten-year show-cause penalty and putting Michigan’s football program on four years of probation.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: Facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston, Truth Social @WarnerToddHuston, or at X/Twitter @WTHuston