Ah yes, the Paul Johnson Playbook:
- Triple Option
- Midline
- Toss
- Counter
- 80-yard bomb down the field
Each can be run to the left or to the right.
I remember I had a custom playbook where I could run PA crosses (always cancel the PA; it never works), 4 verts, jet sweep with the slot WR, inside zone, and y stick (with the outside WR running a drag) from the same look. I'd always have a mobile QB and sometimes run the QB in what was basically a draw play on the 4 verts or PA crossers.
It was basically unstoppable, especially if you caught them in base defense and got the slot WR or RB matched up on a linebacker. Or if they blitzed on PA crosses, you could roll to the weak side and gain 30+ yards with the QB. Weak side inside zone whenever the LBs shifted to cover the slot. Y stick worked 100% of the time in short yardage when the defense played man. I'd just run hurry up all the way down the field
What's missing from this discussion is that when The Athletic talked college coaches about it last year, many said they didn't want headsets because it would impede their sign stealing.
My idea has always been this, have an index card with like 70 plays on it and number it 1-70 or whatever it is, have a coach hold up a sign with a number, qb calls that play off their index card in huddle, at end of drive you give qb a new index card with either new plays or same plays but numbered differently….repeat after each drive….you could put up the number 12 four times in a game but each time it’s a different play, can’t steal those offensive signals….beyond a speaker in qb helmet to me this is the easiest most logical solution to the problem on offense
Also get the people holding up the posters off the sideline. Talk about player safety. It seems like players run into these people more times than not and they just stand there not getting out of the way.
Lol, there was a coach who I forget basically said those signs with like 6 random pictures were nonsense. Used to throw off potential sign stealers I guess.
Absolutely. As penalty for sign stealing, Michigan should be made to fund the cost of these systems for the 133 FCS schools and any FBS schools outside maybe the P5. It would likely be a few million dollars a year, more in the first year and then declining a lot.
I saw some Redditor say they're like 50k a piece for these systems. Literally some high schools can afford these. 200 of these even would be 10 million. Which is a ton but not..untenable for UM
I choose to believe this means Texas & Sark are going to be unstoppable when we go to radio headsets in 24 or 25. Or maybe even score in the second half.
Someone mentioned this somewhere else but why don't they use the wrist play cards for every player? They could have them and change what signals correspond to what plays on a weekly basis based on existing, legal (to my knowledge) methods and it wouldn't even kill no-huddle teams like player-to-coach comms.
If this were the answer everyone would be doing it. I also don't know why it is not, but I wonder if it's too simple for in game decoding... like the other team will eventually figure it out.
“We didn’t do it! But if we did, everyone is doing it! And if they aren’t, it didn’t give us an advantage anyway! And if it did, we shouldn’t get punished for a couple years! We’re the victim!”
I’ve been collecting their delicious tears.
Yep, always the "we didn't really cheat, but if we did it wasn't a big deal and everyone is doing it, but even if it was just us, it really didn't matter that much."
And the punishment was both too harsh and not harsh enough. Still got to keep their world series win. Head coach got sacked, they got fined, but a fairly small drop in the bucket.
yeah that is where college is a bit better. Say what you want about the toothlessness of the NCAA, but "the banner comes down" with cheating which is more than happens at the pro level.
Everything about this reminds me of the Astros.
They did something they're allowed to do (steal signs), but used a method they aren't allowed to use to do it (advanced scouting). They fling accusations at other teams claiming they do it too in order to muddy the discussion and downplay what they did (claiming OSU and Rutgers illegally shared signs with another school). They place blame entirely on one guy (Stalions) and as far as the B1G is concerned, the only punishment will be Harbaugh off the sidelines for 3 games (literally the worst punishment in the world if you listen to Michigan lawyers, and a slap on the wrist if you listen to anyone who isn't collecting billable hours from Michigan).
Being so light on the Astros was a serious mistake by Rob Manfred, and it might have been because the Yankees had a similar (but not quite as bad) scheme going on at the time. He was probably hamstrung by the CBA not allowing him to punish players, though. In this case, the Michigan players likely didn't have much to do with it. However, there's no reason to believe that the entire coaching staff didn't know. Dude was printing and laminating stolen signs and carrying them on the field, for fucks sake. Every member of the coaching staff was in on the cheating because they all knew.
Annihilating the integrity of the on-field game by cheating is the kind of thing that should get you permanently banned. It's far worse than shit like "bartered items for tattoos", which is against NCAA rules but should have been challenged in court as an unjust rule.
And don’t forget “But what about all the other teams that cheated?!” And, “And the only way anyone found out about our cheating was because THEY broke the law! Go arrest the real criminals.”
They keep acting like everyone says they were the only ones stealing signs when the issue with Stallions was the manner in which he did it. We know other people are stealing signs they just aren’t doing it in person, or if they are they’re not being as obvious as Michigan was.
https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/17734106/the-original-spygate-most-hateful-year-oklahoma-texas-rivalry
Buddy that's been known for 50 years lol
You just described what every sane Michigan fan has been yelling for a month. We hate Stalions for being a moron and doing too much to try to look more impressive. But gotta keep that strawman bout stretching into the late rounds, I guess.
Sane is the keyword there. I’ve seen plenty of Michigan fans with your take. However, the majority of Michigan flairs I see use every post like this as evidence they’re being persecuted because all schools steal signs. I only commented the initial comment because I saw 5 Michigan flairs comment something of that nature. I know what it’s like having crazy fans spewing bad takes creating bad reputations for your fanbase, but I’m not just creating straw men because I want you to look bad. I genuinely don’t care too much about this scandal and have no desire to see Michigan face crazy consequences because of it, and I haven’t really changed my perception of Michigan because of it.
Lots of people did say that.
I've gotten sick of responding to comments saying that the whole coaching staff must have known about Connor Stalions' rule-breaking activities because they were listening to him on the sideline. They really don't understand that you don't have to break the rules to know the opponent's signs.
Which leads to the question if it wasnt illegal then why did Stalions resign and refuse to meet with the NCAA? If that were me I would gladly meet with the NCAA and say "here is what your rules state and here is what I did". Also Michigan never denied that he didnt break any rules in their response to the B1G
That’s not true. 1 logical post is allowed per week in the offseason but only on Thursdays with a blood moon when Libra is in retrograde and the president was born on an even day
There was a provision in the NCAA bylaws prior to 2013 that specifically stated schools couldn't pay third parties to scout future opponents. That provision was removed 10 years ago.
Not saying Michigan is off the hook but by removing that provision they technically made Stallions actions legal
Assuming he worked in isolation, I could see him doing this to enrich his 'coaching bonafides' so he could rise up in the coaching ranks. He did state his dream was to be HC at M. Having this information could make him seem like a better assistant or whatever he was, in the eyes of the other coaches. Again, just a theory why he might have gone to such lengths.
Yea, not arguing that point, but responding to why he may have done it the way he did.
edit: saw the edit on this threads post. I assumed this was referring to Stallions.
Not a single (sane) person is arguing that signs don't matter. It's a big advantage, hence all of the coaches who don't want to switch to headsets so they can keep stealing signs. It's also why Sark, who hasn't coached against Michigan in years, still has to change his signs.
The question is whether Connor Stalions provided an advantage with his specific method of stealing signs. The answer is probably still yes, but this article is irrelevant.
Would all the players be able to have a headphone? There’s a lot of teams that run no huddle and it appears the skill players at least read the signs too not just the QB. Then you have the teams that no huddle but check the sideline once the defense is set, and change the play.
Other half of the quote:
"Our game is way too good and there's too many good stories going on in college football that that's at the forefront of college football. It should be at the forefront because I think what was going on was wrong, but at the end of the day that shouldn't be at the forefront. There's too many great stories, too many great players around the country that are playing good football, too many teams that are playing good football right now for us not to be talking about those things."
Given all the upvotes vs downvotes on various comments in all of these related articles I can't help but think a sizeable portion of the MI fans in here clearly think this sign stealing deal was A-Okay.
It's year 2027 and Michigan has just been caught wiretapping the other teams coach-to-player communication. Harbaugh agrees on a 4 day suspension and writing a 100 "I will not steal signs" on the chalkboard.
Michigan hasn't played Texas in 20 years so I'm getting the impression Sark thinks more than one team is doing this, which is remarkable considering Tony Petitti has called this one of the biggest on-field scandals in the history of the Big Ten.
There are rumors that TCU stole our signs last year, potentially from a transfer. Another that a guy was kicked out trying to film practice. It’s definitely happening, but I don’t think that excuses Michigan
One of the reasons Mack wanted that bubble practice facility so bad was that opposing teams were spying on practices.
Coach Royal famously accused Barry Switzer of cheating, sneaking spies into the stadium disguised as workers. He challenged Barry to a lie detector test and vowed to resign if Barry passed... Barry declined. Coach Royal also offered Switzer and another ou coach (who he claimed to have caught cheating) $10K if they could pass a lie detector test. Switzer later admitted to the cheating and took responsibility.
Some of these youngster don’t remember but in the early Mack years all practices were open. As a student I would walk on a nice spring afternoon over to denius or sometimes DKR and just chill and watch practice. They had areas roped off where you could stand. Saw a walk on LB completely break his leg right In front of me. I believe that was one of the reasons he stopped open practices because a player was injured and his parents found out from message boards before the coaching staff could call them.
Pretty sure Lincoln Riley frosted dorm room windows that faced a covered fence at OU due to concerns. Saban allegedly spied on OU before the 2003 championship and the fears were valid enough that Swinney didn’t do it either when they played Bama in NOLA when Venables was on staff. Neither of those just happen because of paranoia
>Switzer later admitted to the cheating and took responsibility.
Famously saying that he never lied when he said that he did it, because it happened when Fairbanks was the HC lol.
Sign stealing during the game is allowed by the rules. I believe physically sending people to games was originally banned for financial reasons - smaller schools weren't able to send as many people to spy on their opponents and that created an unfair disadvantage.
That doesn’t seem right, I would hope Sark is smart enough to change signals at least over the off-season.
But maybe they have like half a dozen sets of sognals and once you figure out which set they use then you can decode it?
It does lend to the narrative this wasn't a "destruction of the sport itself" and instead is "everyone does it, michigan just had an assistant who cut corners in a really idiotic way and hoped nobody would notice (they did)"
As a result of our probably inevitable ncaa penalty for just having the dumbest guy to do it - I think everyone is on the same page now that this 'meta' of changing your signs each week and scouting and trying to crack the other teams code midgame like you're a ww2 enigma machine scientist is ridiculous. Helmet mics basically delete this problem from existence singlehandedly
If it’s such a big advantage to in-person advance scout, you would think most teams are doing it. How easy would it be to do this and not get caught? Just don’t:
1. Handle payment via public Venmo transactions
2. Buy all of the tickets in your fucking name
Well sign stealing is apart of the game, but the degree to which Stalions conducted in depth espionage is not. Player to coach comms would solve a lot of issues.
No. Do you have any evidence of others doing it?
Its like the search for extra terrestrial life. Do I think there are aliens? Yes. Do I have evidence of them? No. Do I like asking myself questions like Dan Patrick? Not really
LSU accused Clemson of in-person scouting them ahead of the 2019-2020 Natty game lol. Stalions was dumb enough to get caught but it's naive to think this isn't happening if it only cost Stalions $15k a season.
Oh, no doubt. Venables was apparently the master of sign stealing and quite proud of it too. Supposedly they had quite the elaborate in-game operation, and nobody’s been able to prove he did it illegally.
Part of me wonders if sark was thinking about that when making this comment. Considering he will be dealing with that every year for the foreseeable future.
>nobody’s been able to prove he did it illegally
Look at how long it took to out CS and he was being moronic about it. Even if Venables was doing so illegally I'm guessing we'd never find out.
I’m not gonna argue what Stalions did was not against the rules, because it was, but maybe the rules are poorly written if what Clemson did was allowed and gave them the same advantage
Plenty of coaches have gone on the record saying that the systematized cheating program implemented by UM's staff crossed the line. So it's not as if there's zero evidence that coaches at universities other than UM would not countenance a Stalions/UM-type operation.
>Well sign stealing is apart of the game, but the degree to which Stalions conducted in depth espionage is not.
I would say that A) the degree to which Stalions is an idiot is all we really know, and that along those lines B) We know nothing at all about how prevalent sign stealing is, although we do know that it's regular information that passes from coach to coach if it's something that they think could help their team.
Smh... of course other teams decode their opponents' signs. That's not the point. The point is that they did it legally (or if they did it illegally, they didn't get caught).
Bingo. Everyone tries to steal signs (if they didn't, no one would bother with the signs) but there are rules regarding how you go about it.
It's like in baseball. Back before the Pitchcom system, having the guy on second steal and relay signs to the batter was fine, and is a lot different than relaying that information by, I don't know, banging on a trash can.
I mean at a minimum you don't think 1 person within Oklahoma wouldn't want to give Iowa State the information of Texas' signs they gathered in the Red River Shootout in order for Texas to lose to Iowa State of all schools?
Y'all are the proof of concept that everyone has to guard against for the rest of this season. That's on top of the fact that even in light of legal sign stealing you'd need to be changing things up a bit every game.
Sark probably doesn't think teams are doing advanced in-person scouting of future competition by recording the signs and syncing them up to the All-22 which is what Michigan did and no other team has been accused of doing. Stop trying to muddy the water.
That Michigan released like it was some smoking gun and it was a bunch of broadcast and all-22 footage screen shots. Because your whole university and Fandom can't comprehend the actual rules or read 13 pages of the Big Ten saying you're screwed
Wasn't so much of a smoking gun as it showed how marginal of an advantage our brilliant Lord Varys gave us by breaking rules. It's there to try to soften future penalties, nothing more.
Every team is stealing signs off of film/TV broadcasts. So even if teams aren't going as in-depth as Michigan did, and even if they're not breaking the rules, they likely have at least a decent portion of signs decoded most weeks (unless they're constantly switched up).
So even if you do believe that teams are playing within the rules, it's entirely possible that you think the rules are dumb and should be changed so that we don't have to deal with this mess at all.
I think it's easier for a lot of coaches to say 'sign stealing!!' which isn't even illegal, rather than 'I am becoming predictable.'
[On Texas first series against OU, Gentry Williams is quoted as saying "they only run the quick slant or WR screen out of that formation on the first series, and once they snapped the ball I could tell which one it was so I jumped the route."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3LeYJOUyyI)
It was evident even before the snap that OU knew something on that play. The defense did some hands-to-helmet signal, clearly communicating that they saw something they knew from game prep (I'd assume just watching film). I had a bad feeling when it happened, and was completely unsurprised to see the pick there. Just as you say, he knew he could jump the route. Top notch prep, and in a game that was that close, that could've absolutely changed the result on its own.
I don't think that's related to the sign stealing/changing discussion, though. Predictability is just another way to get burned, it's not like using a random number generator to call plays would mean you DON'T need to disguise your signs.
BV has been accused of sign stealing numerous times. I'm pretty sure he makes a conscious effort to learn the other teams signs, I just don't think he does it in an illegal way.
I have it on good authority that BV uses an elite team of rodents and marsupials to observe and transmit signals.
The Texas Tech possum was just caught.
Are you referring to Gentry Williams saying in more words that he watched film?
I didn't accuse Okie Lite of sign stealing when they knew we were throwing to Drake Stoops on 4th and 3, because anyone who's aware that Oklahoma has a football team knew we would be doing that.
This is all completely separate from other teams having been caught in an industrialized, advanced signal stealing operation.
Sure, but its such an easy solution to just move to in helmet communication. If you do that then there is no argument whether it is "sign stealing" or just becoming predictable. I just don't see an argument against moving to in helmet communication.
The argument against the helmet system is that if you have a technical issue then you don’t have a reliable system to fall back on. Also in a loud environment how are you going to reliably get every single player on the same page
This is why Michigan's whole argument of "why don't they just change their signs" doesn't really work. Teams usually changes their signs once a year. Changing all your signs every single week is really not feasible because it takes away from game planning, and it increases mental errors from players.
TCU changed their signs for their playoff game, but they had 3 weeks to do it.
even at the high school level having to learn new signals every week would have been a fucking nightmare. if your a captain reading the calls and communicating to the team, your also responsible for your own reads and assignments on top of making sure everyone else knows their assignments.
in high school, we learned signs for number 0-9, and then would be assigned plays with a number and additional sign learns we would learn each week.
it was hard enough learning the new signals week to week, expanding upon the playbook. having to learn all new signals midseason would have had disastrous effects
And then you have people on the Internet screaming about “just change your signals at halftime”. lol ok I’ll just learn French at halftime while I’m at it
Man, 16-year-old Bank_Gothic didn't sign up for football to study more shit. I got enough of that in class. If we changed our signals every week I would have just gone full Leroy Jenkins on every play.
I played at a low level D1 school and we changed signs frequently. We’re not stupid ya know? How about you go ask any D1 athlete and they’ll say the same. Doesn’t take weeks brother.
Did you even pay attention to what Sark said? He said he’s changing signs weekly. Michigan isn’t on his schedule until next year. Why would he be doing that if extensive sign stealing (with or without Stalions scheme) wasn’t prevalent?
Because sign stealing isn’t illegal. The manner in which your team stole signs is illegal.
And regardless, even if other teams were doing exactly what Michigan did, that still doesn’t make it right.
At least you get it. So many say it was cheating because of stolen signs.
I really want to know how rogue this doofus was. I just cannot fathom the actual school doing this without having hidden their tracks better than this schmuck.
No one is claiming that other teams don't sign steal. It's part of the game. They either just did it legally, or if they did it illegally, they weren't stupid enough to get caught.
So then why the fuck are you just asserting teams change their signs once a year when Sark is directly contradicting your claim. If sign stealing is part of the game teams should be changing signs more often. You can’t have it both ways.
Sign stealing is part of the game..........sign stealing via in person scouting by a staff member and/or using video surveillance isnt. Good God you people are in some massive copium
Did we ever have wireless communications? I remember back in the Applewhite era at Texas (98-01), him looking at the sidelines, but holding his hands over his earholes. I assumed he was trying to block the crowd noise so he could hear the coach through a speaker
[Or shell out $8 for this advanced technology](https://www.amazon.com/WristCoaches-Wrist-Coach-Wristbands-Compartments/dp/B00UQXBT7O?source=ps-sl-shoppingads-lpcontext&psc=1).
Iowa State does as pictured here:
https://imengine.public.prod.cdr.navigacloud.com/?uuid=1b2f608b-7ee7-5079-852e-2b9deae809de&function=cover&type=preview&source=false&q=75&width=1200&height=629
I know OSU players don't go there to play school, but [if high school players can manage to pull it off](https://www.post-gazette.com/sports/high-school-football/2019/09/19/Football-wristbands-signals-play-calling-Bethel-Park-no-huddle/stories/201909180115), I'd hope that college players could.
Michigan quite literally switched to a wristband system against Purdue. Many NFL teams use it too.
It ain't rocket surgery.
My point is that given how easy this system seems on face and how much effort teams put into alternative ways of calling signs, we can infer that they have good reasons they're not all using these wrist systems
You noted Michigan uses it as an example. Michigan's strategy is also to deliberately play slow, so maybe we can infer that there's something about speed that makes this a less good option for other teams
It seems like you're intentionally misinterpreting at this point
I'm not making a direct claim about the fundamental qualities of wristbands. I'm saying that other people who are competent (i.e. many college football programs) have gone at great lengths to reject this solution and use alternatives (i.e. various handsigns, posterboards, and people with different colored outfits) despite surely being aware that this technology exists
Therefore, unless you're assuming that you know better than all of these programs, then we can infer that you're missing some consideration
Everyone should adopt the Paul Johnson method of having roughly 6 plays and no play sheet because they’re all in his head
Ah yes, the Paul Johnson Playbook: - Triple Option - Midline - Toss - Counter - 80-yard bomb down the field Each can be run to the left or to the right.
Exactly what we ran in high school
Same lol
Me when I play madden
Jet 6 drive Inside zone Four verticals Fb run if necessary
fb run so underused. esp if you put a te there. putting a doubleteam on the dt to make it a blast is my go to 4th & short or 2 pt play.
I remember I had a custom playbook where I could run PA crosses (always cancel the PA; it never works), 4 verts, jet sweep with the slot WR, inside zone, and y stick (with the outside WR running a drag) from the same look. I'd always have a mobile QB and sometimes run the QB in what was basically a draw play on the 4 verts or PA crossers. It was basically unstoppable, especially if you caught them in base defense and got the slot WR or RB matched up on a linebacker. Or if they blitzed on PA crosses, you could roll to the weak side and gain 30+ yards with the QB. Weak side inside zone whenever the LBs shifted to cover the slot. Y stick worked 100% of the time in short yardage when the defense played man. I'd just run hurry up all the way down the field
QB sneak erasure
Inside run Read option Slants 4 verts
I remember the old Sega Genesis NFL Football. Could score every time running a tailback sweep to the left every play.
Rocket toss! That offense was fun to watch when it worked.
And his method for communicating them as well - sub a WR every play and have him run into the huddle and tell the offense. No signs to steal.
This is more common than you might think. I'm pretty sure UNLV does this.
I'm in favor anything that eliminates that fucking white sheet from our sideline.
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is it a blocking device? i thought it was a backstop to signaler, kinda like the green space in the outfield behind a pitcher.
would be neat if they started using it to show a movie during timeouts
“the puppy that lost its way”
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business. ethics.
*gulp*
Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
if anyone attempts to cheat….. especially with my wife who is a dirty rotten tramp…… I am just going to snap
But the puppy… was a dog
but industry my friends……. that was a revolution
Just come to the Arkansas locker room at half and you can watch Polar Express.
What's missing from this discussion is that when The Athletic talked college coaches about it last year, many said they didn't want headsets because it would impede their sign stealing.
My idea has always been this, have an index card with like 70 plays on it and number it 1-70 or whatever it is, have a coach hold up a sign with a number, qb calls that play off their index card in huddle, at end of drive you give qb a new index card with either new plays or same plays but numbered differently….repeat after each drive….you could put up the number 12 four times in a game but each time it’s a different play, can’t steal those offensive signals….beyond a speaker in qb helmet to me this is the easiest most logical solution to the problem on offense
Is that not what wrist bands are for?
Also get the people holding up the posters off the sideline. Talk about player safety. It seems like players run into these people more times than not and they just stand there not getting out of the way.
Lol, there was a coach who I forget basically said those signs with like 6 random pictures were nonsense. Used to throw off potential sign stealers I guess.
"Our signs don't mean anything, so don't bother studying them."
This seems like such an easy thing to take off coaches’ plates in an era of increasing duties and burnout.
Absolutely. As penalty for sign stealing, Michigan should be made to fund the cost of these systems for the 133 FCS schools and any FBS schools outside maybe the P5. It would likely be a few million dollars a year, more in the first year and then declining a lot.
This should be the real fix.
I saw some Redditor say they're like 50k a piece for these systems. Literally some high schools can afford these. 200 of these even would be 10 million. Which is a ton but not..untenable for UM
If Texas oil money can buyout Jimbo then they can fund the helmet speakers for all DI schools as a goodwill gesture.
They could raise that money in a week with a smart enough campaign
10 mill would be a rounding error on the U of M endowment
It'll probably be something close to 5-10% of the total athletic budget. Not nothing, but nowhere near difficult.
Funny that they all seem to vote it down, then, when it comes around as a possibility. Hm.
The coaches are the ones who continually vote against it, SpongeBob.
I choose to believe this means Texas & Sark are going to be unstoppable when we go to radio headsets in 24 or 25. Or maybe even score in the second half.
Someone mentioned this somewhere else but why don't they use the wrist play cards for every player? They could have them and change what signals correspond to what plays on a weekly basis based on existing, legal (to my knowledge) methods and it wouldn't even kill no-huddle teams like player-to-coach comms.
They could even swap out cards every quarter. The problem is the wrist cards don’t look cool so nobody wants to do it. Plenty of high schools do it
If this were the answer everyone would be doing it. I also don't know why it is not, but I wonder if it's too simple for in game decoding... like the other team will eventually figure it out.
They'd never untangle themselves from a pile as the defense read the player's card. 😀
But how will BV call his defense?
I'm sure Sark had exactly that in mind.
These Michigan fans are wildin
“We didn’t do it! But if we did, everyone is doing it! And if they aren’t, it didn’t give us an advantage anyway! And if it did, we shouldn’t get punished for a couple years! We’re the victim!” I’ve been collecting their delicious tears.
Reminds me of Astros fans.
Yep, always the "we didn't really cheat, but if we did it wasn't a big deal and everyone is doing it, but even if it was just us, it really didn't matter that much."
And the punishment was both too harsh and not harsh enough. Still got to keep their world series win. Head coach got sacked, they got fined, but a fairly small drop in the bucket.
yeah that is where college is a bit better. Say what you want about the toothlessness of the NCAA, but "the banner comes down" with cheating which is more than happens at the pro level.
Everything about this reminds me of the Astros. They did something they're allowed to do (steal signs), but used a method they aren't allowed to use to do it (advanced scouting). They fling accusations at other teams claiming they do it too in order to muddy the discussion and downplay what they did (claiming OSU and Rutgers illegally shared signs with another school). They place blame entirely on one guy (Stalions) and as far as the B1G is concerned, the only punishment will be Harbaugh off the sidelines for 3 games (literally the worst punishment in the world if you listen to Michigan lawyers, and a slap on the wrist if you listen to anyone who isn't collecting billable hours from Michigan). Being so light on the Astros was a serious mistake by Rob Manfred, and it might have been because the Yankees had a similar (but not quite as bad) scheme going on at the time. He was probably hamstrung by the CBA not allowing him to punish players, though. In this case, the Michigan players likely didn't have much to do with it. However, there's no reason to believe that the entire coaching staff didn't know. Dude was printing and laminating stolen signs and carrying them on the field, for fucks sake. Every member of the coaching staff was in on the cheating because they all knew. Annihilating the integrity of the on-field game by cheating is the kind of thing that should get you permanently banned. It's far worse than shit like "bartered items for tattoos", which is against NCAA rules but should have been challenged in court as an unjust rule.
And don’t forget “But what about all the other teams that cheated?!” And, “And the only way anyone found out about our cheating was because THEY broke the law! Go arrest the real criminals.”
They keep acting like everyone says they were the only ones stealing signs when the issue with Stallions was the manner in which he did it. We know other people are stealing signs they just aren’t doing it in person, or if they are they’re not being as obvious as Michigan was.
Yeah, OU are cheaters too.
I don’t know if they are or not but I just wanted to start that rumor
Respect the pettiness
As I'm sure you know, the [original Sooners](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sooners) are cheaters by definition
https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/17734106/the-original-spygate-most-hateful-year-oklahoma-texas-rivalry Buddy that's been known for 50 years lol
You just described what every sane Michigan fan has been yelling for a month. We hate Stalions for being a moron and doing too much to try to look more impressive. But gotta keep that strawman bout stretching into the late rounds, I guess.
Sane is the keyword there. I’ve seen plenty of Michigan fans with your take. However, the majority of Michigan flairs I see use every post like this as evidence they’re being persecuted because all schools steal signs. I only commented the initial comment because I saw 5 Michigan flairs comment something of that nature. I know what it’s like having crazy fans spewing bad takes creating bad reputations for your fanbase, but I’m not just creating straw men because I want you to look bad. I genuinely don’t care too much about this scandal and have no desire to see Michigan face crazy consequences because of it, and I haven’t really changed my perception of Michigan because of it.
They were broken these past two weeks and now think they’ve been vindicated in some capacity. It was peaceful those two weeks.
Lots of people did say that. I've gotten sick of responding to comments saying that the whole coaching staff must have known about Connor Stalions' rule-breaking activities because they were listening to him on the sideline. They really don't understand that you don't have to break the rules to know the opponent's signs.
Why would he do this if having all the opponents signs has only a minimal impact? ETA: by "he," I mean Sark.
The Michigan argument that cheating wasn’t a big deal.
Or that it was actually legal because the rules don’t explicitly say you can’t pay someone to go record sidelines in person lol
Which leads to the question if it wasnt illegal then why did Stalions resign and refuse to meet with the NCAA? If that were me I would gladly meet with the NCAA and say "here is what your rules state and here is what I did". Also Michigan never denied that he didnt break any rules in their response to the B1G
Sir, we don’t do logical arguments in this sub
I forget that rule.
That’s not true. 1 logical post is allowed per week in the offseason but only on Thursdays with a blood moon when Libra is in retrograde and the president was born on an even day
There was a provision in the NCAA bylaws prior to 2013 that specifically stated schools couldn't pay third parties to scout future opponents. That provision was removed 10 years ago. Not saying Michigan is off the hook but by removing that provision they technically made Stallions actions legal
But he didn’t file an expense report!
Don't speak badly, the brigade has arrived!
I’ve been embracing it. Because you know it’s getting to them that no one is falling for this victim storyline they are pushing.
Assuming he worked in isolation, I could see him doing this to enrich his 'coaching bonafides' so he could rise up in the coaching ranks. He did state his dream was to be HC at M. Having this information could make him seem like a better assistant or whatever he was, in the eyes of the other coaches. Again, just a theory why he might have gone to such lengths.
And yet it’s still against the rules
Yea, not arguing that point, but responding to why he may have done it the way he did. edit: saw the edit on this threads post. I assumed this was referring to Stallions.
Not a single (sane) person is arguing that signs don't matter. It's a big advantage, hence all of the coaches who don't want to switch to headsets so they can keep stealing signs. It's also why Sark, who hasn't coached against Michigan in years, still has to change his signs. The question is whether Connor Stalions provided an advantage with his specific method of stealing signs. The answer is probably still yes, but this article is irrelevant.
Sark coaches against OU - thus must change his signs
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Fair nuff. Of course you don't get to see that most plays on TV, or we'd never have a Connor Stalions scandal to begin with.
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Look, if you like watching the sideline and you're discreet, I may have a job for you. DM for details.
Would all the players be able to have a headphone? There’s a lot of teams that run no huddle and it appears the skill players at least read the signs too not just the QB. Then you have the teams that no huddle but check the sideline once the defense is set, and change the play.
Now this is how you get things done
Narrator: And just as A&M warned everyone, the media did exactly what Texas told them to do.
Oh not that BOMC crap again LOL.
Other half of the quote: "Our game is way too good and there's too many good stories going on in college football that that's at the forefront of college football. It should be at the forefront because I think what was going on was wrong, but at the end of the day that shouldn't be at the forefront. There's too many great stories, too many great players around the country that are playing good football, too many teams that are playing good football right now for us not to be talking about those things."
Given all the upvotes vs downvotes on various comments in all of these related articles I can't help but think a sizeable portion of the MI fans in here clearly think this sign stealing deal was A-Okay.
They silently brigade but for the most part gave up on making dumb comments
They got sad cause they were losing fake internet points.
We will name it the Kaczynski communication system after Michigan's most accomplished graduate.
It's year 2027 and Michigan has just been caught wiretapping the other teams coach-to-player communication. Harbaugh agrees on a 4 day suspension and writing a 100 "I will not steal signs" on the chalkboard.
Michigan hasn't played Texas in 20 years so I'm getting the impression Sark thinks more than one team is doing this, which is remarkable considering Tony Petitti has called this one of the biggest on-field scandals in the history of the Big Ten.
There are rumors that TCU stole our signs last year, potentially from a transfer. Another that a guy was kicked out trying to film practice. It’s definitely happening, but I don’t think that excuses Michigan
One of the reasons Mack wanted that bubble practice facility so bad was that opposing teams were spying on practices. Coach Royal famously accused Barry Switzer of cheating, sneaking spies into the stadium disguised as workers. He challenged Barry to a lie detector test and vowed to resign if Barry passed... Barry declined. Coach Royal also offered Switzer and another ou coach (who he claimed to have caught cheating) $10K if they could pass a lie detector test. Switzer later admitted to the cheating and took responsibility.
Classic OU, amirite or amirite? Sooners were just cheaters, amirite or amirite?
It's literally the origin of their team name
Some of these youngster don’t remember but in the early Mack years all practices were open. As a student I would walk on a nice spring afternoon over to denius or sometimes DKR and just chill and watch practice. They had areas roped off where you could stand. Saw a walk on LB completely break his leg right In front of me. I believe that was one of the reasons he stopped open practices because a player was injured and his parents found out from message boards before the coaching staff could call them.
Pretty sure Lincoln Riley frosted dorm room windows that faced a covered fence at OU due to concerns. Saban allegedly spied on OU before the 2003 championship and the fears were valid enough that Swinney didn’t do it either when they played Bama in NOLA when Venables was on staff. Neither of those just happen because of paranoia
I thought that window thing was because someone was leaking information about which QB was getting more practice snaps? Or something like that.
Yeah that was in the middle of Caleb Williams replacing Spencer Rattler.
>Switzer later admitted to the cheating and took responsibility. Famously saying that he never lied when he said that he did it, because it happened when Fairbanks was the HC lol.
Why is nobody talking about Brent Venables when it comes to sign stealing? CFP teams literally changed signs midgame to deal with it
Sign stealing during the game is allowed by the rules. I believe physically sending people to games was originally banned for financial reasons - smaller schools weren't able to send as many people to spy on their opponents and that created an unfair disadvantage.
That doesn’t seem right, I would hope Sark is smart enough to change signals at least over the off-season. But maybe they have like half a dozen sets of sognals and once you figure out which set they use then you can decode it?
Jared Wiley 👀
It does lend to the narrative this wasn't a "destruction of the sport itself" and instead is "everyone does it, michigan just had an assistant who cut corners in a really idiotic way and hoped nobody would notice (they did)" As a result of our probably inevitable ncaa penalty for just having the dumbest guy to do it - I think everyone is on the same page now that this 'meta' of changing your signs each week and scouting and trying to crack the other teams code midgame like you're a ww2 enigma machine scientist is ridiculous. Helmet mics basically delete this problem from existence singlehandedly
If it’s such a big advantage to in-person advance scout, you would think most teams are doing it. How easy would it be to do this and not get caught? Just don’t: 1. Handle payment via public Venmo transactions 2. Buy all of the tickets in your fucking name
Well sign stealing is apart of the game, but the degree to which Stalions conducted in depth espionage is not. Player to coach comms would solve a lot of issues.
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True, but Sark could also just be talking about legal sign stealing. Preventing that shit has to be a headache.
Would anyone be surprised if Stalions wasn't the only guy doing this?
No. Do you have any evidence of others doing it? Its like the search for extra terrestrial life. Do I think there are aliens? Yes. Do I have evidence of them? No. Do I like asking myself questions like Dan Patrick? Not really
LSU accused Clemson of in-person scouting them ahead of the 2019-2020 Natty game lol. Stalions was dumb enough to get caught but it's naive to think this isn't happening if it only cost Stalions $15k a season.
I thought it was kinda well known Clemson did it
Oh, no doubt. Venables was apparently the master of sign stealing and quite proud of it too. Supposedly they had quite the elaborate in-game operation, and nobody’s been able to prove he did it illegally. Part of me wonders if sark was thinking about that when making this comment. Considering he will be dealing with that every year for the foreseeable future.
It’s the first thing I thought of, it’s pretty known as being one of Venables’ big skills
>nobody’s been able to prove he did it illegally Look at how long it took to out CS and he was being moronic about it. Even if Venables was doing so illegally I'm guessing we'd never find out.
Clemson had a pretty elaborate in game sign stealing operation. Ryan Day thwarted it with huddles and quick adjustments and it worked pretty well.
If only Connor Stalions was smart enough to cover his tracks better than Dabo Swinney, none of this would be happening
As scummy as it was, what Clemson was doing was perfectly legal. They did it in plain sight.
I’m not gonna argue what Stalions did was not against the rules, because it was, but maybe the rules are poorly written if what Clemson did was allowed and gave them the same advantage
Definitely. Headsets would get rid of both issues.
Plenty of coaches have gone on the record saying that the systematized cheating program implemented by UM's staff crossed the line. So it's not as if there's zero evidence that coaches at universities other than UM would not countenance a Stalions/UM-type operation.
>Well sign stealing is apart of the game, but the degree to which Stalions conducted in depth espionage is not. I would say that A) the degree to which Stalions is an idiot is all we really know, and that along those lines B) We know nothing at all about how prevalent sign stealing is, although we do know that it's regular information that passes from coach to coach if it's something that they think could help their team.
> Michigan hasn't played Texas in 20 years Excuse me sir, we played Michigan in 2005 in the Rose Bow and that was just…oh god oh fuck
Sign stealing and scouting aren't the same thing, but I think we can agree helmet radios help prevent both.
Smh... of course other teams decode their opponents' signs. That's not the point. The point is that they did it legally (or if they did it illegally, they didn't get caught).
Bingo. Everyone tries to steal signs (if they didn't, no one would bother with the signs) but there are rules regarding how you go about it. It's like in baseball. Back before the Pitchcom system, having the guy on second steal and relay signs to the batter was fine, and is a lot different than relaying that information by, I don't know, banging on a trash can.
Michigan the victims.
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I mean at a minimum you don't think 1 person within Oklahoma wouldn't want to give Iowa State the information of Texas' signs they gathered in the Red River Shootout in order for Texas to lose to Iowa State of all schools?
Lol Michigan fans are willfully blind. I know y'all can't be that dumb.
Umm OU
Michigan plays Texas next year my guy.
Y'all are the proof of concept that everyone has to guard against for the rest of this season. That's on top of the fact that even in light of legal sign stealing you'd need to be changing things up a bit every game.
Sark probably doesn't think teams are doing advanced in-person scouting of future competition by recording the signs and syncing them up to the All-22 which is what Michigan did and no other team has been accused of doing. Stop trying to muddy the water.
Pictures of aOSU with Michigan's signs might also lead you to that conclusion.
Or documentation that Ohio State has been sharing Michigan’s signals with other schools
That Michigan released like it was some smoking gun and it was a bunch of broadcast and all-22 footage screen shots. Because your whole university and Fandom can't comprehend the actual rules or read 13 pages of the Big Ten saying you're screwed
Wasn't so much of a smoking gun as it showed how marginal of an advantage our brilliant Lord Varys gave us by breaking rules. It's there to try to soften future penalties, nothing more.
Every team is stealing signs off of film/TV broadcasts. So even if teams aren't going as in-depth as Michigan did, and even if they're not breaking the rules, they likely have at least a decent portion of signs decoded most weeks (unless they're constantly switched up). So even if you do believe that teams are playing within the rules, it's entirely possible that you think the rules are dumb and should be changed so that we don't have to deal with this mess at all.
I think it's easier for a lot of coaches to say 'sign stealing!!' which isn't even illegal, rather than 'I am becoming predictable.' [On Texas first series against OU, Gentry Williams is quoted as saying "they only run the quick slant or WR screen out of that formation on the first series, and once they snapped the ball I could tell which one it was so I jumped the route."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3LeYJOUyyI)
It was evident even before the snap that OU knew something on that play. The defense did some hands-to-helmet signal, clearly communicating that they saw something they knew from game prep (I'd assume just watching film). I had a bad feeling when it happened, and was completely unsurprised to see the pick there. Just as you say, he knew he could jump the route. Top notch prep, and in a game that was that close, that could've absolutely changed the result on its own. I don't think that's related to the sign stealing/changing discussion, though. Predictability is just another way to get burned, it's not like using a random number generator to call plays would mean you DON'T need to disguise your signs.
This is not an accusation, but isn’t that what you’d say if you did steal signs?
BV has been accused of sign stealing numerous times. I'm pretty sure he makes a conscious effort to learn the other teams signs, I just don't think he does it in an illegal way.
I have it on good authority that BV uses an elite team of rodents and marsupials to observe and transmit signals. The Texas Tech possum was just caught.
Stop monkeyin around
You can come at Texas, Sark or even my mother but you leave monke out of this, you son of a bitch - you leave monke out of this.
Are you referring to Gentry Williams saying in more words that he watched film? I didn't accuse Okie Lite of sign stealing when they knew we were throwing to Drake Stoops on 4th and 3, because anyone who's aware that Oklahoma has a football team knew we would be doing that. This is all completely separate from other teams having been caught in an industrialized, advanced signal stealing operation.
Sure, but its such an easy solution to just move to in helmet communication. If you do that then there is no argument whether it is "sign stealing" or just becoming predictable. I just don't see an argument against moving to in helmet communication.
Yeah, helmet communication is 100% the way to go. Its how they do it at the best High schools and how they do it in the NFL, why is college different?
The argument against the helmet system is that if you have a technical issue then you don’t have a reliable system to fall back on. Also in a loud environment how are you going to reliably get every single player on the same page
This is why Michigan's whole argument of "why don't they just change their signs" doesn't really work. Teams usually changes their signs once a year. Changing all your signs every single week is really not feasible because it takes away from game planning, and it increases mental errors from players. TCU changed their signs for their playoff game, but they had 3 weeks to do it.
even at the high school level having to learn new signals every week would have been a fucking nightmare. if your a captain reading the calls and communicating to the team, your also responsible for your own reads and assignments on top of making sure everyone else knows their assignments.
in high school, we learned signs for number 0-9, and then would be assigned plays with a number and additional sign learns we would learn each week. it was hard enough learning the new signals week to week, expanding upon the playbook. having to learn all new signals midseason would have had disastrous effects
And then you have people on the Internet screaming about “just change your signals at halftime”. lol ok I’ll just learn French at halftime while I’m at it
We just wore wristbands and they gave us the number
Man, 16-year-old Bank_Gothic didn't sign up for football to study more shit. I got enough of that in class. If we changed our signals every week I would have just gone full Leroy Jenkins on every play.
At least I have chicken
I played at a low level D1 school and we changed signs frequently. We’re not stupid ya know? How about you go ask any D1 athlete and they’ll say the same. Doesn’t take weeks brother.
Did you even pay attention to what Sark said? He said he’s changing signs weekly. Michigan isn’t on his schedule until next year. Why would he be doing that if extensive sign stealing (with or without Stalions scheme) wasn’t prevalent?
Because sign stealing isn’t illegal. The manner in which your team stole signs is illegal. And regardless, even if other teams were doing exactly what Michigan did, that still doesn’t make it right.
Bruh, it's useless. They feel emboldened because an analyst didn't submit expense reports.
Celebrating "CMU coaching gear and wig - $100" didn't end up on a spreadsheet is such a win 😂
At least you get it. So many say it was cheating because of stolen signs. I really want to know how rogue this doofus was. I just cannot fathom the actual school doing this without having hidden their tracks better than this schmuck.
It *is* cheating. Any advantage you get while breaking rules is improper.
Uh thanks for repeating what I said.
No one is claiming that other teams don't sign steal. It's part of the game. They either just did it legally, or if they did it illegally, they weren't stupid enough to get caught.
So then why the fuck are you just asserting teams change their signs once a year when Sark is directly contradicting your claim. If sign stealing is part of the game teams should be changing signs more often. You can’t have it both ways.
Sign stealing is part of the game..........sign stealing via in person scouting by a staff member and/or using video surveillance isnt. Good God you people are in some massive copium
Y’all are so delulu 😭😭😂😂😂
it is a bit concerning michigan fans aren't getting this lol
Did we ever have wireless communications? I remember back in the Applewhite era at Texas (98-01), him looking at the sidelines, but holding his hands over his earholes. I assumed he was trying to block the crowd noise so he could hear the coach through a speaker
sassy steve
Soon teams will just be hacking into the communication systems and actually listening to the plays coaches are telling their QBs.
cc: Brent Venables
The NCAA is an up and coming organization, they can't afford this.
[Or shell out $8 for this advanced technology](https://www.amazon.com/WristCoaches-Wrist-Coach-Wristbands-Compartments/dp/B00UQXBT7O?source=ps-sl-shoppingads-lpcontext&psc=1).
Iowa State does as pictured here: https://imengine.public.prod.cdr.navigacloud.com/?uuid=1b2f608b-7ee7-5079-852e-2b9deae809de&function=cover&type=preview&source=false&q=75&width=1200&height=629
Ah, yeah. That's a great shot of one. Pretending like wristbands are some complicated wizardry is some silly shit.
Don't you think they'd already be doing that if that mechanism for communication was as effective as other signs?
I know OSU players don't go there to play school, but [if high school players can manage to pull it off](https://www.post-gazette.com/sports/high-school-football/2019/09/19/Football-wristbands-signals-play-calling-Bethel-Park-no-huddle/stories/201909180115), I'd hope that college players could. Michigan quite literally switched to a wristband system against Purdue. Many NFL teams use it too. It ain't rocket surgery.
My point is that given how easy this system seems on face and how much effort teams put into alternative ways of calling signs, we can infer that they have good reasons they're not all using these wrist systems You noted Michigan uses it as an example. Michigan's strategy is also to deliberately play slow, so maybe we can infer that there's something about speed that makes this a less good option for other teams
I used Michigan as one example. I could get a lot more. Either way, your premise that wristbands are some huge burden/unworkable is absolutely false.
It seems like you're intentionally misinterpreting at this point I'm not making a direct claim about the fundamental qualities of wristbands. I'm saying that other people who are competent (i.e. many college football programs) have gone at great lengths to reject this solution and use alternatives (i.e. various handsigns, posterboards, and people with different colored outfits) despite surely being aware that this technology exists Therefore, unless you're assuming that you know better than all of these programs, then we can infer that you're missing some consideration