Zach Arnett addresses concerns of possible sign-stealing

Mississippi State Bulldogs head coach Zach Arnett opened up about the concerns that he has with the possibility that teams would be stealing signs from them.

This comes amid a sign-stealing investigation at Michigan, which has seen the NCAA looking into the program for potentially stealing signs in person and recording the sidelines of future opponents. Even though the Bulldogs and Wolverines don’t play, the impact of that investigation is still being felt around the country.

“Sign-stealing is not illegal, right?” Zach Arnett said. “Obviously, there’s people on the opposing sidelines or up in the box always looking at whoever your signaller is. When I called defense – I think it’s the same now – we just have one primary signal caller giving it.”

Zach Arnett added that his staff isn’t overly worried about sign stealing because most of the time there actually isn’t enough time between plays to steal the sign, understand what it means, and counter it before the ball gets snapped.

“So, it’s not something we spent a whole lot of time concerning ourselves with. All of that has to do with depending on how the opponent does tempo too or how long you hold your call, how realistic is it to even think that you can get all that information processed,” Arnett said.

“Defensive guys see if they can try to figure out the opposing offensive guys’ play signal, but if they’re snapping the ball every 10 seconds, you don’t have time for all that.”

Ultimately, concern about how big a deal sign stealing is to a coach is going to vary by personality. However, Zach Arnett does make an interesting point about how helpful the act is actually going to be.

Zach Arnett on his first SEC win

Over the weekend, Zach Arnett got his first SEC win as Mississippi State’s head coach. It was an ugly 7-3 win against Arkansas, but a win is a win and Arnett knew somebody had to go and take it.

“It was hard. Both teams were obviously looking for their first SEC victory. Somebody had to go out and take it. The defense made enough plays there. [Arkansas] played great defense, too. … [Mississippi State] has pride. When you’re a competitor, you’re not satisfied with how we played during the first half of the season — we know that we can get a lot better,” Arnett said.

“We can’t give up a lot of points in this league and expect to win a lot of games, so I think they took the bye week, took the criticism to heart dug into self-scouting and it paid off and we went out and executed a lot better.”