Coming off a bye week — and still nursing the wounds of a 27-17 loss at Washington on Oct. 5 — Michigan football will aim to get its 2024 season back on track Saturday with a game at No. 21 Illinois.

Even as an NCAA investigation into it remains open, the sign-stealing scandal that followed the Wolverines throughout their run to a national championship last season is largely behind the program. The persistent, week-after-week questions about it have largely disappeared. Connor Stalions, the staffer at the center of it, resigned from his role as an analyst with Michigan and is now a volunteer coach at Mumford High School in Detroit.

When the Wolverines line up against the Fighting Illini on Saturday, though, there will be at least one reminder of the scandal standing on the opposing sideline of Memorial Stadium in Champaign, Illinois.

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Among the sea of voices that sounded off against Michigan last season, few were quite as pointed as Illinois coach Bret Bielema, who slammed the Wolverines’ alleged misdeeds in the kind of plain, biting language that few other active coaches did.

In the first game between the programs since Bielema’s comments, here’s a look back at what the Illini coach said:

What did Bret Bielema say about Michigan sign-stealing?

In the weeks that followed the revelation last October that the NCAA was investigating Michigan for alleged in-person scouting and sign-stealing, figures from across the college football world dished out their opinions on the brewing scandal and what it meant for the sport.

Big Ten football coaches were among those offering their input. Purdue coach Ryan Walters, for example, said the claims against Michigan weren’t allegations, but that “it happened,” citing video evidence and ticket purchases to back up his remark.

Few, if any, coaches within the conference or college football in general came down on the Wolverines quite as hard as Bielema.

The Illini coach, who played at Iowa and went on to serve as Wisconsin’s head coach from 2006-12, was extremely critical of the alleged actions from within the Michigan program, which included sending individuals to games to record the signals used by future opponents.

“That's sickening,” Bielema said to reporters last November. “It’s disgusting. I'll let (Michigan and the Big Ten) figure that part out. And I think as coaches, we’ve just gotta hold the integrity of the league, everybody's gotta feel like everybody's playing by the same rules and kind of go forward from there."

Illinois was among the programs against which Stallions purchased tickets under his own name for games since 2021.

The Illini and Wolverines did not play last season.

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Bret Bielema record vs Michigan

Bielema is no stranger to the Michigan football program, having faced it six times as a head coach.

In those games, the Wolverines have gone 3-3 against Bielema, including a 1-0 mark during his Illinois tenure. That victory came in 2022, when Michigan held off Illinois 19-17 in what would be its closest win of an undefeated regular season.

Here’s a look at how Michigan has fared against Bielema going back to his first season as a head coach in 2006:

Wisconsin

• 2006: Michigan 27, Wisconsin 13

• 2007: Wisconsin 37, Michigan 21

• 2008: Michigan 27, Wisconsin 25

• 2009: Wisconsin 45, Michigan 24

• 2010: Wisconsin 48, Michigan 28

Illinois

• 2022: Michigan 19, Illinois 17

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: What did Bret Bielema say about Michigan sign-stealing scandal?