When it comes to Netflix’s new documentary “Sign Stealer,” it’s worth remembering that the story is told, as director Micah Brown notes, through “Connor Stalions’ point of view.”
If you’re waiting for a shocking moment in which the Stalions admit to a series of NCAA violations involving advanced scouting of Michigan’s opponents (let alone Jim Harbaugh ordering Code Red (or Scarlet and Gray)), it’s not going to come.
Stallions said he acted alone, but he points to the vague wording of the NCAA scouting rules as an explanation.
The Stalions won’t even say whether that was him standing on the sidelines of Central Michigan’s court, possibly wearing spy sunglasses, during the Chippewas’ infamous game against Michigan State last season (though Barstool Sports president Dave Portnoy trumps him on that one).
The documentary’s strength lies in a different kind of revelation, primarily in the first public words of Stalions, who went from being an anonymous member of the Michigan staff to the central character of one of the biggest stories in recent college football history, but never spoke to the media.
It’s also a look at the murky world of sign stealing, which is legal under NCAA rules but only when signs are stolen in a particular way.
But really, it’s the story of Stalions and that’s what Brown is most interested in. Who is this guy and how the hell did all this happen?
Stallions grew up in the Detroit metro area and inherited his mother’s love of all things Wolverines. As a child, he dressed up as Bo Schembechler for Halloween and can recite Bo’s famous “The team, the team, the team” speech when asked. He aspired to become the head coach at the University of Michigan. Winning was everything.
He would have attended Michigan, but he studied top coaches and found a common denominator, from Woody Hayes and Bear Bryant to Mike Krzyzewski and Gregg Popovich: his military background. So Stalions enrolled at the U.S. Naval Academy and, as a freshman, walked into the football offices looking to volunteer. Next thing he knew, he was assigned the task of deciphering opponents’ play calls.
Navy’s first opponent that year? Ohio State. Of course.
By the time Stalions left the Marine Corps and became a full-time player under Harbaugh, he was clearly quite adept at decoding plays.
Maybe, as the NCAA alleges, that was because he sent friends and family to film opponents’ signals. Or maybe it was because, as Stalions claims, he dedicated his entire life and analytical mind to the task.
It was likely a combination of both, but it was the advanced filming plan, uncovered by a private investigation firm (who hired that firm is a big part of the documentary), that caused chaos in the 2023 season as Michigan headed toward the national title.
Some people will like Stalions, but others will always hate him. There is no doubt that he is a fascinating figure.
“What I love about college football and what I love about Connor is that a lot of people want the world to be black and white,” Brown, the director, told Yahoo Sports. “But life, and especially college football, is not so black and white. It’s pretty gray.”
Micah Brown knows a lot about college football. His father, Todd, was coached by Tom Osborne at Nebraska and Micah played four seasons at Kansas, including the 2007 Orange Bowl. He later served as an assistant coach at KU and is currently embedded with another season at Colorado under Deion Sanders.
“Connor is everything I expected from a Marine sergeant turned coach; he talks about everything very seriously,” Brown said. “He’s very, very smart. His life is football. He knows as much about football as anybody.”
Part of Stalions’ defense in this case is that even if, hypothetically, he was receiving video that his friends took from opposing teams’ sidelines, he didn’t need it. He was stealing all the signals via television footage and sharing information with other teams’ signal stealers. He was really good at it.
This is unlikely to appease his critics.
How much of a difference did all this make? It’s hard to say. It seems like everyone has everyone’s signals, so does it really matter, competitively speaking, how they were obtained? And it’s worth asking, if being able to predict plays was the difference between winning and losing, wouldn’t every program in a cutthroat sport have a 15-person staff assigned to the task?
Those questions remain unanswered, and probably always will be. Either it’s the most important thing in the world or it’s not. Either way, the 2023 season centered on Michigan and was the unlikely center of a scandal.
Getting a little more insight into all of this (often in an entertaining way) and into the man in the middle of it makes “Sign Stealer” worth the 90 minutes of your time.
Dan Wetzel and Ross Dellinger broke the original story that the NCAA was investigating Michigan for a scouting scheme. Wetzel was interviewed and appears in “Sign Stealer.”