College Football

There are rules about attending practices in person or using electronic devices to aid in sign stealing. But if you just notice your opponent using a specific sign and it correlating certain plays or schemes, that’s just part of the game. It’s a team’s responsibility to obfuscate their signs, otherwise why use signs at all? If you weren’t allowed to see what the sideline is signaling to the players, just hold the play name up on a card, then you could save time teaching kids the signals.

I’m guessing the investigation is more to make sure they didn’t use one of the outlawed methods, and I’m willing to bet they didn’t and just got pretty good at figuring out signs. Or are just good enough that teams think that’s what they’re doing.

Your first two examples open up more opportunities for outplays. The opposing team can recognize that you have picked up on their patterns and then run fake-out plays to catch you off guard. Sign stealing just allows you to know exactly what the other team is about to do and there is no opportunity for them to fake you out. (Other than switching to a new set of signs, but learning signs is boring for the players and not entertaining for the audience).

To equate it to poker: Your first two examples are similar to learning one of your opponents tells. If you start to exploit their tell, they can start faking it to force you to fold or place a bad bet. Sign stealing is like taking a peak at their cards

Pretty sure the biggest secret to a dominant D is playing teams who's total wins are less than your own wins.

The sign stealing isn't necessarily the big thing, it's the illegal scouting of teams. This is like the 10th shady thing facing Harbaugh in the last few years, it's really starting to add up.