🏈 Football coaching at its finest! Ole Miss changes offensive signs so former assistants can’t steal

[TerryP]

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Ole Miss changes offensive signs so former assistants can’t steal them http://t.co/JqvrbFcxOj
— Saturday Down South (@SDS) April 20, 2014​

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There's not a big enough emoticon for the way I'm rolling my eyes...

“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

Hugh Freeze and Ole Miss spent much of spring practice changing up their offensive signs and calls for the 2014 season, according to USA Today.

Is stealing signs wrong? Is there an unwritten rule that says assistant coaches shouldn’t do such a thing? No chance. Bad etiquette? No way. It’s nobody’s fault except the coaching staff’s if opponents steal signs. College football is a win-at-all-costs, cutthroat game, especially with the amount of money funneling into football’s most powerful conference.

Freeze wants to make sure his former assistant coaches won’t steal anymore of his signs. Remember last season when former Ole Miss staffer turned Alabama Associate Director of Player Personnel Tyler Siskey was accused of stealing the Rebels’ offensive signs and relaying them to the Tide’s defense? It was never proven whether he did it or not, but Alabama pitched a shutout against Ole Miss 25-0.

RELATED: Ole Miss fans hammered Tyler Siskey on Twitter during Bama game

Freeze is erring on the side of caution for the future.

“It’s certainly not the easiest thing to totally start over, which we did,” Freeze said. “But I do think we came up with the best possible scenario. The thing that I demanded to our coaches is that it has to make sense, whether we’re signaling it, using the flip chart or using the boards. I think we got a system now where we could easily use any of the three and it make sense to our kids.”

Although Freeze is somewhat concerned that his players may have trouble with the new signs – he said he’ll find out more in fall camp – he sounds more worried that he’ll be the one to forget a signal.

“The hardest thing is for me really, and for whoever is doing the flip charts and the signals,” Freeze said. “It easily could be that they have to decipher my old stuff and make it right. I told them that if I’ve been saying, ‘Rambo,’ for seven, eight years now and that’s a menu in my mind and all of a sudden it’s not Rambo anymore — I could see myself messing that up.”

The Rebels return a veteran-laid offensive unit, including Bo Wallace, which should help have a smooth transition with the new calls and signs.

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Here's a little bit to chew on...

This is coming from a coach who was vociferously pointing to the 10-second rule proposal as having an adverse affect on his offense...and his players can't get the play right in the first place?

 

[psychojoe]

I think his comments about the ten second rule were directly related to our perceived difficulties with the HUNH offenses.

I like baseball's attitude about signs. Steal our signs, its our fault.

 

[JoshB]

lmao i remember last year there was an article somewhere saying that Freeze changed them up already last spring when Siskey was hired at Bama... so what exactly were they stealing?

 

[TerryP]

[MENTION=12303]Birdman37[/MENTION] You know what I'm inclined to believe? He's already setting up excuses for the team and fan base going into the fall.

In a way it reminds me of another coach that used to be in the SEC who always pointed to "look at how young we are" in the spring. When, the bottom line reveals, he was good for 8-9 wins per year. If you look at the big picture he's remembered for his success against a sanctioned, Shula coached Tide. He's not remembered as a guy who was an eight win type of coach.

 

[bamaraider]

If Todd Blackledge can sit in the booth and tell me which play Ole Piss is going to run next based on their signs, what makes you think the coaching staff can't either on the sideline? :shake:

 

[psychojoe]

If Todd Blackledge can sit in the booth and tell me which play Ole Piss is going to run next based on their signs, what makes you think the coaching staff can't either on the sideline? :shake:

There is an art to sign stealing. I remember in bygone years when Tony Kubek was doing color on a baseball broadcast he had stolen the third base coach's signs and was calling on the air whether runners were going or not. He only did it for one game after the team affected complained to NBC.