There is a moment about 40 minutes into “Untold: Sign Stealer,” the new Netflix documentary, in which former Michigan staffer Connor Stalions recounts his abrupt exile from the program last season after his elaborate scouting scheme got exposed.
By this point, we’ve learned from Stalions’ own words as well as family home videos just how singularly obsessed he was with the Wolverines — at age 7, he dressed as Bo Schembechler for Halloween. Nearly every decision he made from that point forward — including attending the Naval Academy — was done so with the goal of one day coaching his favorite team. And he was seemingly on his way, earning the trust of Jim Harbaugh and staff for his uncanny ability to decipher signals.
And then, almost overnight, they were no longer speaking to him, as he was first suspended and later resigned.
“Ever since I could remember, Michigan has been a huge part of my life,” the former Marine Corps captain says. “For that to be stripped away overnight, that was pretty devastating.”
It’s a recurring theme throughout the film, as Stalions, granting his first interviews since the scandal erupted last October, essentially spends 90 minutes giving his side of the story. Over and over, it becomes apparent that the guy at the center of an NCAA Notice of Allegations sent to Michigan last week views himself as a victim.
“His POV is that he feels he was targeted, and he was doing something that everybody else was doing,” the film’s director, Micah Brown, said in an interview on “The Audible” this week. “He was just doing it better.”
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It will be interesting to see whether audiences agree with Stalions’ assessment of his predicament.
The filmmakers interviewed several people close to Stalions, including his parents; a close friend from the Marine Corps; a Michigan beat writer he befriended; and Barstool founder and Wolverines diehard Dave Portnoy. All take an understandably sympathetic tone toward the subject of the documentary.
However, in perhaps the juiciest moment of the whole thing, we also see part of Stalions’ Zoom interview with NCAA investigators — possibly the first time in history such a thing has been made public. What we see is a defendant, surrounded by his lawyers, repeatedly evading and/or lying in response to their central questions.
Earlier, one of the filmmakers asked Stalions for his reaction to the infamous photo of him on the sideline of last season’s Michigan State-Central Michigan game donned in Chippewas attire and wearing a fake mustache. Stalions chuckles and says, “I don’t even think this guy looks like me.”
Unfortunately for Stalions, his new buddy Portnoy says on camera that Stalions confided it was indeed him. Asked by the NCAA’s investigator whether he attended that game, Stalions thinks about it for a few seconds, then says, “I don’t recall a specific game.” The investigator tries to ask it again, to which his lawyer steps in with, “He answered the question.”
NCAA investigators zeroed in on Connor Stalions’ travels. (Netflix)
As for buying tickets to games involving future Michigan opponents and enlisting others to film their sidelines? The alleged scheme at the center of the entire case? Stalions’ main explanation is that he was essentially an amateur ticket broker. The filmmakers show a list of 17 games from 2021-23 for which he purchased tickets (the NCAA alleges he did so for 58 games), with a column showing either the name of a person he transferred them to or whether he resold them on the secondary market.
“I don’t recall ever directing someone to go to a game,” he tells the investigator before glancing at what appears to be a written note sitting between him and his lawyer. “To my understanding, there are some people who attended games, using tickets that I purchased, and recorded parts of those games.”
“I’ve had a friend send me film,” he explains in a separate interview for the cameras. “It’s kind of like when your aunt gets you a Christmas present that you already have. You’re not going to be rude and be like, ‘Oh, I already have this, I don’t need it.’”
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Of course, there have already been accounts by people who say Stalions paid them to do exactly that. But that doesn’t fit with his chosen narrative.
Whatever credibility Stalions seems to think he still has goes straight out the window.
If there’s a moment to feel sorry for Stalions, it’s when we see him sitting in the stands of NRG Stadium, smiling and tearing up as confetti rains down on the 2023 national champion Wolverines. You can tell that Stalions, to whom Harbaugh awarded a game ball following Michigan’s 2022 win over Iowa, considers himself to have played a part in the Wolverines’ title run. And maybe he did. We’ll never know.
His only tangible impact on the program, though, will be whatever NCAA sanctions come Michigan’s way. Stalions will almost certainly receive a show-cause order that precludes him from working in college football again anytime soon.
In his mind, though, it was probably all worth it.
“Connor has taken the fall,” Brown said. “He never broke and said anything that ever implicated anyone else. He implicated himself in every way.
“If you think about the soldier falling on the grenade, he definitely did that.”
(Top photo: Netflix)
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5724956/2024/08/27/connor-stalions-netflix-documentary-untold-sign-stealer-victim/
