Michigan football has gained some unlikely allies over the course of the past week as the Wolverines dominate not only on the football field but also in the news cycle during the bye week.
On Sunday, former Ohio State star Maurice Clarett claimed it’s the NCAA that’s the enemy, not the maize and blue. Earlier in the week, it was a former rival coach who downplayed the entire supposed scandal.
Not a lot of coaches have spoken up to slam the Wolverines, which says something in its own right. But onetime rival coach Brian Kelly, who oversaw Notre Dame before absconding for LSU, says too much is being made of the advantage of sign stealing.
“It’s silly,” he told ESPN on Wednesday. “Silly meaning my genuine feeling is that we have too many smart people that have looked at this and said we should be doing it and we haven’t taken the time to actually move it forward.”
Kelly said that teams attempting to steal signals of opponents has been “going on forever.”
Asked whether those efforts ever rose to the level of what Michigan is accused of, sending people to scout opponents in person and using recording devices, Kelly said, “Who knows.”
“But this isn’t the first time we’ve heard of sign stealing,” he said, “whether there is proposed sign stealing or people were buying tickets to other games. This is all part of why this should not even be part of the equation.”
Kelly said the tangible effect of stealing signals is debatable. In 32 years of coaching, he said, he has never believed they lost a game because of it.
“I’ve never come back to the office and go, they got us,” he added.
He also advocates for helmet technology as the NFL has as he continued, but one thing is for sure: the media narrative of Michigan’s alleged dirty deeds aren’t viewed so much that way unless they come in the form of anonymous quotes by rival coaches.