Michigan quarterback J.J. McCarthy this week addressed the Wolverine's sign-stealing scandal, essentially admitting that Michigan stole signs in order to keep pace with other teams in the conference.
"I feel like it's so unfortunate because there's probably, I don't want to say a crazy number, but probably a good number, 80 percent of teams in college football steal signs," McCarthy said during a teleconference ahead of Monday's national championship between No. 1 Michigan and No. 2 Washington. "It's a thing about football, it's been about for years. We actually had to adapt because in 2020, or 2019 when Ohio State was stealing our signs — which is legal and they were doing it a legit way — we had to get up to the level they were at and make it an even playing field.
"I just feel like it sucks because ... we do work our butts off, we do watch film and look for those little tendencies. Spend 10 or 15 minutes on one clip alone and look at the little details: the posture of a linebacker or d-end, is the safety off-level, if the corner to the field is press but the corner to the boundary is off ... you can say it's all sign stealing, but there's more that goes into play ... a lot of work gets masked because of what the outside perception of sign-stealing is all about."
J.J. McCarthy says a lot Michigan’s work as a team “gets masked” due to “outside perception of what sign stealing is all about.” pic.twitter.com/XsqOrwiNm2
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) January 4, 2024
Allegations of Michigan's sign-stealing are accompanied by an NCAA investigation into possible recruiting violations as well. But McCarthy said he and the rest of the Wolverines are focused on the national championship and not on "Rumorville."
"We know we did things the right way as players. Whatever happens without the outside controversy is outside of our control, whatever the NCAA wants to do is out of our control. We're going to appreciate the things we can control and the things we did accomplish."
