Connor Stalions Documentary Presents Dubious Case for Innocence of Sign-Stealing Activity at Michigan

The former Wolverines staffer says he did not break any rules and anything that did happen was on his own accord.

Connor Stalions, right, is the subject of a new documentary about last season’s sign-stealing scandal at Michigan. / Adam Cairns / USA TODAY NETWORK

If you don’t have a Netflix subscription or 87 spare minutes to watch Sign Stealer, the Connor Stalions documentary, let me summarize it for you: 

Obsessive fanboy dedicates his life to Michigan football, ingratiates his way into the program and works to help the Wolverines win by any means necessary. Because he’s smart and a hard worker, he creates a niche for himself. Because he’s a devious weasel, that niche involves going to extraordinary lengths to steal opposing teams’ play signals—not that he admits to violating any NCAA rules in the process. He gets busted and the dream job blows up, but Michigan wins the national title and Stalions joins the rogues’ gallery of con men who help make college sports so weirdly fascinating.

Roll credits.

Go Blue.

The documentary doesn’t achieve much beyond telling us who Stalions is, and getting the first interview with him since his name became infamous last October. It provides insight into the roots and depth of his Michigan fandom. And it gives him a platform to present his extremely dubious case for being innocent of any activity that could lead to NCAA sanctions for himself and his beloved Wolverines. (In a notice of allegations that was delivered Sunday, the NCAA is seeking a three-year ban on Stalions coaching at that level, according to a postscript on the doc.)

“I don’t always break the rules,” Stalions said late in the doc. “In fact, I’d argue that I don’t break the rules. I just walk a very fine line in the gray. I exploit the rules. I don’t break the rules, I exploit them.”

Among the rules Stalions said he didn’t break, despite pretty much being caught red-handed:

• Attending the Central Michigan–Michigan State game dressed as a Chippewas staffer, and perhaps wearing spy sunglasses. 

“Could it be that Connor was at that game? Maybe,” his attorney, Brad Beckworth, said. “Whether that happened or not, that would be up to Connor to talk about.”

Stalions didn’t talk much about it. In the funniest part of the documentary, he holds up a picture of Maybe Connor on the sideline in disguise and said, with a wry smile, “I don’t even think this guy looks like me.”

Later, the film shows a video clip of Stalions’s Zoom interview with NCAA investigators in April. When asked whether he was at the Central Michigan–Michigan State game, Stalions said, “I don’t recall attending the game, no.”

This echoed former Wolverines coach Jim Harbaugh’s stance when he was caught red-handed violating NCAA rules by having breakfast with a recruit during the COVID-19 dead period. Harbaugh eventually acknowledged he must have been there when a receipt showed someone ordered a burger for breakfast, because he’s the only person who would do that. But he still insisted that he didn’t remember being there.

This, apparently, is how a proper, forthright Michigan Man responds when cold busted for the kind of violations Michigan Men used to sneer at other schools about. Just say you don’t remember. Makes you wonder if the water supply in Schembechler Hall has somehow been tainted and is affecting the staffers’ memories.

• Sending tickets to friends, associates and Michigan interns to attend games of future Wolverines opponents for the purpose of videotaping their play signals, then relaying that video to Stalions.

“I did not obtain signals through in-person scouting,” Stalions said.

“I don’t ever recall directing someone to go to a game,” he said.

“I purchased tickets to many games,” he said. “There are some people who attended the games using tickets I purchased and recorded parts of the game. Sometimes I would receive film from them.”

But, Stalions said, he didn’t request the film and didn’t need it to do his (permissible, within NCAA rules) job of decoding other teams’ signs.

So the premise Stalions is asking the world to buy is this: He knew people who wanted to attend college football games; by sheer happenstance, those games happened to involve future opponents, or potential opponents, of Michigan; for some reason, these football fans came to him to purchase the tickets instead of doing it themselves; just for kicks, some of those fans decided to record what was happening on the sidelines they were positioned to see; and yes, some of them sent him that video but he didn’t ask for it.

I’ve heard better lies.

• A third party (or parties) bankrolling Stalions’s ticket-buying spree.

Yahoo Sports reported last November that a Michigan booster identified by the NCAA as “Uncle T” was then an alleged financial backer for Stalions. 

“Quite frankly, I’ve never heard of the name Uncle T,” Stalions said in the film.

But has he heard of the name Tim Smith? Yahoo Sports said that is Uncle T’s identity. Smith denied funding Stalions.

There wasn’t much drilling down on how the tickets were bought or how much they cost.

• Stalions said he acted alone.

He might have, but we didn’t even get any denials, explanation or reaction from Stalions regarding the firing of Michigan linebackers coach Chris Partridge.

Partridge, left, gestures to his players during the first quarter of a game at Spartan Stadium. / Mike Carter-USA TODAY Sports

Partridge was terminated Nov. 17, in the heat of the Stalions scandal and during its undefeated season. ESPN reported at the time that Partridge did not comply with the NCAA investigation, citing a termination notice that said he “failed to abide by the university directive not to discuss an ongoing NCAA investigation with anyone associated with the Michigan football program or others and as a result has determined that you have failed to satisfactorily perform your duties.”

In the documentary, Stalions cited Partridge as the assistant who got him in the door at Michigan to start working for the program. The doc briefly showed a visual noting Partridge’s dismissal, but Stalions never addressed it.

Also, the documentary makes no mention of Stalions’s former Michigan associate Jake Kostner, whose status on the Central Michigan coaching staff has been the subject of speculation for the last month. Kostner, who was a student assistant in the 2010s while Stalions was at Michigan, is (or perhaps was) the quarterback coach for the Chippewas. He’s still listed as a staff member on the school’s athletic website.

Central Michigan issued a statement Tuesday addressing the school’s role in the documentary: “We are aware of inferences made in the new Netflix documentary regarding former University of Michigan football staff member Connor Stalions accessing the CMU sidelines during our opening game last September. For the past 10 months, CMU has fully cooperated with the NCAA’s ongoing investigation, and we will continue to cooperate with the NCAA as it works to complete its investigation.”

The Chippewas open their season Thursday night against Central Connecticut State. We’ll see whether Kostner is in attendance. Or Stalions, for that matter. He certainly appeared to be at their opener last year.

For now, Stalions is a volunteer assistant at Detroit Mumford High School, coaching the defense. The NCAA could do significant damage to any dream he has of returning to college coaching, so he might want to get used to that level of football. 

Even if his coaching career outlasts any NCAA sanctions, it’s impossible to envision this Michigan Man ever returning to the sidelines in the Big House. That’s the ironic price of an obsessive desire to help his favorite team win.