About seven or eight years ago, the NCAA football committee considered adding communications equipment to some players’ helmets. This would allow coaches to relay plays directly to them without the need for elaborate systems using hand gestures or scoreboards — not to mention concerns about those signals being stolen by opponents.
Cost — or lack of uniform interest in spending between larger and smaller athletic departments — played a role in college football’s rejection of the concept, a former committee source said.
So did an NFL presentation in which the league detailed issues with radio frequencies and faulty equipment. Indeed, it was quite common for one team’s technology to fail, forcing the other team to turn off their devices and revert to hand signals or huddles. If the NFL couldn’t make it work, how could college make it?
“It became an avalanche of ‘this looks like a pain in the ass’ and the topic was tabled,” a committee member told Yahoo Sports.
College football may want to revisit the idea, in part because technology has greatly improved its reliability, particularly wireless communication. This would also avoid the current scandal overwhelms, if not the entire sport, at least its second-ranked team, the University of Michigan.
The Wolverines are not under investigation by the NCAA for sign stealing per se. They are in the crosshairs of allegations of in-person scouting off campus in an effort to gather video footage to steal signs. It’s a distinction with a clear difference.
Case centers on Michigan analyst Connor Stallionswho, according to ESPN, purchased tickets to nearly three dozen games on 11 different Big Ten campuses and had other people film opposing coaches’ hand signals.
This would be a blatant violation of the spirit, if not the letter, of the NCAA rule. The rule is the rule and the NCAA should enforce it.
That said, studs might be the first rather clumsy ones to get caught. He is unlikely to be the first to attempt this. Others are simply able to find enough information from game broadcasts and movies. Sign stealing is everywhere and the bigger the game, the more intense it is.
A coach waving inside an 80,000-seat stadium on national television has no expectation of privacy. This is why moves and the corresponding game can be stolen – and everyone admits to trying to steal them. Many coaches don’t even think it’s serious.
“You can have someone’s entire game plan, they can mail it to you, you still have to stop them,” said Colorado coach Deion Sanders, who played both in the NFL and Major League Baseball. “Baseball. If I know a curveball is coming, I’ve got you. In football, I don’t care if I know a sweep is coming, I still have to stop it.”
In this case, it’s against the rules because it would have been stolen in a particular way (via advanced reconnaissance). Still, if one of the people who allegedly “researched” the Stallions had simply gone to the game, filmed a team’s signals, and then posted it on YouTube for the world to see, it would have oddly enough been OK.
There is no excuse for Michigan if the allegations against the Stallions prove true. This is not a gray area. And it’s still unclear how many other people within the program knew how the Stallions gained an advantage when it came to sign stealing (coach Jim Harbaugh denied any information).
Yet this would still be a classic example of the NCAA torturing itself via its own rulebook and failed initiatives once again.
Both things can be true.
“Sign stealing happens every game,” said Nebraska coach Matt Rhule, who previously coached at Baylor and Temple in the NCAA and NCAA. Carolina Panthers of the NFL. “There’s nothing wrong with crews out there trying to steal our signs. There is nothing wrong with us trying to look at their signs.
Yet if there were no signs, none of this would be necessary.
“That’s why you should have mics in headsets,” Rhule continued. “Like all these coaches voted against it every year. It’s because they don’t want to teach their quarterback (many complicated play calls)…that’s why kids are less prepared (for the NFL).
“Get rid of all the stupid signs on the sidelines,” he said. “We could just play football, the way it should be.”
Rhule rightly pointed out that he was not excusing any advanced scouting. It’s forbidden and everyone knows it.
Yet the initial problem is that there are signs that can be stolen in the first place. If the NCAA wants to avoid the kind of headlines Michigan is currently generating, or any concerns about the fairness of its games, then the solution is available.
At the very least, it would allow the coaching staff to spend less time on espionage…and counterespionage.
“You go to a high school game, there’s technology on the sidelines,” Rhule said. “You go to an NFL game, there’s technology on the sidelines. You go to university, there’s nothing.
This scandal is recent but the football commission will likely revisit it soon, perhaps this offseason.
Times and technology have changed. The NFL has a lot fewer problems than it used to. The surge in television revenue has reached all levels of FBS.
The best way to ensure 100% compliance with a rule is to make it impossible to break it.
“We definitely need to have the technology,” Rhule said.
