What to Expect in Netflix’s Michigan Football Documentary Featuring Stalions

There was a report recently indicating that a documentary about Connor Stalions, Michigan football, and an alleged sign-stealing scandal was in the works.

On Monday, this report by Chris Balas of The Wolverine proved accurate as Netflix announced the documentary, which will be available to watch on Aug. 27. It’s part of the untold series. Outside of being interesting to Michigan football and college football fans, my hope is that we learn a lot from this documentary.

It wouldn’t be shocking to find out that Stalions wasn’t the only college football staffer buying tickets for other teams’ games. The alleged sign-stealing by Stalions was portrayed as some “elaborate” scheme, but the truth is that it wasn’t that at all.

Stalions bought some tickets for people, and they recorded some videos. Even if those were signs, it’s a lot of effort for a little information. But, as this documentary will probably show, Stalions was obsessed with Michigan football. He was obsessed with being part of the program.

He worked his way onto the staff as a sign-stealer, which isn’t against the rules (in-person scouting technically is, but the NCAA even said it provides “minimal competitive advantage”).

In other words, it wasn’t the reason Michigan won the national championship (as the NCAA president already said) and it wasn’t the reason they beat Ohio State three straight times. The Wolverines won ‘The Game’ in November, months after the allegations came out.

If Ohio State didn’t change its signs by then, or in 2022 or 2021, that’s their fault. Just like Michigan can be blamed when Ohio State stole its signals. It’s a cat-and-mouse game that got blown out of proportion because Ryan Day complained, and James Franklin did too.

My hope is that this documentary sheds some light on “Third Day Investigations” and how a Washington Post reporter and the NCAA got information that was on a protected drive, which Stalions had secured with a password.

It’s all very intriguing. My thought is that Stalions wouldn’t participate in the documentary if it was going to show Michigan football in a bad light. He has always maintained that the coaching staff didn’t know, which has been echoed by the staff and Jim Harbaugh, who said his program is “innocent.”

I don’t know exactly what we’ll see. Stalions doesn’t have final editing power, but I think it could change some misperceptions about him and this perceived scandal, which might be the most overblown in sports history.

Source: The Wolverine, Netflix