Nebraska football wasn’t immune from Connor Stalions’ tainted touch, as a new report shows that he purchased tickets to at least five Husker games.
Another day, another new report about just how deep the Michigan sign-stealing fiasco goes. Until Thursday night, belief that Nebraska football might somehow be tied into the scandal was just theory. It just seemed like common sense since the Wolverines have played the Huskers often over the last few years.
Then the Omaha World-Herald broke the big story. Connor Stalions bought tickets to Nebraska football games against Michigan and Ohio State in 2021 and the Oklahoma, Minnesota, and Illinois games in 2022.
This isn’t a rumor. This isn’t someone claiming they saw Stalions at the games. This is confirmation revealed through an email obtained from the university through a public records request.
That email existed because a Nebraska football staffer sent it to Jamie Vaughn, NU’s director of NCAA compliance. That suggests it was run down as part of the widespread investigation into just how many games the Michigan staffer attended or purchased tickets to and assigned the games to someone else.
While there’s little doubt that the tickets were purchased by Stalions, it’s hard to tell how much of a smoking gun they are. Stalions tickets to Nebraska football’s Oct. 29 game against Illinois and Nov. 5 against Minnesota in 2022 were never scanned, so they weren’t used. That’s despite the fact that both teams were the games the Huskers played directly before the Wolverines.
Nebraska football tied into sign-stealing scandal
Two things are clear with this new report. The first is that Stalions was absolutely buying tickets for himself or others to Nebraska football games. The other thing that is clear is that the ticket purchases alone leave more questions than answers.
It does also demonstrate that the idea the Wolverines weren’t cheating against Nebraska football because they beat them this year is a bad one. The ticket purchases have been going on for years.
There is one other thing we learned from the latest report. This story is only getting bigger.