In a recent interview on OutKick’s Hot Mic with Jonathan Hutton and Chad Withrow, TCU head coach Sonny Dykes commented on the challenge of preparing for the 2022 Fiesta Bowl game against Michigan due to the team stealing signs.
Dykes mentioned in the interview that he spoke to fellow coaches that had played Michigan prior to their matchup in the College Football Playoff, and they warned him about Michigan stealing sideline signs and signals from opposing teams.
With the NCAA nearing the punishment stage of the saga with Michigan, Hutton asked Dykes if the NCAA reached out to him regarding the Fiesta Bowl and their experience with the Wolverines, which prompted an interesting response.
“No, not that I’m aware of,” Dykes said. “They certainly haven’t ever reached out to me, and I’m not aware if they’ve reached out to anybody else on our staff. But, you know, it sounds to me like they’ve done a pretty thorough investigation of everything, and it sounds to me like they’ve come to some conclusions and are getting ready to share and with us all.”
“It was definitely an interesting time,” Dykes continued. “We were preparing for Michigan, we had a long time to prepare for them, and as we got started, you know how it is, you call people that you know at some of the schools that they played, and everybody kept saying, ‘Hey, watch the signals and be careful with this’.”
ESPN’s Pete Thamel and Dan Murphy reported over the weekend that seven people, including former Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh and current head coach Sherrone Moore, are being accused of violating NCAA rules.
“You know, you hear that from people, and often you hear that from people that lost the game as kind of an excuse,” Dykes continued. “I think we treated it that way at first, and then as we started to hear it more and more and started to dive into it, it seemed pretty obvious that something was going on, but we had no idea what or to what extent.”
Dykes finished his thoughts by saying, “I think sign stealing is pretty common in college football, but I think that Michigan took it to a different level. So we made a couple of changes. It wasn’t anything Earth-shattering, but we made some changes to protect our offense and defense from them. I think it certainly helped us, and I don’t think that we would’ve been able to win that game had we not gotten some of that information.”
