Michigan's Sherrone Moore could face suspension, show-cause penalty from NCAA in sign-stealing investigation
A draft of the NCAA's notice of allegations reveals what could await the new Wolverines coach
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Michigan in trouble?
- Thread starter gobigblue812
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They will just deny and delay until it disappears like everyone else except us
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.
The NCAA has already doled out their punishment for Michigan, we are on probation now for Michigan's wrongdoings.
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?
I read somewhere TCU changed their signals before playing UM in the FBS championship. How did that work for UM?
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.
Say you have not played or coached a high level offense; without saying you have not played or coached a high level offense
I hear what you're saying. But, if I understand how the signals work for teams, they either do some kind of hand motions or hold up a sign with a variety of images on them. The QB consults his wristband to decipher the play call. Would it really be that difficult to change wristbands so that the image that triggers the call gets switched to another image (or hand signal)? The play itself would remain exactly the same but the trigger that selects the play would change. Is that really difficult for a QB to decipher?
Let's put it in baseball terms: left hand touching the belt means the next sign is the one. OK, in the 5th inning, you tell all the players that the indicator sign is now the right hand to the bill of the cap. Is that too much to process? I don't know but I sure wouldn't think so. Heck, change wrist bands at halftime and the wrist band could have an indicator of which image (if it's a physical sign) or hand gesture is the new trigger.
I really don't see how that would be too complicated if a coaching staff is worried about their signs being stolen. Or, change each week in practice when the players now have several days to get accustomed to a new trigger. Or, don't change anything, have the same signs and same triggers for every single down of every game and then bitch that an opposing coach is smart enough to pick up on that.
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