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Michigan in trouble?

Someone tell me again why 'sign stealing' is illegal. It seems to me that having your signs stolen is more on the team using signs than the 'stealers'. I'm sure the coordinators spend hours viewing film of opponents, looking for patterns, looking for 'tells', looking for tendencies, etc. to give them an educated guess as to what they may do in certain situations. If the opponent also holds up a sign consistently when they do certain things, why is it wrong to notice and exploit that? I know in baseball, our coach would change the signs very often to prevent teams learning what ours meant. Am I missing something? Isn't the ability to steal signs just being observant and prepared for what the opponent is going to do? Isn't that what the team is paying its coordinators and coaches to do?
 
Someone tell me again why 'sign stealing' is illegal. It seems to me that having your signs stolen is more on the team using signs than the 'stealers'. I'm sure the coordinators spend hours viewing film of opponents, looking for patterns, looking for 'tells', looking for tendencies, etc. to give them an educated guess as to what they may do in certain situations. If the opponent also holds up a sign consistently when they do certain things, why is it wrong to notice and exploit that? I know in baseball, our coach would change the signs very often to prevent teams learning what ours meant. Am I missing something? Isn't the ability to steal signs just being observant and prepared for what the opponent is going to do? Isn't that what the team is paying its coordinators and coaches to do?
I would say it has to do with fair competition and sportsmanship. So, if we allow sign stealing are we going to allow watching each others practice, stealing play books. Where would it stop. You are not supposed to send someone to your next opponents' game to watch signs and film or anything like that. What you can view from normal tape on games is all you should need. If you are not good enough to win fairly then do not play.
 
Someone tell me again why 'sign stealing' is illegal. It seems to me that having your signs stolen is more on the team using signs than the 'stealers'. I'm sure the coordinators spend hours viewing film of opponents, looking for patterns, looking for 'tells', looking for tendencies, etc. to give them an educated guess as to what they may do in certain situations. If the opponent also holds up a sign consistently when they do certain things, why is it wrong to notice and exploit that? I know in baseball, our coach would change the signs very often to prevent teams learning what ours meant. Am I missing something? Isn't the ability to steal signs just being observant and prepared for what the opponent is going to do? Isn't that what the team is paying its coordinators and coaches to do?

Michigan isn't the first to be accused of stealing signs. Brent Venables was accused of it when he was DC at Clemson. But he wasn't accused of having staff members go to games and record future opponents signals. The attending opponents games and filming their signals and recording the play is what is illegal.

All that could be eliminated if you just subbed every play and he brought the play in. Of course that's too old school.
 
Michigan isn't the first to be accused of stealing signs. Brent Venables was accused of it when he was DC at Clemson. But he wasn't accused of having staff members go to games and record future opponents signals. The attending opponents games and filming their signals and recording the play is what is illegal.

All that could be eliminated if you just subbed every play and he brought the play in. Of course that's too old school.
OK, I understand that sending someone to 'spy' on an opponent isn't the most ethical way of preparing. However, if FB coaches would change their signals, wouldn't all of this be a moot point? Seems like most QBs wear a wristband, right? Couldn't the wristband be changed every game (hell, every quarter for that matter) so that the same dozen or so signs/signals would mean different things? I mean, if you think your signs are being stolen, wouldn't it be pretty easy to vary them without throwing the whole communication into disarray?
 
OK, I understand that sending someone to 'spy' on an opponent isn't the most ethical way of preparing. However, if FB coaches would change their signals, wouldn't all of this be a moot point? Seems like most QBs wear a wristband, right? Couldn't the wristband be changed every game (hell, every quarter for that matter) so that the same dozen or so signs/signals would mean different things? I mean, if you think your signs are being stolen, wouldn't it be pretty easy to vary them without throwing the whole communication into disarray?
I read somewhere TCU changed their signals before playing UM in the FBS championship. How did that work for UM?
 
OK, I understand that sending someone to 'spy' on an opponent isn't the most ethical way of preparing. However, if FB coaches would change their signals, wouldn't all of this be a moot point? Seems like most QBs wear a wristband, right? Couldn't the wristband be changed every game (hell, every quarter for that matter) so that the same dozen or so signs/signals would mean different things? I mean, if you think your signs are being stolen, wouldn't it be pretty easy to vary them without throwing the whole communication into disarray?

You are right, it's on the coaches if they think their signals are being stolen and don't change. But I don't know about everyone, but changing signals every week will likely cause an increase in missed assignments. You know as well as me some of these guys won't have a clue what play is called if signals are changed week to week. There is confusion at times now about formations and routes.
 
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OK, I understand that sending someone to 'spy' on an opponent isn't the most ethical way of preparing. However, if FB coaches would change their signals, wouldn't all of this be a moot point? Seems like most QBs wear a wristband, right? Couldn't the wristband be changed every game (hell, every quarter for that matter) so that the same dozen or so signs/signals would mean different things? I mean, if you think your signs are being stolen, wouldn't it be pretty easy to vary them without throwing the whole communication into disarray?
Say you have not played or coached a high level offense; without saying you have not played or coached a high level offense
 
I guess Pearl could have a cookout and have Moore over as a guest!! I am sure the NCAA wouldn’t care!!
 
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