The sign-stealing scandal that the Michigan Wolverines football program is currently engulfed in has dominated headlines in college football lately. However, legendary Alabama Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban stated on Thursday that he believes one rule change in college football would completely erase the possibility of sign-stealing in the future.
For those not familiar with the Michigan scandal, it centers around a former Michigan recruiting staffer named Connor Stalions. He is accused of orchestrating a sign-stealing scheme where he would film the sidelines at games not involving the Wolverines.
This is a huge problem since in-person scouting of upcoming opponents has been outlawed by the NCAA since 1994.
Saban proposed college football should adopt an NFL rule to stop this issue, allowing quarterbacks to have a speaker in their helmets to hear play calls from coaches with a microphone, which would largely take any signs from the sidelines out of the game.
“We would stop a lot of those problems if we would do the same thing in college football,” said Saban on this potential rule change during an appearance on The Pat McAfee Show. “There is no reason not to do that. There’s no reason you can’t just tell the quarterback what the play is rather than having signs and signals and all this stuff to get the play. That would clean up all this.”
"I don't know enough about the Michigan investigation to really comment on the situation..
We would solve a lot of problems in College Football if we had a microphone in the helmet and there's no reason why we can't do that"
Coach Saban #PMSLive pic.twitter.com/yeV6ntDYj1
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) October 26, 2023
It does seem like that would be a simple fix for these problems. And truthfully, it would just make things easier for the players regardless of sign-stealing. This way, offensive players wouldn’t need to learn all these sideline signs in the first place.
It remains to be seen whether college football would be willing to consider this rule change. But considering the negative attention this whole sign-stealing scandal at Michigan has gotten, it should at least be a consideration moving forward.
About Reice Shipley
Reice Shipley is a staff writer for Comeback Media that graduated from Ithaca College with a degree in Sports Media. He previously worked at Barrett Sports Media and is a fan of all things Syracuse sports.