Matt Weiss spent a pair of seasons -- his last two in coaching, as of now -- as a top offensive assistant coach for Jim Harbaugh's Michigan Wolverines program.
That time included Weiss' turn as the Michigan offensive coordinator for the 2022 season, when the Wolverines advanced to the four-team College Football Playoff.
Turns out, per a long-running Michigan investigation and now formal charges from the United States Department of Justice, that Weiss might have been quite busy beyond his coaching duties.
On Thursday, the U.S. DOJ formally announced numerous charges of unauthorized computer access as well as "10 counts of aggravated identity theft."
The charges came down from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Michigan.
A former walk-on punter at Vanderbilt who never played for the Commodores, and who later initiated his coaching career just outside of Nashville in Smyrna, Tennessee, Weiss was charged by acting U.S. Attorney Julie Beck and joined in Beck's announcement of the charges by Cheyvoryea Gibson, the FBI's Special Agent in Charge from its Detroit Field Office.
Per the indictment:
"Between approximately 2015 and January 2023, Weiss gained unauthorized access to student-athlete databases of more than 100 colleges and universities that were maintained by a third-party vendor."
While Weiss was gone before Michigan captured the 2023 College Football Playoff Championship, his time at Michigan overlapped with that of disgraced former Wolverines staff member Connor Stalions, whose own actions at Michigan also were subjected to intense investigations.
Michigan fired Weiss in January 2023; Stalions departed the program in the fall of 2023.
In further outlining the charges against Weiss, the U.S. DOJ document revealed that "Once Weiss obtained access to these accounts, he downloaded personal, intimate digital photographs that were never intended to be shared beyond intimate partners."
"Our office will move aggressively to prosecute computer hacking to protect the private accounts of our citizens," Beck said.