Alabama Head Coach Advocates For Helmet Microphones in College Football

For the second day in a row Nick Saban has talked about helmet microphones as the solution to sign stealing.

The Michigan Wolverines have made the college football headlines in the last couple weeks as they're at the center of an illegal sign-stealing scandal. The Wolverines allegedly had staff members travel to other games and film sidelines in an effort to decipher future opponents signals.

For the second day in a row Alabama head football coach Nick Saban was asked about the scandal and for the second day in a row he's discussed the helmet communicators that are in place in the National Football League.

"I don’t know enough about the Michigan situation to really comment on that situation specifically, but I can give you the historical facts on way back when when I was in the NFL – I’m talking about way back when, ‘88, ‘89, early ‘90s. You were allowed to send pro personnel guys to scout a game ahead of when you played it, and I think that it got to the point where sign stealing was unbelievable in the NFL. I mean, you had somebody that you hired to put in the box to watch signals of the other team, and by the first quarter, we got the runs, we got the passes. When I was a coordinator, I told the guy, ‘Look, don’t tell me what you think they’re going to do. We prepared. We know what we’re going to play in these situations. We’re going to play it. I don’t want to hear it. It’s just messing me up.’," said Saban on The Pat McAfee Show.

"But that became – and if you look historically, you’ll know that there were reasons that they changed the rules so you couldn’t do that. Then they come with the microphones in the helmet, whatever they call it, and there was no sign stealing, there was no signs because it was just communication, which I think we would solve a lot of those problems if we would do the same thing in college football. There’s no reason not to do that. There’s no reason that you just can’t tell the quarterback what the play is rather than having signs and signals and three people signaling and all this stuff to try to get the play, which is more difficult for the players, incidentally, because they’ve all got to get the sign because everybody’s going no-huddle. And for the defensive players who are going against a fastball team, all 11 guys got to know the signals, all 11 guys got to know the signs because they’re going fast and you can’t communicate it rather than just being able to tell somebody, ‘This is the call.’ So that would clean up all this."

The Wolverines allegedly had tickets to the last two years of SEC Championship Games putting Alabama right in their crosshairs as the Crimson Tide, Georgia Bulldogs and Cincinnati Bearcats were all in the 2021 College Football Playoffs with Michigan. 

Saban was not alone with his advocacy of of helmet communication devices as most of the coaches on the SEC Coaches Teleconference on Wednesday were in favor of the enhancement throughout college football.

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