Joey Velazquez vs. CBS: What the Stalions Sign-Stealing Lawsuit Actually Reveals And Why It Matters More Than the Headlines Suggest

Nearly two years after Connor Stalions’ sign-stealing scheme rocked college football, the scandal is back in the headlines — this time in a New York courtroom. Former Michigan and Ohio State linebacker Joey Velazquez has filed a defamation lawsuit against CBS, and buried inside the court filing are allegations that go well beyond a media dispute. According to the suit, Stalions didn’t just steal signs — he allegedly had illegally obtained film of Ohio State’s practices, and instructed Velazquez to lie to NCAA investigators.

What CBS Actually Reported, and Why Velazquez Is Suing

The dispute traces back to a September 2025 report from CBS News Detroit. According to the broadcast, an unnamed student-athlete had secretly recorded a phone call with Connor Stalions without his consent, and that same player had allegedly lied to NCAA investigators by claiming former Michigan linebackers coach Chris Partridge told players not to cooperate with the probe. CBS never named Velazquez directly, but according to his lawsuit, it was already widely known within the fanbase and media circles that he was the player who had recorded the Stalions call — meaning the report’s implication effectively identified him anyway.

Velazquez filed his defamation suit in Manhattan Supreme Court on August 28, 2026, and — notably — had already filed a separate federal lawsuit against CBS in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio the day before. That dual-venue legal strategy suggests Velazquez’s legal team is taking this dispute seriously and pursuing every available avenue. He’s seeking compensatory damages exceeding $50,000, with the exact amount to be determined at trial, and says he requested a retraction from CBS before filing suit — a request the network declined.

The Explosive New Allegations About Connor Stalions and Ohio State

While the lawsuit is technically about defamation, its most attention-grabbing claims have nothing to do with CBS at all — they’re about what Velazquez says Stalions actually did. According to the suit, it was “obvious that the film Stalions was using was not broadcast film,” and that Stalions had obtained footage of Ohio State’s open practices through in-person advance scouting — the same illegal scheme at the center of the entire NCAA investigation. If accurate, this would mean Stalions’ operation extended specifically to Ohio State’s practice film, not just the sideline signal-stealing that was previously the focus of most reporting.

The lawsuit also details a phone call Velazquez recorded with Stalions — legally, under Michigan’s one-party consent law — in which Stalions allegedly told him to “never give up your phone” and said he could “technically lie your ass off and it doesn’t even matter.” Velazquez claims he recorded the call specifically to protect himself from being used as a scapegoat, and that he never told the NCAA that Chris Partridge instructed players not to cooperate — the exact claim CBS’s report implied he made.

Why Joey Velazquez Ended Up on Both Sides of This Rivalry

Velazquez’s own story adds another layer to this saga. A Columbus, Ohio native, he originally chose Michigan for the chance to play both baseball and football. He was on the Wolverines’ 2023 national championship team before entering the transfer portal that December — skipping that season’s Rose Bowl — and ultimately transferred to his hometown program, Ohio State, as a graduate student. He went on to win a second consecutive national championship in 2024, this time with the Buckeyes, giving him the unusual distinction of winning back-to-back titles with archrival programs.

The Bigger Picture: NCAA Penalties and Michigan’s Ongoing Appeal

This lawsuit doesn’t exist in a vacuum. The NCAA’s investigation into Michigan’s sign-stealing operation concluded in August 2025, finding what the organization itself described as “overwhelming evidence” of an impermissible in-person scouting scheme. Despite that finding, Michigan avoided a postseason ban and didn’t have to vacate any wins, though the university was reportedly fined somewhere between $20 million and $30 million, and the NCAA handed down its own penalty to Stalions individually.

That relatively light outcome — a fine, but no vacated wins or bowl ban — has fueled ongoing frustration among rival fanbases who feel Michigan got off easy. It’s also worth noting that Michigan has reportedly been pursuing an appeal of the NCAA’s ruling, and questions about how evidence was gathered — including secretly recorded phone calls — could become relevant to that appeal process moving forward.

My Take: Why This Story Deserves More Scrutiny Than It’s Getting

Here’s where I’ll offer some genuine perspective rather than just relaying the allegations: it’s worth being careful about treating every claim in a legal filing as established fact. Lawsuits are, by design, one-sided documents written to support the plaintiff’s case — Velazquez’s team has every incentive to frame these allegations in the most damaging way possible for both CBS and, by extension, Stalions and Michigan. None of these claims about Ohio State practice film have been independently verified by the NCAA, a court, or any neutral investigator at this point.

That said, dismissing this as pure fan-war fodder would also be a mistake. Velazquez’s underlying claim — that he recorded the Stalions call to protect himself, and that CBS’s report effectively painted him as the liar rather than Stalions — is a serious allegation with real professional consequences attached. According to earlier reporting, Velazquez has claimed the CBS report caused NFL teams to lose interest in him, which is a tangible, quantifiable harm if a jury finds CBS’s reporting was inaccurate and defamatory. That’s a very different question from whether Stalions had Ohio State’s practice film, and it’s the actual legal question a court will need to resolve.

What makes this genuinely compelling — beyond the rivalry angle — is what it reveals about the messiness of NCAA investigations more broadly. Whistleblowers rarely emerge from scandals looking clean, and Velazquez’s own path (Michigan title, transfer, Ohio State title, recorded phone call, lawsuit) is a reminder that these situations are almost never as simple as “hero versus villain.” If his allegations about Stalions instructing him to lie hold up, it adds yet another layer of documented dishonesty to a scandal that already cost Michigan tens of millions of dollars. But if they don’t hold up in court, it’s a reminder that lawsuits generate headlines long before they generate verdicts.

What Happens Next in the Velazquez-CBS Case

With filings now active in both New York state court and federal court in Ohio, this case is likely to generate updates for months, if not longer. Whether CBS chooses to fight the claims, settle, or seek dismissal will shape how much of this story ever gets tested under oath. For a scandal that many assumed had already reached its conclusion with the NCAA’s 2025 ruling, Velazquez’s lawsuit is a reminder that the fallout from Michigan’s sign-stealing operation is still very much unresolved.