10/25/2023 football Edit

Mike Norvell condemns 'unethical' sign-stealing but wary of helmet headsets

Curt Weiler • TheOsceola

Senior Writer

Sign stealing is far from a new thing in the football world.

For years and years, teams have tried to get that extra edge by watching either in-person during games or on television copy of games to decipher what sideline signals mean in terms of playcalls, audibles or anything of that sort. It's become especially more rampant since fewer and fewer teams huddle nowadays, mostly looking to the sideline for a signal instead as it allows offenses to move quicker between plays.

"I think when you sit there and look at sign stealing within games, that has been forever," FSU head coach Mike Norvell said Wednesday. "When people started going no-huddle and started spreading out and communicating everything from the sideline, people would look at the sideline and if you consistently do (a certain sign) and then you run the same play every time and that's it, somebody is going to pick up on it. It's just a normal tendency. It's our job, we have a very elaborate way of how we communicate."

However, sign stealing of a very different and more malicious variety has been in the news the last week. Last Friday, it was first reported by ESPN that Michigan analyst Connor Stalions was under investigation by the NCAA for alleged sign stealing.

In the days since, after he was suspended by Michigan with pay, a vast amount of accusations and pieces of damning evidence have come in showing Stalions and a few people he was working with were regularly attending games of future or potential opposing teams and recording the bench area on his phone to be able to interpret signs that could be a help for the Wolverines in their future games.

While sign stealing is allowed during a game or from television copy, attending a game and recording the game for sign-stealing purposes are both expressly against NCAA rules.

That's where Norvell firmly drew the line when asked about the topic after FSU's Wednesday morning practice.

"Accusations of people going and watching a game, that's just unethical. It's an unethical thing," Norvell said. "It's against all parts of the rules of what is stated. I can't defend it."

FSU was not on the long list of teams that have come forth with evidence of Stalions buying tickets and attending their games with the intention to steal FSU's signs. ESPN reported Monday that he had purchased tickets for more than 30 games at 11 different Big Ten schools over the last five years. Yahoo reported Tuesday that Stalions also purchased tickets to Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama and Clemson games last year along with the last two SEC Championship Games. All of those teams could have been Michigan opponents in the College Football Playoff at various points in the season.

Before the report broke about him last week and he was suspended, it was also reported that Stalions had tickets on each side of the stadium behind both bench areas for last Saturday's Ohio State-Penn State game in Columbus. Michigan is set to play each of those two teams in the final three weeks of the regular season this year.

Because of this pattern, it's fair to wonder if Stalions could have made it to an FSU game down the stretch of the season if his actions had not been discovered considering the Seminoles are being projected as a possible CFP opponent for the Wolverines.

"If somebody chooses to come and watch our games, you can't defend it," Norvell said. "You do all the things that you can control within the game, but ultimately, it's the same deal when it comes to you can't keep somebody from doing that other than what rules are in place."

Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh released a statement last week shortly after the news broke denying any knowledge of Stalions' actions, but making it clear his program will fully cooperate with the investigation. The Big Ten confirmed it has opened an investigation and the NCAA is expected to receive video evidence of Stalions' illegal scouting this week, per reports.

The hubbub of news and reporting around this remarkably bizarre college football occurrence has renewed discussions about the possibility of moving closer to the NFL model of playcalling. The NFL allows teams to put communication headsets in the helmets of one player on each side of the ball (normally the quarterback and a linebacker) so that coaches can communicate directly with them and not be required to signal in plays, instead often utilizing a huddle.

Norvell didn't come out and say he was totally opposed to this possibility. However, he made his hesitations about this potential change clear, even if it's not something the NCAA has publicly discussed at this point.

"When it comes to my concern and the things that I don't necessarily like, I think if we get to a point of having coach to player communication (on a headset), I think there needs to be real restrictions on the amount of time," Norvell said. "The NFL, you've got 32 teams, everybody has got their certain setup, it's a closed, secure system and it cuts off at a certain amount of time (on the play clock). I don't want to lose the integrity of the game of having to coach, having to teach, having to develop, having to help somebody."

This change, if not properly implemented, would take away one of the areas of his job that Norvell likes the most.

"Technology is great and I'm all about, if that's what people decide to do and if you want to huddle, nobody will ever steal your signals," Norvell said. "But on the flip side of it, I just want to make sure that if that's where we go, that there's enough restrictions to where we're not playing video games with young men that are out there, going through, telling them everything they need to do or what it is. That's one of the best parts of my job is seeing the growth and development of somebody playing with confidence based off what they see from how they practiced and applying the right fundamentals."