Gene Chizik defends Brent Venables from Lane Kiffin 'sign-stealing' comments

Lane Kiffin raised a few eyebrows this week after openly discussing Brent Venables and Oklahoma‘s ability to get other teams’ signs. Ever since the scandal in Ann Arbor, the term ‘sign-stealing’ has been associated with a form of cheating. But Kiffin gave OU credit for the practice through film review leading into games, at least on the surface.

Even so, some continue to question Venables over the practice due to Kiffin’s comments. Gene Chizik was there to defend the Sooners head coach on Wednesday, saying it’s common across college football.

“Let me make this very clear,” Chizik said Wednesday on SEC Now. “Everybody steals signals. Guys, on Sunday night, you have an army of guys that take every TV copy, everything they can get to look and see what the signal callers are. Most people have multiple signal callers but you’re looking for who is the live guy. There’s an army of people that do that. They do that everywhere.

“Now, I will say this. When Brent was at Clemson, they were notoriously known for being able to have an army of guys that could steal your signals. But hey, everybody does it. Don’t act like nobody does it, everybody does it. Maybe OU is pretty good at it, I don’t know.”

Chizik and Venables are both defensive guys, meaning they rarely directly went up against one another. However, there was an instance in Chizik’s final year as the Auburn head coach when he faced first-year Clemson defensive coordinator Venables. Just 19 points were put up by the Auburn offense, giving Clemson a nice opening win in the old Georgia Dome.

You can look at the 2007 season as well, when Chizik was Iowa State‘s head coach. Oklahoma employed Venables, just as the defensive coordinator. OU won a surprisingly close 17-7 game in Ames.

Back to the present-day Ole Miss game — Venables, of course, did not confirm or deny what Kiffin said. Instead, he took the comment as a compliment before raving about his group’s ability to be prepared. After all, Oklahoma holds one of the best defenses in all of college football through seven games.

Kiffin might be spending some extra time this week on switching things up. Ole Miss rides into Norman fresh off a loss, wanting to get back on the right track. Whoever wins on Saturday likely continues their push for an SEC Championship game, while the other has some ground to make up.