While Alabama football will certainly bring a fresh set of signs to the Rose Bowl for a College Football Playoff semifinal against Michigan, its efforts to cloak communication won’t be any more strident due to the sign-stealing scandal that rocked the Wolverines program this season.
‘Uh, not really,’ coach Nick Saban said when asked whether he had added concerns based on findings that a Michigan staffer attended and paid for others to attend games of future Michigan opponents with the purpose of stealing signs, in violation of NCAA rules. ‘We always change things up a little bit. We’re focused on what we have to do to try to get good execution and we’re not really concerned about any of that stuff.’
Last month, Michigan analyst Connor Stalions resigned, two weeks after being suspended by the school, following reports that he purchased tickets for 35 games involving future Michigan opponents over multiple seasons. Coach Jim Harbaugh denied directing any off-campus scouting, or prior knowledge of it. Harbaugh was suspended for the last three games of the regular season by the Big Ten Conference for a violation of the league’s sportsmanship policy.
Saban said his coaching staff goes through the same self-evaluation process ahead of postseason play that it does during an idle week. Along with whatever signal changes are in order, the staff also seeks to find tendencies in the Crimson Tide’s play that should be broken.
‘There’s no question about it. We do quality control just about every week on what our tendencies are in what we’re doing,’ Saban said. ‘What we can do to try to break those in some way, shape or form. And certainly with this extra time here that’s something that we most certainly are trying to do.’
Reach Tuscaloosa News columnist Chase Goodbread at cgoodbread@gannett.com. Follow on Twitter @chasegoodbread.
