Five takeaways from the Connor Stalions Netflix documentary on Michigan’s sign stealing scandal

The Connor Stalions documentary is now available to stream on Netflix, and we have some thoughts and takeaways after watching it:

The latest chapter in the Connor Stalions sign stealing saga — which has been hanging over Michigan football’s head like a storm cloud for nearly a year now — has been released in the form of a documentary.

Connor Stalions spoke in a Netflix documentary as part of the streaming giant’s “Untold” series. This is the first time Stalions has spoken publicly about the saga, and the release of the documentary feels a bit rushed.

Just two days ago , Michigan received a Notice of Allegations from the NCAA regarding its investigation into advanced scouting, and we likely won’t see a resolution for months. Michigan head coach Sherrone Moore has said recently he looks forward to the texts between him and Stalions being released , and implied he’d be avoiding the documentary and watching film to prepare for Fresno State instead . This all comes a week news broke that Stalions landed a defensive coordinator job at Mumford High School in Detroit.

I watched the Stalions documentary so that, just like Sherrone Moore, you don’t have to. Here are five takeaways from it.

Awesome to re-live the highs of the last three seasons

As someone who watched almost every Michigan game from the past three seasons, just seeing all the highlights all over again was the highlight of this documentary. From seeing footage of the 2021 Ohio State victory to all the important wins once Stalions was no longer with the program, being able to experience that again was the best part of watching this 90-minute documentary, which could have easily been 30 minutes shorter.

Stalions’ work ethic is incredible…to a fault

Roughly the first half of the documentary dives into Stalions’ childhood and military background, and when you combine his intense Michigan fandom (dressing up as Bo Schembechler as a kid for Halloween) with his intelligence analysis training, it’s the perfect storm for a scheme like this.

Someone who is pro-Stalions could say his work ethic is off the charts, and this documentary does a good job showcasing that. His dad claims Connor slept in his car for years and rented out his house to afford tickets to attend college football games while at Navy. He was very dedicated to sign stealing after volunteering to join Navy’s staff, with that experience becoming his main role at Michigan.

He became a popular guy on that coaching staff for his work ethic, culminating in earning a game ball from head coach Jim Harbaugh, an honor he still clearly holds dearly.

The process with which Stalions used to obtain these signs is…pretty out there. Towards the middle of the documentary, Stalions explains the process where he filmed himself executing 2,000-3,000 signs (!!!) before entering those signals in a database, matching them with corresponding pictures to help with memorization. That database was part of his massive manifesto — which he refused to go in-depth on, in the name of secrecy — which also included recruiting strategy and an interactive map showcasing where each NFL draft pick since 2010 was from.

To find one positive in the guy, you can’t deny he has an insane work ethic and loyalty to the school he loves, even at one point telling his attorney “I’ll throw myself on a grenade for the school.” Whether his dedication to the program crossed the line of overt obsession is up for debate.

The whole process of sign signaling is ridiculous

The documentary reminds us that in-helmet electronic communication is coming to college football in 2024 , effectively ending in-person signals for many schools. Many programs jokingly refer to this as “the Stalions rule” as the documentary touches on.

This has been a long-time coming; the fact college football has gone this long without it is hard to wrap your head around. It shouldn’t have taken all of this to lead to change with that. Not including it until now is yet another example of the NCAA being reactive and still being stuck in the stone age in many ways, especially considering the NFL has had in-helmet communications since before the turn of the century.

It was cool to have a player’s perspective

The only person tied to the University of Michigan in the documentary is Michael Barrett, the newest member of the Seattle Seahawks and the winningest player in Michigan football history. This is understandable, considering most Michigan players, coaches and officials likely turned down an interview request, considering the investigation is still ongoing.

It was nice to hear from Barrett, who included a perspective from the players while the media blitz surrounding Stalions was at its busiest. He had some great quotes in the piece, referring to Michigan State as “little bro” and even with the concerns from MSU brought up before the October game, “they still didn’t score any points” in spite of Stalions not being with the team.

One of the more humorous parts of the film came from a brief exchange between Barrett and Stalions, who attended the game against Ohio State and said “good game, Mike” when seeing him on the field after everyone stormed the field following the victory.

Barrett offers sound perspective on the whole saga and speaks to the success of the program over the last few years. It was good to hear from the linebacker who now is reunited with several teammates and former coaches in Seattle.

It was entertaining, but we didn’t really learn much

Was this the worst way to spend 90 minutes of my day? Not at all. There have certainly been worse Netflix sports docs, with that Florida one from last year essentially being a PR presentation that barely touched on all the legal controversy surrounding Urban Meyer’s most dominant teams. This new documentary was good enough to keep me entertained, but those who have been following this story since it broke last year wouldn’t have learned much from watching this.

Stalions going through his process for sign stealing and briefly touching on his database was fascinating, but most of his quotes were exactly what you’d expect. He denies pretty much everything and doesn’t regret what he did, with the last quote from him being he has no regrets and “would do it all over again.” The documentary also touches on the angle of Ohio State possibly being involved in Stalions’ computer getting hacked, but everything is still up in the air and mostly hearsay.

While I understand Netflix’s goal to be the exclusive home for Stalions’ response to the allegations, releasing a “documentary” before the story itself is resolved — i.e. the thing being documented — feels irresponsible from a journalistic perspective and more of a way for them to get more views and subscribers.

A few quick bonus notes

-Some great Michigan-based journalists were interviewed for the documentary, including Yahoo’s Dan Wetzel, NBC’s Nicole Auerbach and The Detroit News’ Tony Paul. All three offered good perspective.

-The documentary also touches on the personal relationship between Stalions and Wolverine Wire’s Isaiah Hole, who consoled Stalions when all this was going on and didn’t report private phone calls between the two. Props to Hole for being a good human in what I would imagine were difficult times for Stalions.

-The back half of the documentary focused on the fall of Stalions, largely centering around how Ohio State fans on message boards claim they knew all about this scheme before journalists reported on it, with Auerbach even confirming what was on the message boards ended up being true based on her reporting.

-The voice for Ohio State fans came from “Brohio,” an Ohio State mega fan who hilariously concealed his identity with a ski mask and sunglasses, just like Stalions did when attending Michigan’s 2023 win over the Buckeyes.

-One of the funniest parts of the documentary revolved around the infamous footage that appears to show Stalions in a disguise on the Central Michigan sideline in its game against Michigan State. In his typical coy fashion, Stalions denies it is him when the producer shows it to him, saying “I don’t even think this guy looks like me,”

Props to the editors of the documentary, who stitched that quote right behind a soundbite from Barstool Sports’ Dave Portnoy, who says Stalions told him the guy in the picture was, in fact, Stalions.

What were your thoughts on the documentary? Let us know in the comments.