A former Michigan football coach claims the university's top leaders discovered proof of the Connor Stalions sign-stealing operation months before the scandal became public and never handed it over to the NCAA. Chris Partridge, the Wolverines' former linebackers coach, laid out those allegations in an amended federal lawsuit that paints a picture of deliberate concealment at the highest levels of Michigan's administration.
Partridge's suit names the University of Michigan, its board of trustees, and former athletic director Warde Manuel. The core claim: then-president Santa Ono and Manuel stumbled onto sign-stealing evidence in January 2023 while investigating an entirely separate matter involving another football staffer, Matthew Weiss, and chose to bury what they found.
The timeline matters. In January 2023, Michigan was conducting an internal inquiry into Weiss, a former football assistant. During that inquiry, Ono and Manuel allegedly discovered material on Weiss's hard drive that documented the sign-stealing scheme later tied to analyst Connor Stalions, USA Today reported.
The sign-stealing scandal did not blow up publicly until months later. Partridge alleges that Ono and Manuel never turned the hard-drive evidence over to the NCAA or disclosed it to Michigan's own Board of Regents. If true, the university's leadership sat on material proof of a rules violation while the NCAA was left to piece together the scheme on its own.
The lawsuit goes further. Partridge alleges Ono instructed university employees not to take handwritten notes during the Weiss inquiry. The reason, according to the suit: avoiding the creation of records that could be disclosed in future legal proceedings. That allegation, as the New York Post detailed, suggests the concealment was not passive neglect but a calculated decision to limit the paper trail.
Partridge was terminated by Michigan in the fall of 2023 as the sign-stealing scandal consumed the program. At the time, university athletics department employees and at least one member of the Board of Regents told a sportswriter that Partridge had been fired for "destroying evidence," AP News reported. Multiple news organizations ran with that characterization.
Partridge denied it immediately. In a social media post at the time of his firing, he wrote:
"Additionally, at no point did I destroy any evidence related to the ongoing investigation."
The NCAA's Committee on Infractions later largely cleared Partridge of wrongdoing in the sign-stealing scheme orchestrated by Stalions. That outcome forms the backbone of Partridge's claim that Michigan used him as a fall guy. His lawsuit argues the university "unjustly terminated Partridge's employment and spread false and damaging information regarding his professional conduct, tarnishing Partridge's hard-earned reputation and inflicting irreparable harm on to his career and personal well-being."
The pattern is familiar in college athletics. Institutions facing scandal often let lower-ranking figures absorb the consequences while leadership insulates itself. Ohio State's $100 million settlement over decades of alleged sexual abuse by a team doctor showed how deep institutional concealment can run when administrators prioritize reputation over accountability.
Partridge's lawsuit is built on a Fourteenth Amendment due process claim. He argues that Michigan, as a public university, could not fire him without proper procedural protections and that the termination stripped him of a constitutionally protected interest in his employment and professional reputation.
The defamation angle is layered on top. By allegedly feeding the "destroyed evidence" narrative to a reporter through department employees and a regent, the university effectively branded Partridge as someone who obstructed an investigation. That label, once published, followed him. Partridge contends the information was false and that the university knew it was false or acted with reckless disregard for the truth.
For a coach whose career depends on trust and reputation, the damage from that kind of public branding is not abstract. Coaching hires in major college football involve background checks, booster confidence, and media scrutiny. A coach publicly tagged as an evidence destroyer faces a steep climb back into the profession, regardless of what the NCAA later concluded.
Allegations in a complaint are not findings of fact. Partridge's claims about the hard drive, about Ono's alleged instruction to avoid note-taking, and about the deliberate withholding of evidence from the NCAA remain unproven. Michigan has not yet filed a public response to the amended complaint, and the university's version of events could look very different once discovery begins.
Several questions hang over the case. Investigators and the court will need to determine whether the hard-drive material actually contained what Partridge says it contained. They will need to establish who had access to it, who made decisions about disclosure, and whether any privilege or legal justification existed for withholding it from the NCAA.
The note-taking allegation is particularly explosive but also particularly hard to prove. If Ono did give that instruction, corroboration would likely need to come from employees who were in the room. Whether those individuals will testify, and what they will say, remains unknown. Authorities have not publicly confirmed whether any separate investigation into the alleged concealment is underway.
The integrity of evidence in high-profile cases always draws public attention, whether the setting is a criminal investigation in Idaho or an NCAA inquiry in Ann Arbor. When institutions control the evidence and the narrative, the stakes for individual accountability rise sharply.
The Stalions sign-stealing scandal already cost Michigan credibility within the Big Ten and the broader college football world. The program received NCAA penalties. Head coach Jim Harbaugh left for the NFL. Stalions resigned. The program moved on under head coach Sherrone Moore.
Partridge's lawsuit threatens to reopen the wound. If his allegations hold up, the scandal was not just about a rogue analyst exploiting a loophole. It was about a university president and an athletic director who allegedly found the proof, buried it, told staff to stop taking notes, and then pinned the fallout on a position coach who had nothing to do with the scheme.
That narrative, if substantiated, would place Michigan alongside other major institutions caught choosing self-preservation over transparency. Federal corruption cases against public officials often follow the same arc: insiders discover a problem, leadership decides disclosure is too costly, and the cover-up eventually causes more damage than the original offense.
Breitbart noted that the NCAA's decision to largely clear Partridge lends credibility to his version of events. If the governing body itself concluded he was not culpable, the university's stated reason for firing him starts to look thin.
Ono stepped down as Michigan's president in January 2025. Manuel's tenure as athletic director also ended. Neither has publicly responded to the specific allegations in the amended lawsuit. Their silence does not establish guilt, but it leaves Partridge's account as the most detailed public version of what happened behind closed doors in Ann Arbor.
College athletics has a long history of institutions circling the wagons when scandal hits. The playbook is familiar: cooperate publicly, control the narrative privately, and let expendable staffers take the hit. When institutions reduce consequences for insiders while punishing lower-level figures, public trust erodes in ways that outlast any single scandal.
Partridge is asking a federal court to hold Michigan accountable for what he says was a calculated decision to sacrifice his career and reputation. The university will have its chance to respond. Discovery could produce documents, testimony, and forensic analysis of the hard drive that either validates or dismantles his claims.
For now, the lawsuit sits as a detailed, sworn set of allegations from a coach who says he was cleared by the NCAA and condemned by the institution that fired him. The facts will be tested in court. The question is whether Michigan's leadership made the same bet that sinks so many powerful institutions: that burying the truth would be easier than facing it.
