Couch: CMU still silent on Connor Stalions saga, but details emerge into how he wound up on sidelines at MSU

It’s been more than 13 months since Connor Stalions was on Central Michigan’s sidelines during its game at Michigan State. CMU’s administration and head coach still haven’t said what happened.

They know what happened.

We’ve all known since late October of last year that a man who looked a whole lot like the disgraced former University of Michigan football staffer was dressed up in CMU gear on the sidelines on Sept. 1, 2023, at Spartan Stadium.

And CMU’s refusal to come clean — hiding behind the NCAA’s pending investigation and a no-comment policy on personnel issues — has created a bigger ordeal than the violation itself.

To a lot of folks, the Stalions sign-stealing saga is a Michigan football story. To the NCAA, it certainly is. After all, confirmation that Stalions was on CMU’s sidelines against MSU was revealed in a draft of an NCAA notice of allegations against Michigan, leaked to ESPN in early August .

But what transpired on Sept. 1, 2023, in East Lansing is largely a CMU story.

According to a source with knowledge of the situation, CMU quarterbacks coach and offensive play-caller Jake Kostner orchestrated the plan to have Stalions there.

Kostner remained on staff through the end of the Chippewas’ 2023 season and was listed as quarterbacks coach on the team’s website until recently.

CMU athletics spokesperson Greg Hotchkiss confirmed last week that “Jake Kostner has separated from the institution,” and then reiterated, “CMU does not comment publicly on personnel matters."

But Hotchkiss did offer that director of football operations John Leister has been serving as quarterbacks coach and helping with the play calling for the last two months, along with receivers coach B.T. Sherman and offensive line coach and run game coordinator Tavita Thompson.

An aside: Leister was MSU's starting quarterback from 1980-82. More pertinent: Thompson was standing next to Stalions 13 months ago on the sidelines at Spartan Stadium.

FootballScoop.com reported on July 30 that CMU head coach Jim McElwain was making late-summer staff changes, including letting Kostner go, citing multiple anonymous sources.

In early August, an attempt to clarify Kostner’s status and interview McElwain was met with the same statement CMU athletic director Amy Folan issued days earlier: the university doesn't comment on personnel matters and that an NCAA investigation was ongoing.

“We will continue to cooperate and look forward to a resolution,” the statement concluded.

Hotchkiss said last week that the NCAA's investigation is still ongoing. Records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request in June show CMU did not hire an outside firm to conduct a separate investigation.

It’s unclear why Kostner risked his career to bring in Stalions — if this was perhaps a young coach looking for an edge in his first game calling plays at the Division I level — and whether Stalions' presence had more to do with helping CMU that night than it did his own reconnaissance for Michigan.

Kostner's connection to Stalions is more clear. Kostner was a student assistant at Michigan when Stalions was a volunteer with the Wolverines in 2018. That was also the season McElwain was Michigan’s receivers coach — before getting the CMU head coaching job and bringing Kostner with him as a graduate assistant. Kostner left to be a GA at Texas, but returned to CMU in 2023 as quarterbacks coach and became the program’s play-caller, despite not having the title of offensive coordinator.

Kostner and others, including McElwain and Thompson, were interviewed by the NCAA last winter, according to the source. There were no changes to Kostner's personnel file between November and June, according to records the LSJ requested.

Not getting in front of this story has made CMU look like it has something to hide, beyond Kostner's misdeed and any other staffers involved.

Perhaps more problematic: Folan hasn’t been in touch with her counterpart at MSU, Alan Haller, who told the Lansing State Journal in May : “I’m interested in the outcome of the investigation. And it could impact our relationship with Central Michigan.”

Haller confirmed Tuesday that he still hasn't heard from anyone at CMU on the matter.

To avoid the top brass at a key in-state partner — one that paid CMU handsomely to play that football game, no less — is foolish and disrespectful.

MSU isn’t scheduled to play CMU again in football until 2027. I’d be surprised if McElwain — an assistant coach at MSU from 2003-05 — is still around by then. I can’t imagine this is great for Folan’s career, either, though I’d love to hear an explanation from her. CMU also just appointed a new president, Neil MacKinnon, who begins on Nov. 1.

This should have been an easy — albeit embarrassing — fix for CMU. If they’d disciplined Kostner and come clean in a timely manner, the blame would have been on a rogue young coach instead of an entire football program and athletic department.

And Stalions would be only a Michigan story.

LSJ reporter Matt Mencarini contributed to this column.

Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on X @Graham_Couch.

This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Couch: CMU still silent on Connor Stalions saga, but details emerge into how he wound up on sidelines at MSU