"Sign Stealer" Review

Less than a year ago, very few people had even heard the name Connor Stalions.

As Michigan was in the middle of a push for a national title, he suddenly became a household name and was at the center of the biggest story in sports.

Michigan’s football team was accused of illegally stealing other teams’ signals, they were placed under investigation, and head coach Jim Harbaugh was suspended for the last three games of the regular season, which were their three biggest games.

Stalions grew up a Michigan fan and always wanted to be part of the program. He attended the Naval Academy and was in the U.S. Marines before working on Michigan’s staff decoding other teams’ signals.

Sign stealing was a legal practice and was practiced by many other teams around the country. Stalions created his own system and used data to best learn other teams’ signals which helped Michigan win two straight Big Ten championships and College Football Playoff Appearances.

However, they were accused of using illegal methods to steal signs which resulted in Stalions leaving the university. Despite this, Michigan would go on to win the National Championship, and there hasn’t been enough evidence to sanction the team and university.

The film answers questions about the sign-stealing culture and how Michigan’s system worked. However, it also opens the door to about as many questions as it answers.

The major debate is whether there is an asterisk on Michigan’s national championship. There are signals that point to illegal methods such as Stalions being on an opposing sideline at a Michigan State game, Stalions buying tickets to other games for other people and those people sending him game footage.

What is unclear is if any of these methods were actually used by Stalions and how much they would have helped Michigan as opposed to legal methods. In spite of the scandal and Stalions being removed from the staff, the team still won its biggest games of the season and the national championship after the scandal broke.

Another question for people to theorize is how the scandal was broken. The scandal broke after a private investigator obtained records of game footage recorded on cell phones and tickets for other football games.

These records were presented to the NCAA which started the investigation. They were also obtained by the Washington Post. Stalions and his legal team claimed that these documents were never shared with anybody, and they believed his email was hacked.

How credible are the charges against Michigan if the evidence was obtained illegally? The private investigator is unknown, but theories and circumstances point back to Michigan’s biggest rival Ohio State.

Ohio State head coach Ryan Day’s brother is a private investigator, and Day was at Boston College at the same time as the reporter from the Washington Post who obtained the documents, Will Hobson.

Day has not commented on claims that Ohio State was responsible for the start of the investigation, and Hobson said he didn’t know he was at Boston College at the same time as Day until the scandal broke.

It still leaves the question open of whether Stalions’s email was actually hacked and if Ohio State had anything to do with it.

Overall the film provides an interesting, unheard perspective of one of the biggest stories in sports.

However, it asks as many questions as it answered about not only Michigan but other schools including Ohio State.

This is a great documentary for sports fans to learn about a side of sports, and specifically college football that is behind the scenes. Fans can form their own opinions on this scandal and whether or not Michigan’s national championship is still valid.

Rating: 4/5

Jacob Rudy is a second-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email jar7371@psu.edu.