Michigan quarterback J.J. McCarthy raised the issue of the Wolverines’ ongoing sign-stealing scandal and the school’s rivalry with Ohio State after comments he made by suggesting his team was only trying to keep up with the Buckeyes by taking part in an effort to get football signals.
As part of his comments, McCarthy brought up the scandal by saying that around “80 percent” of teams in college football steal each others’ signs. “It’s just a thing about football, it’s been around for years,” McCarthy said. “We actually had to adapt because in 2020 or 2019 when Ohio State was stealing our signs, which is legal and they were doing it, we had to get up to the level that they were at, and we had to make it an even playing field.
” Allegations around former Michigan football assistant Connor Stallions stealing football signals has been one of the biggest stories of the season, and resulted in head coach Jim Harbaugh being suspended for three games at the end of the season. Claims around the allegation suggest that Stallions bought tickets to two dozen football games featuring future Michigan opponents to collect information about opposing play-calls. “I just feel like it sucks,” McCarthy said. “We do work our butts off.
We do watch so much film and look for those little tendencies and spend like 10, 15 minutes on one clip alone just looking at all the little details of the posture, of the linebackers, or the D-ends, the safeties off-levels, the corner to the field is press, but the corner to the boundary is off, little stuff like that where it’s like, you could say it’s all sign stealing, but there’s a lot more that goes into play, and a lot of the stuff that gets masked, a lot of work that gets masked just because of the outside perception of what sign stealing is about
