Nebraska head football coach Matt Rhule met with the media on Monday afternoon.
Nebraska head football coach Matt Rhule met with the media on Monday afternoon. The man in charge was asked about the recent controversy regarding allegations of Michigan stealing opponents’ signs and signals.
Our friends at Wolverines Wire have reported extensively on the matter.
“ESPN reported Connor Stalions, the Wolverines staffer allegedly caught up in the illegal sign stealing investigation, has left a paper trail of having purchased 30 tickets to 11 Big Ten teams’ games in the past three seasons. Sign stealing is legal if not done by a staffer in person, so there is perhaps some gray area, but we’ll find out more in the coming days or weeks.”
Rhule told the media that sign stealing is a common practice in the world of college football.
“Yeah, sign stealing happens every game. There’s nothing wrong with teams looking over trying to steal our signs. There’s nothing wrong with us looking at their signs. It’s why you should have mics in the helmets. All these coaches that vote against it every year, they don’t want to teach their quarterback. In the NFL, the quarterback goes out there with three play calls. If I see the free safety’s foot like that, I might go one high and check to this play.
He also made it clear that he believes the reliance on signs and signals has stunted the development of college football players.
But it’s also why the kids are less prepared. That’s why there 100% should be – you get rid of all the stupid signs on the sideline so we can get pictures of rockstars and all that, and we could just play football the way it should be. You go to a high school game, there’s technology on the sideline. You go to an NFL game, there’s technology on the sideline. Go to college, there’s nothing. It should be that. But that’s sign-stealing.
The head coach went on to say that the rules in place are necessary and must be enforced.
I will not carry that over into going and filming someone else’s practices or something like that, or filming someone else’s games. That’s completely something different. And I’m not saying that happened, but I think what’s wrong partly in our society right now is we say someone does something against the rules. And sports need rules, right? Sports need rules to keep competitive balance, and when something does something against the rules, we say ‘well, should that really even be a rule?’ It is the rule. We don’t get five downs. In-game, stealing of signs, we play against somebody, and I know that person has friends on the next staff, I know if they have our signs, they have them the next week, that’s all part of the game. You have to do what you do. We should absolutely have technology, but if there’s a rule, the rule should be followed. I’m not speaking about what’s happening right now because I don’t know what happened, but if that is happening somewhere, it’s completely, completely wrong.”
Social media reaction to the comments has been strong and you can find a sample of those reactions below.
