Defense is read and react. That takes time. If all you have to do is react because you know what’s going to happen, your guys just react. Play action is less effective, all the eye candy motion is meaningless, any advantage the offense may gain by deception is negated.Perhaps I don’t really understand what sign stealing entails, because I don’t even get why it’s illegal.
If I remember correctly, a Little League World Series team was warned on TV last year about stealing signs. It shows up in every sport and at every level. The pressure to win can at all cost really means at any cost.Sign stealing is a part of any organized sport. Heck, my 12 year old players steal signs on the baseball field without me even saying anything. I've even had several times where my players have come and told me they have figured out the steal sign of the other team's 3rd base coach and I've used it to my advantage.
I have zero problem with it between the white lines. I think the Michigan sign-stealing situation and the Houston Astros fiasco, are situations that go "out of bounds" and should be dealt with.
I don't know what to think about stuff like this. It fall in the category of what I told someone last night when discussing current day college athletics. I told them, "I miss the days when everyone knew everybody cheated some, but it was illegal."
I remember after one of the Bama vs. Clemson games for the NC (2018 BCSNCG?), the word got out that they knew what plays were coming. Tua, the best passer we've ever had at Bama, was shut down and threw a couple of INTs, IIRC. That game caught me off guard and it later made sense if we were tipping plays, as it was rumored.
With Indiana? I wasn't surprised we lost the game, but I was surprised how it seemed like every play they called on both sides of the ball seemed to work. I'll never be convinced Indiana had more talent than most of the teams they beat last year, so if they developed a system to know their opponents' plays, I guess they hood winked the whole college football universe all the way to the most improbable NC as I can EVER remember!
As for Cig? I hope he fails on the most epic scale! I've never seen someone who is so cocky. On CNS's most cocky day in the years when we won 5 out 10 NCs, he was a humble son of a WV coal miner compared to Cig.

And what that LL team was warned about is taught as fundamental baseball by any coach worth their salt from about age 12 and up. I'm a "baseball guy" so I guess I'm biased. Because, to me, a runner at second subtly signaling to the batter what the pitch is, is no different than a batter returning to the dugout and telling everybody "Hey, the pitcher always rubs his nose when he's going to throw a curveball" and then every hitter taking that information and lighting up the pitcher. Again, I'm biased when it comes to the sport of baseball because I was raised in it, so odds are, I'm in the minority on this one.If I remember correctly, a Little League World Series team was warned on TV last year about stealing signs. It shows up in every sport and at every level. The pressure to win can at all cost really means at any cost.
The effort to win has never had boundaries and I don't think ever will. With technology, I can almost guarantee there are teams that make every effort to hack other teams' technology and it's probably been going on since technology got integrated into sports.With AI technology and large analyst staffs along with enormous pressure to win this will be the tip of the iceberg. I believe there needs to be some thought put in to how to communicate in such a way as to not reveal intent. Like many said the main call comes across the radio. I'm curious what security exists on those radios? encryption maybe? but if so all the other team needs is the key to hear it real time. but lets assume they haven't done that. Making line calls may need to be something they rethink as to how often and how that is communicated. I mean it could be as simple as having a mole in the press box. In high school we stopped a game because the home team chain gang was listening to our coach call the play and relaying it to the conerback. I kept wondering why the linebackers were instantly going the right direction.
I didn't mean to suggest that's why they won all their games. But, knowing they had such average players playing at such a high level, it might actually serve as another reason they won all those games. No question they played very disciplined football, which is a credit to Cig and his staff, but it sure would help a team like that overcome more talented teams on the schedule.IMO, they had too many games that were close to have discovered a cheat code of knowing other teams' signs so well they would blow them out. That isn't to say that they didn't effectively use sign stealing as part of their success. But I'm just not convinced that it was the reason they went undefeated and won a NC.
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That schedule and the close games they played probably looks real similar to our 1992 NC schedule.IMO, they had too many games that were close to have discovered a cheat code of knowing other teams' signs so well they would blow them out. That isn't to say that they didn't effectively use sign stealing as part of their success. But I'm just not convinced that it was the reason they went undefeated and won a NC.
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