Untold: Sign Stealer

College football has always been driven by scandal.

Your team never really loses.

Your rival just cheated.

No program in college football is more historic than Michigan's.

Hail to the victors valiant! Hail to the...

So now here comes Jim Harbaugh's Wolverines...

Open! Touchdown, Michigan!

...undefeated...

Dominant in every facet of the game.

...clearly capable of winning the national championship.

On their way to the first national title in decades.

... to remain undefeated!

When Michigan started winning, suddenly something crazy was going on.

Bang, this guy in front of me is recording the whole game.

Wearing sunglasses at eight at night

with a fucking camera in 'em.

Throw the entire Michigan football program in jail if this photo is real!

Massive, fascinating mystery of a scandal.

And now the entire 2023 college football season

is consumed by Connor Stalions.

There's different pictures every day of this kid.

Ex-captain in the Marine Corps.

You know, this is like a TMZ story. This transcends sports.

He has a 600-page manifesto.

Connor Stalions was a household name.

- - It was made for memeing.

The Boogeyman, Connor Söze,

Keyser Söze, everywhere you go, he's like a spook story.

I'm like, "Oh, Michigan better win the whole thing now."

Michigan, Michigan, Michigan.

Michigan broke a rule. You'll never convince me otherwise.

Why do people keep lying about it?

Nobody can find this guy, Connor Stalions,

and everyone wants to hear him tell his side of this crazy story.

What's going on up in Michigan?

Oh!

I mean, there is a lot of allegations happening,

and it's getting loud.

When all this stuff came out in October, I kind of went in hiding.

They dragged my name in the mud.

They dragged Michigan's name in the mud for months.

Just like that, my whole life changed.

And when you really learn what goes on in college football

and what went on with us in Michigan,

I think a lot of people are gonna have some explaining to do.

Well, I mean, I'm a sportswriter for The Detroit News ,

and Michigan obviously is of interest in sports in our coverage area.

There's basically the Lions, and then there's Michigan football,

and then there's everything else.

The 2023 Michigan Football Team put Michigan back in people's consciousness.

And the Michigan Wolverines get the victory.

- This was a great Michigan football team. - Michigan has dominated.

They had a great quarterback in J.J. McCarthy,

a great running back in Blake Corum...

Blake Corum, straight ahead.

- - Touchdown, Michigan.

...an all-time defense.

Timosciek into coverage, and that is picked off.

Michigan is 7-0, ranked second in the nation.

All of a sudden, out of nowhere comes the story

of this elaborate sign stealing scheme

or whatever you want to call it, and Connor was the guy.

The NCAA is investigating the Michigan football program

amid allegations of sign stealing.

My bosses wanted something on Connor Stalions.

"Who is this guy? Find out anything you can about him,"

which was difficult. He wasn't talking.

His parents weren't talking. His friends weren't talking.

His colleagues weren't talking.

No one wanted to talk about this guy, which I found very strange,

so the first thing I decided to do was try to figure out

who Connor was growing up in Lake Orion.

I spent four hours in his hometown library

looking at his yearbooks.

He was in National Honor Society.

- He played basketball. He played football. -

Right here, you know, this chapter is titled "Leaders of the Future,"

and there's a picture of Connor Stalions

talking about his desire to be a good role model, be a good leader,

set a good example.

In one of Michigan football's best seasons of all time,

the story becomes this kid that no one knew anything about.

Ever since I was three years old,

I always knew I wanted to coach.

Who will you play football for when you're bigger, Connor? Michigan?

Connor, give me your football look.

Yeah, my man.

Hut, hut, hike!

Hi, Mommy.

Even at a really young age...

...their passion for Michigan rubbed off on me right away.

My mom grew up a die-hard Michigan fan.

My passion for U of M directly, I think, transferred to Connor.

We are crazed Michigan fans.

- Yeah, Dad. - Yay, Michigan!

Connor! What's that?

Football.

- Yeah. - Football.

- You having a football game? - Yeah.

Cool.

National champions, baby!

Connor, are you a little choked up?

- -

Connor has always been a very focused, driven kid,

and he knew from a young age that he wanted to be

the head football coach at University of Michigan.

Trick or treat.

For Halloween, when he was seven years old...

Who are you for Halloween?

- Michigan coach. - A Michigan coach?

He dressed as a Michigan coach, and he wore, like, these headphones.

That was like his headset,

and he was Bo Schembechler for Halloween.

Growing up, it was always Bo Schembechler and the history of Michigan football,

and what always resonated with me was his "The Team" speech.

- -

We want the Big Ten championship, and we're gonna win it as a team.

"We're gonna win the Big Ten championship, and we're gonna win it as a team."

No man...

"No man is more important than the team."

No coach...

"No coach is more important than the team."

- The team. The team. The team. - "The team. The team."

Everything that you do,

you take into consideration, "What effect does it have on my team?"

After you leave here, you will never play for a team again.

You'll play for a contract.

You'll play for this. You'll play for that.

"You'll play for everything except the team."

When the old season is over,

you and I know it's gonna be Michigan again.

Michigan.

So Michigan football is the winningest program

in college football history,

and there's all sorts of crazy records and undefeated seasons

when the sport first started in this country.

Culligan passing. It's good!

- -

And then you get to a period of time

where the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry takes center stage.

You have a ten years war, was the name for it.

Bo Schembechler. Woody Hayes.

But that starts to establish this

as one of the great rivalries in all of sports.

So Michigan is one of the biggest brands in college football,

but others are winning national titles,

and Michigan breaks through in 1997, a national championship.

- - Hail, hail to Michigan!

After that, Michigan's kind of grasping for that type of success.

As Michigan, you want to be winning Big Ten titles and national championships,

and to do that, you have to beat Ohio State.

Here's how it goes at the University of Michigan.

You can have great season after great season,

but if you can't beat Ohio State, you've got a problem.

When I was in high school, I began to research coaching.

And 15 of the top 20 coaches of all time,

Mike Krzyzewski, Gregg Popovich, John Wooden, Bear Bryant,

Woody Hayes, Bo Schembechler,

they all had one thing in common.

They all served in the military.

That's why I began to pursue the Naval Academy.

- Aye, aye, sir! - Aye, aye, sir! Aye, aye, sir!

Sir, the mission of the United States Naval Academy

is to develop shipmen!

I'm an 18-year-old. I'm at the Naval Academy.

All of my primary time dedicated to that.

But I also knew that I wanted to coach at Michigan,

and so I needed to get involved with the football program at Navy.

Not knowing any better,

I just walked right into Coach Niumat's office,

and I simply asked him if I could student coach.

And he stands up, and he says, "Follow me."

He walked me into the offensive coordinator's office.

"Here's your new student coach."

I said, "Oh. Thanks, Coach."

"Hey, what do I do on game day?"

The staff member that I asked kind of thought about it.

He said, "Well, deciphering opponent signals,

if you want to try that, then knock yourself out."

We welcome you to Baltimore, Maryland,

as the brigade of Midshipmen arrive in style.

My first game as a student at Navy

was against Ohio State.

Out of Columbus, the Buckeyes of Ohio State.

For Navy football, you are the underdog.

Every ounce in my body despises Ohio State ...

... so I'm going to do everything in my power

to figure out what Ohio State's signals mean.

I've always felt that football was pretty closely related to warfare.

Most people at the Naval Academy are much smarter than I am,