Netflix doc sheds light on the Connor Stallion situation
Sign stealing is a college football term, and for those unaware, attributes to the practice of identifying hand signals used by coaches to instruct their players during a game. By correctly identifying this, opposition teams can get the jump on any plays by using makeshift “spies”, who feed this back to their team, counteracting those tactics and subsequently coming away with a covered win. For most of college football’s history, sign stealing is not actually against the rules.
However, the 2020’s saw a hand signal scandal grip the world of college football like no other. Connor Stallions is a name infamous throughout the football world but for those on the outside looking in, Untold does a good job of retelling the story in a simplified and fair way.
Working with the Michigan Wolverines, Connor was (allegedly) instrumental in helping Michigan overcome their losing streak, going on to help the team run unbeaten all the way through the 2023 season. I won’t recap the whole story here, but the crux of this comes down to illegal plays within the sign stealing community being the deciding factor over those crucial wins.
According to the NCAA, Connor sent his buddies (including family and friends) to alternate games to get a competitive edge, recording the coaches for the duration of the games and feeding this back to the Wolverines.
It’s here where the story starts to get interesting, and as the news follows Connor’s suspension from play, all kinds of rumours about him wearing disguises or being part of an elaborate scheme pop up. While Connor Stallions is the central player here, and this documentary interviews him, his friends, family and lawyer extensively, there is a desire to try and be fair and impartial too.
On the other side of the fence is a man named Brohio. Dressed in sunglasses, a balaclava and a hat, he digs deep in the forums against Connor as a whistleblower, and seems to have found evidence running contrary to the narrative Connor tells us in this documentary. There’s a lot of back and forth here, pivoting across the two narratives of “guilty” and “not guilty”, allowing the film to have a good ebb and flow to it.
One of the better segments in this film though comes late on, where we get a glimpse of just how thorough and meticulous Connor is. With a military background, a hard work ethic and an unrelenting disciple, he shows off a whole computer simulation plotting every draft pick from 2010 up to present day. He hasn’t shown anyone else (except the X number of people watching Netflix of course) but it’s an inclusion that shows just how deep this guy’s passion and OCD goes when it comes to football.
With the case still ongoing and question marks around who’s right and wrong here, Untold’s latest film does a good job recapping the events so far, and getting the general public up to scratch on this scandal. The talking head interviews are generally quite good, there’s a nice chunk of editing too, and the film has enough in the tank to recommend.
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Verdict - 7/10
7/10