Some interesting perspective from Joel Klatt: combine, Joe Milton, helmet comms/sign stealing

Next thing will be stealing cheeseburgers.  If the coach has you dine and dash, he didn't pay for anything!

Everybody steals signs? Next you'll tell me that everyone is tampering with other team's players!

The fact that Espn/OSU/MSU/Big ten convinced the world that coaching sidelines during games are sacred is beyond belief. There are ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND smart phone devices in a stadium along with a national broadcast and you are telling me multi-million dollar coaches are saying "Nah hard pass - sanctity of the game and all that". Come the fuck on. 

Also my favorite was the OSU sideline footage showing our coaches freaking out calling that it is going to be a pass play. Only in the world of OSU can you show video footage of our coaches being taped from your sidelines can you prove how unfair of an advantage we have. 

I invite a rival fan to give me some angle Im not seeing.

Sounds competitively fair. Let's single out one team and competitively trash them.

I'm old enough to get this joke. I mean it touched my heart.

Remember when we all thought we were about to win a national championship because Terrell Pryor will definitely commit to Michigan?

I'll always remember good ol' Joe for sending people to the ER by throwing 150mph footballs 20 rows up above the endzone.  As a fan you just don't prepare for those.

Taco is always there. 

I'll always remember him at Tennessee for avoiding those Ole Miss defenders by running out of bounds...WITH NO TIME LEFT ON THE CLOCK. 

That he will throw through the upright, ten rows up.

If he stays on the board until Day 3 he would be an interesting flyer. 

Still baffled at the idea that teams use the same signs week in and week out. 

I truly thought they changed them weekly.  When all this nonsense broke. 

I’m somewhat annoyed that the perp who orchestrated hiring the PI firm in the first place hasn’t been outed.  We all know where it came from, but I want receipts, hard proof….and embarrassment and their faces scarlet from shame.   It’s all been blown over and forgotten with the outstanding season, but it should be remembered and the  perps should be outed!  Zuniga, Bacon, et al-you listening???

It's wild how OSU isn't being called out by CFB fans for being such a big bitch. Not only do they steal signs themselves, but they hired a PI to try to take us down off the field because they couldn't take us down on the field and took down the whole institution of sign stealing in CFB as a whole in the process. They basically flipped the game board because they were losing. That doesn't even take into account their tampering and Catapult stuff

It got brought up a few times on the podcasts; Seth in particular alleged that every team has a designated sign stealing guy.  

I personally felt that was proven by an ESPN article that discussed helmet comms.  People were giving some VERY thin excuses about how they couldn't afford modded helmets because it would void some warranties.  Just very hard to beleive that a 5-figure cost would be that significant for teams that blow millions on crap like holograms in locker rooms.

It always felt to me like these college coaches think of themselves as little Pattons or little Napoleons.  They like feeling like spymasters and sign stealing is a fun element of that for them. 

The fact that helmet comms aren't already in the college football game tells you what you need to know about whether or not coaches actually want it gone. 

20-30 years ago, maybe you could make the argument that some schools just didn't have a budget for it. Which, I doubt it even then, but your Indianas, Vanderbilts, Utah States? Maybe that was true then. 

But now? In a sport where the rich get richer every freaking year, where even Indiana is raking in truckloads of cash with crappy football teams? Helmet comms and the cost to implement them would barely be a drop in the bucket. You could implement them immediately, heck, make Michigan's punishment be that they have to pay for everyone's helmet comm setup in the Big Ten for the first year, and then the "atrocity" that is sign stealing goes away forever. 

But the fact that this hasn't been implemented yet tells you what you need to know. Coaches don't want it gone. If they did, the comms would already be in place. Instead, you have blow-hards like Ryan Walters and Bret Bielema standing up and virtue signaling, whining and moaning about how Michigan had this unfair advantage, how its a gross assault on the game, when a freaking solution is staring them right in the face. To where big bad Michigan could never take advantage of them ever again.

AND THEY DON'T TAKE IT. 

It's not about the sign stealing. It never was. They were tired of getting their teeth kicked in on the field, were desperate for an excuse as to why, and saw an opportunity and trash the program doing it to them.