Venables and Sign Stealing

[smith5753]

In the video of the red River rivalry it looks like the Oklahoma receiver Savage dropped the ball at 1 yard line.

 

[stlimprov]

Clemson decoded our signs in the 2016 NC game. It was apparent if you were there watching it live.

It wasn't a headline, but was something that was definitely talked about/known well before then, that Tua had a strong tendency make his reads pre-snap and the confidence to assume that was sufficient. For that vast majority of teams, it didn't matter, because they couldn't pull off that misdirection sufficiently.

No doubt BV had an active plan to use that to their advantage. Clemson had the quality of players to pull it off, and the time to prepare. In essence BV didn't even have to steal our signs, because he figured out how to call our plays. Not that they didn't steal signs too.

 

[4Q Basket Case]

To answer the OP: Yes, Venables and staff still steal signals. So far, there has been no implication of breaking rules to do it. IOW, nobody has accused them of an elaborate organized spying scheme along the lines of what Michigan did.

Our coaches are well aware of the issue and are working to counter. Whether that's by changing / switching up signals, or by baiting OU with some disinformation I don't know. I would guess both.

I would also guess that all schools are trying to steal signals. So all are also implementing countermeasures. But sign-stealers are also evolving their techniques. Which requires evolving countermeasures. Kind of like cybersecurity, it's a continuing battle between deciphering efforts and countermeasures.

 

[The Ols]

To answer the OP: Yes, Venables and staff still steal signals. So far, there has been no implication of breaking rules to do it. IOW, nobody has accused them of an elaborate organized spying scheme along the lines of what Michigan did.

Our coaches are well aware of the issue and are working to counter. Whether that's by changing / switching up signals, or by baiting OU with some disinformation I don't know. I would guess both.

I would also guess that all schools are trying to steal signals. So all are also implementing countermeasures. But sign-stealers are also evolving their techniques. Which requires evolving countermeasures. Kind of like cybersecurity, it's a continuing battle between deciphering efforts and countermeasures.

…long way from when I grew up…

 

[Coach D]

When I was a GA for football they told us to figure out all signs we could while breaking down film. It’s always happened but it’s been a bigger priority at certain schools/coaches.

 

[crimsonaudio]

To answer the OP: Yes, Venables and staff still steal signals. So far, there has been no implication of breaking rules to do it. IOW, nobody has accused them of an elaborate organized spying scheme along the lines of what Michigan did.

Our coaches are well aware of the issue and are working to counter. Whether that's by changing / switching up signals, or by baiting OU with some disinformation I don't know. I would guess both.

I would also guess that all schools are trying to steal signals. So all are also implementing countermeasures. But sign-stealers are also evolving their techniques. Which requires evolving countermeasures. Kind of like cybersecurity, it's a continuing battle between deciphering efforts and countermeasures.

I would be shocked if someone hasn't built a LLM based on videos of each opponent's calls. This would make deciphering play calls nearly instantaneous.

 

[AlistarWills]

I would be shocked if someone hasn't built a LLM based on videos of each opponent's calls. This would make deciphering play calls nearly instantaneous.

I can’t believe someone hasn’t found a way to get a channel scanner in and just listen to the opponents communications. Illegal yes, but that never stopped a lot of folks from doing a lot of things.

 

[Tidewater]

In the military, when developing an operational plan, if there are two Courses of Action, Hook Left, or Hook Right and the commander decides to Hook Left, the guy who developed the plan for Hook Right gets designated the Chief of the Deception Plan, and starts developing a plan to paint the picture for the enemy that we will actually Hook Right.
Think Normandy and D-Day. One COA for invading France was a Pas de Calais (shortest sea gap between Britain and France) or Normandy (further away from Germany but not as well defended as Pas de Calais). Ike chose to invade at Normandy, and put Patton in command of the "We are invading at Pas de Calais" force with inflatable rubber tanks and trucks, fake radio broadcasts between fictitious units assembling near Dover. This was intended to keep German units in the Pas de Calais region.

Maybe Bama should develop some plays (Toss Sweep left) and present signals indicating we will Deep Pass Right. If it works okay, then the actual play might have a better chance of success. If it works very well, OU might stop paying attention to signals entirely. But that based on "given this play, what do we want OU to do? And how do we convince them to do that?"

 

[CB4]

In the military, when developing an operational plan, if there are two Courses of Action, Hook Left, or Hook Right and the commander decides to Hook Left, the guy who developed the plan for Hook Right gets designated the Chief of the Deception Plan, and starts developing a plan to paint the picture for the enemy that we will actually Hook Right.
Think Normandy and D-Day. One COA for invading France was a Pas de Calais (shortest sea gap between Britain and France) or Normandy (further away from Germany but not as well defended as Pas de Calais). Ike chose to invade at Normandy, and put Patton in command of the "We are invading at Pas de Calais" force with inflatable rubber tanks and trucks, fake radio broadcasts between fictitious units assembling near Dover. This was intended to keep German units in the Pas de Calais region.

Maybe Bama should develop some plays (Toss Sweep left) and present signals indicating we will Deep Pass Right. If it works okay, then the actual play might have a better chance of success. If it works very well, OU might stop paying attention to signals entirely. But that based on "given this play, what do we want OU to do? And how do we convince them to do that?"

Similar to Civil War actions where you sent a division or Corp to “demonstrate” against one end of the enemy line while the main objective was elsewhere along the line.

One of the greatest deceptions ever was by the late great pirate Mike Leach when he was OC at Oklahoma with a fake play script.

 

[CoolBreeze]

So, how dependent are we on signs in today's game anyway? If the game is going by way of sign stealing then then the real innovation would be do away with them altogether. Or maybe, use them on every play that mean absolutely nothing except on just a few plays based on the QB or backers audible.

 

[bamajas]

I would be shocked if someone hasn't built a LLM based on videos of each opponent's calls. This would make deciphering play calls nearly instantaneous.

I would assume this is along the lines of what UM was doing or heading toward. Getting the same angle on the footage for the entire game would make it more dependable

Surely they weren't breaking it all down by hand once they got it

 

[NoNC4Tubs]

I can’t believe someone hasn’t found a way to get a channel scanner in and just listen to the opponents communications. Illegal yes, but that never stopped a lot of folks from doing a lot of things.

There is no doubt in my mind that awbern has already done that...