Connor Stalions Netflix doc 'Untold: Sign Stealer' is short on answers but dives deep into the man
Connor Stalions is not going to let us see the Manifesto.
He did, however, let us see a chunk of his NCAA interview.
The Untold sports documentary series on Netflix has about a 50 percent hit rate in terms of living up to its name. The Manti Te’o doc contained a plot twist that explained much better what transpired in 2012. The Johnny Manziel and Florida Swamp Kings docs should have been called Told, because they didn’t introduce any new information.
Sign Stealer, the 87-minute episode dedication to former Michigan staffer Connor Stalions, did reveal new info. It probably won’t change anyone’s mind about Stalions or Michigan or the alleged advanced scouting operation that launched an NCAA investigation, but it did offer a fascinating window into the mind of the central character in one of the weirdest and most absurd stories in college football history.
We’ve been talking about Stalions since October, when he emerged as the focus of an investigation into whether Michigan was receiving video from people attending games not involving the Wolverines that allowed Stalions to help decipher other teams’ play signals. But we hadn’t really heard from Stalions.
We knew that:
Stalions grew up a Michigan fan and always wanted to coach there.
He attended the U.S. Naval Academy and served in the Marine Corps.
He started as a volunteer assistant at Michigan and later was hired to the staff.
The documentary fleshes all that out through interviews with Stalions and his parents. The home video of 7-year-old Stalions dressed as Bo Schembechler is adorable. But the more telling piece of information is Stalions explaining that because the best coaches from the 1950s through the 1980s all served in the military, it inspired him to go to the Naval Academy.
The doc is certainly set up to lionize Stalions, whose participation probably hinged on a positive portrayal. But his own words detail a pretty deep obsession with becoming a Michigan coach that probably bordered on unhealthy.
There are a lot of reasons to attend one of the military academies. They’re academically prestigious. They’re free if you’re smart enough and talented enough to gain admission. They train the leaders of the nation’s defense force. They have an incredible track record of training graduates for success in other fields once they finish their military service. They also require incredible discipline and sacrifice. Attending an academy requires a commitment to military service and the explicit acknowledgement that a person could be placed in harm’s way after graduation. “I went into the military knowing that I was going to come out and coach football,” Stalions says.
Stalions might be the first person who went to an academy and then served in the Marines just so he could become a coach. But that’s how obsessed he was with the idea of coaching for the Wolverines. While still in the Marines and stationed at Camp Pendleton in California, he flew back to Michigan to volunteer as an assistant.
Stalions explains that he first became a football codebreaker as a student assistant at Navy. Because he’s the star of this particular show, he’s portrayed to be the football version of the people portrayed in The Imitation Game. How good Stalions actually was at codebreaking will probably never be known, but his explanation of how he created illustrated sheets to quickly decipher signals was fascinating. He clearly had a gift for deciphering signals and for making tools to teach others how to quickly process the information he was providing.
That’s not the juicy part, though. You want to know if you should watch this doc to learn more about whether Michigan cheated.
The fact that the NCAA dropped its Notice of Allegations in this case two days before the documentary premiered answered that. Obviously, Stalions didn’t say anything that would harm Michigan or link any Michigan coaches to advance scouting, which is the part of this story that is against NCAA rules.
These docs are aimed at a broad audience, and this one does a fairly job of explaining the vagaries of the NCAA rulebook on this topic. If it’s your game or a TV copy, stealing signals is legal. But you can’t record signals at a game you’re not playing in. My wife, who mostly ignores me when I’m discussing college football stories, was watching with me while getting ready for work. She found this distinction between one team’s games and another team’s games to be incredibly stupid. I explained that the rule was passed in the 1990s as a cost-cutting measure. “Still stupid,” she said. “Who cares? They’re making this sound like it’s something criminal.” I’m guessing that’s going to be the response of a lot of people who watch this who don’t live and breathe college football.
Stalions did explain his “manifesto.” That was referenced in a Sports Illustrated story by Richard Johnson last fall, and it was described as a 600-plus page document. It turns out the manifesto is “probably a couple thousand pages,” according to Stalions. It’s a series of documents and spreadsheets he’s made over years detailing everything he’s learned about coaching philosophy. It also contains data on where every player drafted since 2010 went to high school. (As the guy who mapped where each school sourced its players for SI back when Stalions was in middle school, I felt particularly seen as he scrolled through those spreadsheets.) Alas, Stalions won’t be showing us that manifesto anytime soon. He’s saving it for whatever happens next in his coaching career. Currently, he’s the defensive coordinator at Mumford High in Michigan.
“I’m not going to give you the manifesto. This is competitive advantage information,” Stalions says. “Whenever I have that opportunity, I’m using this badboy and we will be successful.”
The question is what that future holds. Stalions is 28 years old. He has a lot of living left to do. But his dream — coaching at Michigan — is over. He resigned last fall, and he’ll probably never be rehired there.
If the NCAA’s Committee on Infractions does what it usually does to coaches it deems uncooperative, he’ll be banned for a time once the committee rules on the case currently working its way through the system. Other coaches — Auburn basketball’s Bruce Pearl, for example — have come back from NCAA suspensions and succeeded. But Pearl had a demonstrated record of success as a head coach. Stalions was a low-level staffer.
How can we guess Stalions will be deemed uncooperative? Because his attorney graciously allowed us to see part of his NCAA interview in the doc.
In that April interview, Stalions admits that people using tickets he purchased filmed games (not involving Michigan) and sent Stalions video. “Like when your aunt gets you a Christmas present you already have,” Stalions cracked.
Stalions tells investigators he never directed anyone to attend those games.
Later, an investigator asks if Stalions attended last year’s Central Michigan-Michigan State game in disguise on the Central Michigan sideline.
“I don’t recall attending a specific game,” Stalions says.
It’s the second-biggest laugh of the doc, right behind when Stalions holds a picture of the mysterious figure in Central Michigan gear and then says “I don’t even think this guy looks like me.”
That came moments after Barstool Sports founder (and Michigan grad) Dave Portnoy says Stalions told him it was Stalions on the Central Michigan sideline. So Stalions is laughing along as well.
But what doesn’t seem so funny is Stalions spent his whole life trying to get to the Michigan sideline, got there, and now he’ll probably never get back because he, as he put it, “exploited the rules.” Can he channel that obsession to coach at Michigan into another direction that allows him to lead a fulfilling life? Or will he always pine for a place that can never have him back?