R.J. Young
FOX Sports National College Football Analyst
Connor Stallions is on record and has no regrets.
“I don’t regret anything and I would do it again,” Stallions said in a new Netflix documentary, “The Untold Truth: Sign Stealers” was released on Tuesday.
Stallions, of course, is now at the center of the NCAA’s investigation into alleged in-person scouting and sign-stealing at the University of Michigan.
The NCAA has sent the university a notice of charges, and sanctions could follow, but fans clamoring for the Stallions and UM to plead guilty aren’t going to get it.
What was meant to be a story about the greatest Michigan team of all time became a story about the Stallions, whose story is not only interesting but has mostly been told in second or third order.
The Stallions were raised to be Michigan fans by Michigan die-hard fans.
“We’re die-hard Michigan fans,” Stallions’ mother, Kelly, said in the documentary.
The documentary features video of the Stallions crying after Michigan won the national title in 1997. As a child, he dressed up as Michigan coach Bo Schembechler for Halloween. He later decided to join the United States Army after reading that 15 of the 20 greatest coaches of all time served in the military.
And that was why he chose to pursue appointment and selection to the Naval Academy.
The Stallions first began decoding opposing signals on Aug. 30, 2014, during his first game as a Navy student coach, against Ohio State. Four years later, he’d graduated, enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps with the rank of captain and still had ambitions of coaching at Michigan.
“This kid has so much drive,” Detroit News reporter Tony Paul says in the film, “maybe too much.”
The Stallions first came into contact with the Michigan coaching staff at a major clinic, and after meeting with former Michigan assistant Chris Partridge, he offered to begin an internship with the team and contribute as a sign-stealer.
He called his job “intelligence operations staff” and considered Michigan to be at the bottom of existing intelligence agencies. Significantly, he had volunteered for the team for three years while serving in the Marines.
While stationed at Camp Pendleton in California, he traveled to Michigan games at his own expense, meeting with the team and standing on the sideline decoding signals.
Stallion took the time to create a game-day sign-stealing sheet for Michigan’s opponents. In total, he referenced 2,000 to 3,000 signs. To accomplish this, he videotaped himself; cut out, collated and memorized his own images. Stallion’s innovation coincided with Michigan’s historic three-year record, which saw the team go 15-0 and win the national championship in 2023.
In 2022, he was recognized for his contributions to the team and was presented with the game ball by Jim Harbaugh after UM’s win over Iowa.
He wrote a thousand-page manifesto outlining what he believed to be a competitive advantage, but he claims to have learned other teams’ signs using the same methods used by everyone else in the segregated, secretive world of college football sign-stealing.
“I don’t have a scouting background,” he said in the film, “I get signals just like any other team. What sets me apart is how I organize the information and process it on game day.”
But after Michigan was found guilty of cheating in 2023, Stallions disappeared and distanced himself from the program.
Stallions’ lawyer, Brad Beckworth, argued in the documentary that Michigan only leaked information about Stallions’ firing after he had notified the university in writing that he had resigned.
What’s most striking to me is that Dave Portnoy, the Michigan guy, is the most likable, honest, genuine guy in this entire documentary. He knows Michigan cheated. He knows the Stallions cheated. And he’s happy about it. He’s happy that Michigan analysts did what it took to not only beat Ohio State three years in a row, but to win a national title.
Portnoy said Stallions told him he was the disguised man on the Central Michigan sideline in the now-infamous photo taken before Michigan’s 2023 game against Central Michigan University.
But when asked about the same photo and whether it was him, Stallions responded, “I don’t think this guy looks like me,” and he wasn’t keeping a straight face when he said that.
Michigan head coach Sherone Moore accused of off-campus scouting practices
The Starions attended the Ohio State-Michigan game last year, despite publicly distancing themselves from the University of Michigan’s football program.
At the center of the investigation into the scandal is the Stallions’ unusual purchase of tickets to 30 games over the past three years, including 11 at Big Ten Conference stadiums. The Stallions claim they bought tickets to so many games because they enjoy watching college football.
An investigation by an outside law firm led to the discovery of documents relating to scouted matches and individuals who were paid to act as scouts with ties to the Stallions. The Stallions claimed their computers were hacked to obtain the information. On April 24, 2024, the Stallions were interviewed by the NCAA regarding the ongoing investigation.
He denied the charge.
R.J. Young He is a national college football reporter and analyst for FOX Sports and hosts the podcast “The No. 1 college football program.“Follow him Translator and Subscribe to The RJ Young Show on YouTube.
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