Bobby Petrino takes shot at Clemson when asked about sign-stealing

Arkansas offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino was asked about the Michigan sign-stealing allegations on Thursday. Petrino didn’t comment on what allegedly was going on at Michigan, but he did take a shot at Clemson.

Petrino said that when he was the head coach at Louisville, Clemson always had the Cardinals’ signs.

“I don’t know anything about, you know, Michigan and what they did or any of that. I honestly didn’t pay any attention to it,” Petrino said. “But I do know when you went and played Clemson, that they were going to have your signals.”

Bobby Petrino was the head coach at Louisville from 2014-18. His team faced Clemson every one of those years and was winless against the Tigers, although three of the five games were decided by six points or less.

Louisville scored more than 21 points only once against Clemson — with Heisman winner Lamar Jackson in 2016. Petrino hinted that part of the struggles on offense were due to Clemson having the Cardinals’ signals.

“They had guys on the sidelines standing there with a sheet of paper with your signals on it. And that was tough,” Petrino said.

Petrino added that he is hopeful that in the future, the NCAA will allow coach-to-player communicaton through an ear piece. The NFL allows the quarterbacks on offense and one player on defense to wear an ear piece, so that a coach can tell them the play. That isn’t allowed in college football at the moment, but Petrino is one of several college coaches arguing for coach-to-player communication to be allowed.

“I think that they should’ve done that a long time ago, you know,” Petrino said. “The SEC and the ACC have talked for years about putting the piece in the ear. And one of the issues that you always have in the NCAA is everybody has a vote. So there’s a lot of schools that play football that can out-vote the major conferences that don’t have the money for that technology to be in their helmets. So that’s why they’ve got to do something about it.”

Petrino added that sign-stealing has become a bigger and bigger problem in college football in recent years and allowing coaches to communicate with players through their helmet would fix a lot of the issues.

“It’s become more and more relevant throughout the years that I’ve been in, about people stealing signals and calling defenses and offenses that way,” Petrino said.