New details about embattled suspended Michigan football analyst Connor Stalions are painting a picture of man obsessively hell-bent on coaching the Wolverines one day and who bragged about stealing opposing teams’ signals. 

Text exchanges from 2021 between Stalions and a former Power Five student looking to get into coaching provided a deeper look into the man who is at the center of an NCAA investigation.

Stalions has become one of the most infamous names in college football at the moment after accusations he spearheaded an elaborate sign-stealing ring which included 12 Big Ten schools as well as several College Football Playoff contenders.

In the texts, obtained by Sports Illustrated, Stalions told the student he was able to decode opposing teams’ signs off TV footage, which is not against NCAA rules.

“Pre-covid, stole opponent signals during the week watching tv copies then flew to the game and stood next to [then Michigan offensive coordinator Josh] Gattis and told him what coverage/pressure he was gettin,” Stalions wrote.

What Stalions is accused of doing that is against NCAA rules is purchasing tickets to games and forwarding them to at least three other people in different parts of the country, all in an effort to scout other teams and record their sidelines, which are violations of NCAA guidelines.

In addition to his efforts to steal opponents signals, Stalions texted the student that he and a small group of people were putting together a plan to run the Wolverines.

Stalions said that he had created a Google document between 550 and 600 pages long with a detailed blueprint for the program’s future and described it as a movement that he called “the Michigan Manifesto.”

“I think it’s pretty rare to find the right type of people who can grasp a vision of the future and want to team up and run s—,” Stalions wrote. “And we all got our own stuff goin on, but we all got some pretty unique approaches. Basically the way I see it, there’s a future Ohio State head coach and staff out there somewhere preparing for it whether they know it or not. And we have a group of a half dozen actively planning s— 15 or so years out. And another dozen or two on board. So by the time it’s ready to rock, we’re all on the same page and we quickly make Michigan the ultimate standard.”

The text conversations between the student and Stalions lasted for roughly three weeks, according to the SI report, and in it, he described working along two tracks.

The first was long term and referred to as his “Michigan Manifesto” and the other was short term. 

The latter referred to creating pieces of analysis or insight that coaches found useful, one of which was his theory that GPA and test scores correlated to play on the field.

To prove his theory, Stalions claimed in the texts, he walked into the Naval Academy’s admissions office – he served as a student assistant with the football team and graduated from Annapolis in 2017 – and was able to obtain a decade’s worth of high school national standardized test scores and GPAs. 

Stalions also said the admissions office told him to delete the data a day later and he was “coy” about whether he actually had, SI reported. 

The Naval Academy would not confirm or deny this story to SI.