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Weis and Notre Dave have offered little comment. Really, why should they? Switzer is in the Hall of Fame. Rich Rodriguez and many of his assistants are at the top of their profession at Michigan. Drug cheats have made a sham of baseball and the Olympics. Their MVPs are gold medals still are in the record books. To believe that college coaches are cheating, some kind of line has to be crossed. Someone has to care. Someone has to speak out. That's what distinguishes the furor over Spygate and the relative silence in major-college football.
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"The truth of the matter is, name the profession where someone isn't seeking an advantage," Washington coach Tyrone Willingham said. "That's man's nature. When man bit the apple, that did it. Original sin."
There are degrees of sleaze. No one in baseball would think twice if a third base coach's signs were "stolen." Things happen at the bottom of piles that would make surgeons blanch. So why did Spygate seem to cross some invisible line between gamesmanship and cheating? Football teams have been stealing signals for years. That's why you see coaches hold their play sheet up to their mouths. That's why three quarterbacks signal in plays to the offense, only one of them being "hot."
"I think coaches know that line," Bellotti said. "Unfortunately, some people don't care about that line."
"Gosh, we used to have students to see if they could read a guy's signals," Willingham admitted. "In the spirit of the game, is that right? Not in the spirit."
Presumably, college coaches are more ethically inclined than their pro counterparts. Despite the high salaries and corruption, college coaches might actually think twice before crossing that line. There is a maze of recruiting rules that must be adhered to. There still, supposedly, is some sense of moral purpose among the majority.
And a degree of difficulty when it comes to cheating. Unlike the NFL, in-person scouting of college games has been banned for 14 years. Of course, that doesn't mean it can't happen.
"With the technology today, who knows what's out there?" Southern Miss coach Larry Fedora said. "It would be very easy to sit in the stands and use their camera phones."
Maybe it just comes down to the NFL having better technology. There's a reason more and more colleges coaches are closing practice. Stuff gets on the Internet and before you know it there is a website that stockpiles playbooks.
"They caught a guy one time in the library on 11th floor looking out on the practice field," a former assistant at a major program said.
That was 20 years ago.
You can also figure it has happened more than once. There's a reason more and more college teams don't walk through on the road. "Walk through" refers to the practice of running a few plays at the opposing stadium, just to loosen up the day before a game. It used to be a common practice in the past.
If coaches did it today, they'd probably throw in a couple of dummy plays just to be safe.
"Most of these coaches, their offices are in the stadium, looking in the stadium," Kansas coach Mark Mangino said. "Why put them in that position? If somebody is outside your window doing something and you're in that building, you're going to look."
At the base level, it doesn't take much to gain a significant advantage. If an offensive coordinator knew something as simple as what side of the field a blitz was coming from, it could be a great advantage.
"I'd hate to say (it's) degrees of ethics," said Texas A&M's Mike Sherman, who has extensive experience in college and the pros. "If someone is using a repeated signal over and over again that signifies a certain blitz, that's part of the game."
The level of one-the-record comment seems to break down to how much a coach has to lose. Current coaches don't want to break "the code" by outing players, coaches or techniques. Those out of the game? Let's just say they are aware there are plenty of Piggy Barnes still around.
"I think there's some (cheating)," Texas Tech's Mike Leach said. "The paranoia of it is far worse than anything anybody gets ... I've heard of other people filming. I've always thought it was pretty overrated. Does it exist? Yes. Anyone as paranoid as football coaches are always looking for an edge."
