Pete Thamel considers potential Sherrone Moore penalty in NCAA’s Connor Stalions case

The Michigan Wolverines and Connor Stalions case is once again heating up as Stalions showed up at an NCAA Infractions hearing. That’s led to further concerns about what the future may hold as it relates to a penalty against head coach Sherrone Moore.

Pete Thamel dove in depth into the situation on the College GameDay Podcast. There, he explained that Michigan and the NCAA are in what could be considered a kind of negotiation over Moore, exemplified by the two-game suspension the school self-imposed on Moore.

“We’ll start with Moore,” Pete Thamel said. “The two games self-imposed. When you’re negotiating, you don’t do too much. Clearly, that’s a signal from the other side that the NCAA/committee seems like they think he should be suspended for more, and it’s a negotiation. They’re going to meet in the middle.”

Under Moore’s suspension, he would miss Week 3 and Week 4 of the 2025 season. That would extend beyond the games and into practice, seemingly making the suspension harsher as Michigan looks to negotiate and show they’re serious about the punishment.

“So, the most important thing that I don’t think has been talked about a lot with Moore’s potential suspension is he would also have to miss practice those two weeks. I’ve talked to a couple of coaches about this… if you said, ‘Hey, you can coach practice all week and not coach the game or coach the game and not practice all week,’ they would clearly coach practice all week because that’s when you’re putting everything in. The game is just the calling of the plays. It’s still important to coach the game, but given the choice between the two,” Thamel said.

“Back in the day, like 10, 12 years ago I remember Jim Boeheim got suspended at some juncture at Syracuse and he had to miss practice. He was just like gone for a while and there’s a difference because you’re not developing your team in that. That changed. [Jim] Harbaugh for those three games he was suspended to start the year — the NCAA suspension, not the Big Ten one — he was around until like midnight the night before. Something like that. So, he basically did all the things and didn’t do that.”

Sherrone Moore was Michigan’s offensive coordinator during the Connor Stalions scandal. At the time, it was considered a second potential offense, making him a repeat offender. Moore would be accused of deleting text messages to conceal them from the NCAA relating to the scandal, in particular.

“So, it’s reasonable to ascertain that Michigan is going in low with the two. Now, whether he actually ends up missing those two,” Thamel said. “Whether that’s accepted, whether they do more, there are a lot of variables here. That is more like a negotiation point with the third and fourth game this year.”

Is the Connor Stalions case the last its kind?

The NCAA is still running the investigation into Connor Stalions and Sherrone Moore. However, as Pete Thamel explained, that could make it the last of its kind.

“The interesting thing from the macro here is this case may be remembered as the last explosive NCAA case that we ever see. Enforcement as we know it is going to be shifted to the new organization” Thamel said. “And the new CEO, and a lot of that stuff is being socialized…for how it’s all gonna go. NIL Go, Deloitte. I was told the other day that the presentations that they’re doing at these conference meetings, for example, that the deadline for a case to be decided for a student-athlete is 45 days. I mean, you couldn’t even clear your throat for 45 days in this current slog.”

The House Settlement is changing enforcement in college sports. The power conferences are establishing a new enforcement arm that’s going to be called the College Sports Commission. Major League Baseball executive Bryan Seeley has been named CEO to lead it, changing how investigations will be run moving forward.

“And there’s a lot of ifs. I’m not going to downplay that. Now, the NCAA will still have an enforcement staff. They’ll deal with academic stuff and a lot of things under the purview. But, in terms of… academic stuff, and there will still be academic fraud and that type of thing. That’s not gonna go away… But I think this is one of the smartest things the NCAA has ever done is getting enforcement out of its building,” Thamel said.

“Because it was the least effective, least popular, and most toxic part of that organization. A lot of the NCAA’s bad reputation over the years, especially under Mark Emmert as it toiled and was kind of rudderless and directionless and impotent, the face of the NCAA’s unpopularity was often this process and how it worked. It was fairness to kids. It was this, it was that. So, the tenor that I’ve gotten is ‘good luck college sports. Good luck new CEO. You can take the bullets because this all sounds good until the first big punishment comes. Like, we know the ripple. We know what it feels like. We know how it’s gonna go.’ So, there is a lot earnest people trying hard, but there’s also a lot of wait and see from people who have lived a lot of these cases.”

Regardless, the Michigan case is still up in the air and being investigated by the NCAA. Only time will tell if the NCAA accepts the self-imposed suspension for Sherrone Moore or demands a steeper punishment.