The NCAA has joined in on the investigation into whether former Michigan football staff member Connor Stalions was on the Central Michigan sideline during their season opener at Michigan State earlier this season, according to multiple reports.
CMU began investigating after photos surfaced last week showing a man who resembles Stalions on the sidelines in CMU-issued gear during that game. Head coach Jim McElwain said after the Chippewas’ game last week he was aware of photos showing “the sign stealer guy” and officials were working to determine whether it was Stalions.
On Monday The Athletic’s Nicole Auerbach reported CMU Athletic Director Amy Folan said the school “continues its review of the matter in cooperation with the NCAA.”
“As this is an ongoing NCAA enforcement matter, we are unable to provide further comment at this time,” Folan’s statement said.
Stalions resigned from the Michigan staff on Friday after he emerged as the centerpiece of the NCAA’s investigation into alleged in-person scouting and sign stealing within the Michigan program.
He had initially been suspended with pay after reports surfaced that he allegedly bought tickets to future Michigan opponents’ games and transferred them to other people, who were allegedly seen in those seats recording the opponents’ sidelines.
Thus far, no evidence has surfaced showing Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh or anyone on staff knew of Stalions’ alleged “vast operation.”
The photos in question — taken from the Sept. 1 Fox Sports 1 broadcast — in this latest phase of the investigation appear to show Stalions in disguise on the CMU sideline at Spartan Stadium, wearing sunglasses and the same CMU attire as other coaches and staffers during the night game. He was seen on the sidelines at the Big House the next day during the Wolverines’ season opener.
McElwain has said Stalions’ name was not on the list of credentials for the MSU game.
ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg and Mark Schlabach reported Monday the outlet had enlisted a pair of facial recognition experts — including “a distinguished professor” in the Michigan State Department of Computer Science and Engineering — to use a state-of-the-art commercial face recognition system to compare photos of the person on the CMU sideline and of Stalions on the Michigan sideline.
The experts believe it is “highly likely” they are the same person.
“The system compared the images based on several facial characteristics -- Jain said they are trade secrets -- to provide a similarity score in the range of zero to 1. The higher the similarity score, the more likely the two faces being compared are the same person,” the ESPN report says.
“Jain said the system produced a similarity score of 0.6 when comparing the two photographs. To validate that score, Jain and Grosz compared Stalions' photo to a database of more than 4,500 photos of white males,” the report continued.
"’The reason why it's 0.6 is because there's a disguise,’ Jain told ESPN. ‘If I take an identical photo, it would be 1. Even changes in the pose, illumination, expression, sunglasses, the match will never be perfect. Based on this analysis, the two images are of the same person with high confidence,’” ESPN’s report concluded.