Ryan Day took BV behind the woodshed. No doubt about it. He had the perfect game-plan to keep his defense guessing, and completely took away their ability to make late adjustments.  I've wrote a couple threads in the past, detailing discussions with my Uncle, who is a former college football FB, and now serves as a DIII RB/TE coach. I generally only see him once a year, but it always falls on New Years, so thankfully, I always get to talk to him during and after the biggest games of the year. We were talking about what Ryan Day did from a tempo standpoint, so I posed to question. Did Ryan Day just usher in a new (old?) wave (i.e. more huddling, less pre-snap adjustments). His blunt answer was "No". Here is his paraphrased answer. 

"The best offense is CFB is still the no-huddle offense where you line up quick, and audible based on what the defense is showing you. College offenses are still light-years ahead of defenses. The saying has always been GREAT offenses beat GREAT defenses. But since the new wave of high-caliber QB's and RPO's, the saying should actually be GOOD offenses beat GREAT defenses. Innovation happens in cycles. First the offense innovates, and years later the defense innovates and finds a way to stop it. The defense hasn't found a way to stop it yet."

I asked next, "BV gets a lot of love, and it made Ryan Day change his philosophy. Is that style of defense the way to stop great offenses?" I also joked about sign stealing

"What Clemson does is really overblown, and won't beat a great offense. All Clemson does is make educated guesses, and it is really quite simple. They may get the sign right a few times, but at most, all stealing a sign will tell you is Run or Pass. If you have a great offense, even that doesn't set you back. You can mix in RPO's which Ohio State did with the bubble screens. But it all still comes down to the QB and his WR's. I could motion to BVs that Olave is running a fly route. But if executed correctly, Olave and Fields will both recognize the coverage post-snap, and Olave will break off his route. There is no effective way to defend an offense that is in-sync like that. The only effective way to slow down these high powered offenses is to win the line of scrimmage. The whole sign stealing saga, and Ryan Day's response is getting too much attention. The attention should be focused on Clemson getting blown off the ball every single snap. If you aren't getting pressure, and can't get to the QB, I don't care if Ryan Day would have shared his call sheet. Ohio State still wins."

Next question, "So what is the point of them stealing signs, and making last second adjustments if it doesn't work?"

"It does work against 95% of teams in CFB. Only a handful of college QB's and WR's are good enough to make post-snap adjustments and execute them. If Clemson knows a fly route is coming, how many QB's can make a throw to a broken off out-route across the field? Not many. It is all execution. Ohio State didn't have a crazy gameplan last year and should've scored 40+, LSU moved it up and down with ease, and ND had success the 1st time around this season."

Final question. "Should the not as talented ACC teams take notes from Ryan Day since most aren't as talented offensively"

"That would be hard, because most teams like to run up to the line quick. Especially when you have a talent disparity because it gives you a chance to see the defense. This style of offense was created by mid-tier teams trying to find an edge. And it still does provide an edge against teams not named Clemson. It is probably not in Wake Forrest's best interest to base their philosophy around Clemson. It is extremely hard to completely change what you do pre-snap in 1 week. I don't know this for a fact, but I'd almost guarantee you Ohio State had been practicing this tempo and style since the summer for this 1 game. You can't put that gameplan into place a week before the game, and have 1 false start penalty, 0 illegal formations, and 0 instances of the wrong guy being on the field. That plan was practiced for a long time"

​My takeaway from this discussion was quite simple. If you don't win the trenches, and the opposing team is skilled enough, sign stealing isn't going to make much of a difference, and I agree with him. More focus needs to be shifted to the offensive line's dominance.