Michigan football can’t quiet sign-stealing talk if J.J. McCarthy and Roman Wilson keep making comments like this — Jimmy Watkin

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Michigan football players should be tired of hearing the same cheating allegations. They should be tired of hearing the same questions. And after two months answering them repeatedly, UM should know the playbook for dodging such inquiries.

But when asked about the same topic Wednesday, quarterback J.J. McCarthy veered off script. The Michigan junior scrambled outside the cliche-ridden pocket and looked well beyond his first read, which should’ve been “no comment,” according to UM’s side-stepping game plan.

Then he threw a deep ball up for grabs, and headline ballhawks across the country jumped at the chance to make a play.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% of teams in college football steal signs,” McCarthy said.

“It’s a thing about football, it’s been around 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.