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Coach-to-player in-game communications during Power 4 college football games this season have been occurring on unencrypted frequencies, sources told ESPN on Wednesday, a revelation that raises questions about whether they could have been compromised.

Texas Tech athletic director Kirby Hocutt said he raised the issue during a call with Big 12 athletic directors Tuesday, after learning the Red Raiders’ helmet communications were unencrypted and accessible to anyone with a scanner and knowledge of how to locate the frequencies.

The Big 12 has instructed its 10 schools playing games this weekend to send their helmet communication devices back to GSC, the provider for all 68 Power 4 teams this year, for a software update that would provide encryption, sources confirmed to ESPN.

The modules and cutoff switches are expected to be updated and returned in time for Saturday’s games.

The Athletic first reported the Big 12’s equipment request.

“We’ve got to have a game whose integrity is not questionable in any way on a Saturday afternoon. We owe it to the 120 young men on our football team to ensure that happens, that it’s a game of fair competition and the same set of rules are enforced.”

Texas Tech AD Kirby Hocutt to ESPN

Texas Tech has requested a report from the Big 12 on its recent games against TCU and Baylor to ensure the integrity of the games were not compromised, and the conference is accommodating that request.

“We’ve got to have a game whose integrity is not questionable in any way on a Saturday afternoon,” Hocutt told ESPN. “We owe it to the 120 young men on our football team to ensure that happens, that it’s a game of fair competition and the same set of rules are enforced.”

No schools have made specific allegations that an opponent may have accessed their in-game frequencies, and several Big 12 and Power 4 coaches and staffers have questioned whether a competitive advantage could be gained if that did occur.

This is the first college football season that the in-game use of coach-to-player helmet communications and tablets have been permitted at the FBS level. The NCAA approved the rules change in April, six months after launching an investigation into Michigan‘s alleged signal-stealing scheme under former staffer Connor Stalions.

A frequency coordinator made the discovery in late September while setting up for the Texas A&MArkansas game at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. The coordinator notified the SEC of his findings, as well as Baylor and TCU, which forwarded the information to the conference.

Football operations executives for the SEC, Big 12, Big Ten and ACC have worked together with GSC in the four weeks since to investigate potential concerns and move to a more encrypted and secure platform.

“We have been aware of the issue and have stayed in communication with GSC and our colleague conferences as well as our schools,” the SEC said Wednesday in a statement. “We are not aware of any instances of the system being compromised during games. GSC has developed an update to resolve the issue and we have made our schools aware of their ability to update their systems at a time of their choosing.”

The revelation that college football teams have not been using encrypted frequencies has frustrated several Big 12 athletic directors, who believed the Power 4 schools had the same encrypted setup used in the NFL, sources said.

GSC could not be reached for comment.

In the Big 12, the concerns about potential vulnerabilities had not been addressed at AD and head coach level until Tuesday.

Following the Tuesday call, the Big 12 sent a memo, obtained by ESPN, to ADs and coaches acknowledging that someone with intimate knowledge of frequency scanners and the GSC system could hear communications.

“GSC and the frequency experts consulted shared that the risk of someone’s ability to access this communication was very low,” Big 12 chief football and competition officer Scott Draper wrote in the memo. “The four conferences met weekly to discuss the next steps and each chose the same path forward, to inform the head equipment managers of what we knew. As an interim step, we changed frequencies while the software update from GSC was complete. In hindsight, the conference should’ve shared this information with you.”

The Big 12 notified equipment managers at its 16 member schools about switching to backup frequencies in early October, but some staffers might not have forwarded the information to their football staffs. Multiple ADs on the Big 12 call told ESPN they were unaware of the issue until Hocutt addressed it Tuesday.

Texas Tech (5-3, 3-2) lost 59-35 to Baylor on Oct. 19 and 35-34 to TCU last Saturday. The Red Raiders opted to move forward with a different coach-to-player system with encrypted communication provided by CoachComm for its game against No. 11 Iowa State on Saturday, sources said, rather than wait for the software update or the results of the Big 12 inquiry.

“Our football coaching staff and I were made aware yesterday of the player-to-coach helmet communication issues around the country,” TCU athletic director Jeremiah Donati said in a statement. “As with any other inquiry, we look forward to assisting the Big 12 Conference in its review process.”

Baylor athletic director Mack Rhoades said “we stand behind the integrity of our in-game operations and overall program and are happy to cooperate as needed with conference officials.”

In the SEC, the league has communicated with all its programs about the security update available through GSC. The league office is attentive to the issue, sources said, but there’s not a high level of concern over communications being compromised.

The Big Ten has been aware of the conversation around the helmet communication and has not had any issues. Programs are updating their technology much like others around the sport.

In the ACC, the league has been tracking the issue for nearly a month. At no point have any ACC teams expressed concern to the league office. They all had the ability to send in the equipment to GSC for the update, which some have already taken advantage of. ACC officials do not have a significant level of concern, in part because no programs have expressed concerns, and all have continued to use the system throughout October.

Officials from the Power 4 conferences were assured by experts that the risk of vulnerabilities to coach-to-player communications was low. But a source at one Big 12 school told ESPN that his staff purchased a scanner earlier this month upon learning of the potential vulnerability and was successful in locating their own coach-to-player communication frequency during a practice.

Still, there are mixed opinions among other Big 12 staffers on whether teams can gain a competitive advantage during a game from their opponent’s coach-to-player communications.

The frequency does not broadcast all headset communications between coaches, which would be invaluable, but merely what one coach says to one player on the field — typically a quarterback on offense and a linebacker on defense — and only when the coach is holding the button to speak to them before communication is cut off 15 seconds before the snap.

An opponent tuned into that frequency would also need to know how to decode their playcalls and effectively communicate adjustments to their own team before the snap, a much more challenging task than sideline signal stealing.

“There’s no real advantage,” one Big 12 chief of staff argued. “One, you’re speaking a different language. Two, if you think you’d be able to enact in real time what they say and try to do it on the field, you’re delusional. You’re just being your stereotypical paranoid football coach. You can’t relay it to the kids fast enough.”

ESPN’s Pete Thamel contributed to this report.

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O’s Henderson off IL; will make ’25 debut vs. KC

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O's Henderson off IL; will make '25 debut vs. KC

Baltimore Orioles All-Star shortstop Gunnar Henderson was activated from the 10-day injured list and will make his season debut Friday night against the Kansas City Royals.

Henderson has been sidelined with a right intercostal strain and missed the first seven games of the big league campaign.

The 23-year-old Henderson will lead off and play shortstop against the host Royals.

Henderson was injured during a spring training game Feb. 27. He was fourth in American League MVP voting last season when he batted .281 and racked up career bests of 37 homers and 92 RBIs.

Henderson completed a five-game rehab stint at Triple-A Norfolk on Wednesday. He batted .263 (5-for-19) with two homers and four RBIs and played four games at shortstop and one as the designated hitter. He did commit three errors.

“I think everybody’s looking forward to having Gunnar back on the team,” Baltimore manager Brandon Hyde said Thursday. “The rehab went really, really well. I talked to him a couple days ago, he feels great swinging the bat. The timing came, especially the last few days. He just had to get out there and get some reps defensively and get some games in, and it all went well.”

Baltimore optioned outfielder Dylan Carlson to Triple-A Norfolk to open up a roster spot. The 26-year-old was 0-for-4 with a run and RBI in two games this season.

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Life after OMG: Can 2025 Mets replicate their 2024 vibes?

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Life after OMG: Can 2025 Mets replicate their 2024 vibes?

When New York Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns attempted to assemble the best possible roster for the 2025 season this winter, the top priority was signing outfielder Juan Soto. Next was the need to replenish the starting rotation and bolster the bullpen. Then, days before pitchers and catchers reported for spring training, the lineup received one final significant reinforcement when first baseman Pete Alonso re-signed.

Acquiring a player with a singing career on the side didn’t make the cut.

“No, that is not on the list,” Stearns said with a smile.

Stearns’ decision not to re-sign Jose Iglesias, the infielder behind the mic for the viral 2024 Mets anthem “OMG,” was attributed to creating more roster flexibility. But it also hammered home a reality: The scrappy 2024 Mets, authors of a magical summer in Queens, are a thing of the past. The 2025 Mets, who will report to Citi Field for their home opener Friday, have much of the same core but also some prominent new faces — and the new, outsized expectations that come with falling two wins short of the World Series, then signing Soto to the richest contract in professional sports history.

But there’s a question surrounding this year’s team that you can’t put a price tag on: Can these Mets rekindle the magic — the vibes, the memes, the feel-good underdog story — that seemed to come out of nowhere to help carry them to Game 6 of the National League Championship Series last season?

“Last year the culture was created,” Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor said. “It’s a matter of continuing it.”

For all the success Stearns has engineered — his small-market Milwaukee Brewers teams reached the postseason five times in eight seasons after he became the youngest general manager in history in 2015 — the 40-year-old Harvard grad, like the rest of his front office peers knows there’s no precise recipe for clubhouse chemistry. There is no culture projection system. No Vibes Above Replacement.

“Culture is very important,” Stearns said last weekend in the visiting dugout at Daikin Park before his club completed an opening-weekend series against the Houston Astros. “Culture is also very difficult to predict.”

Still, it seems the Mets’ 2024 season will be all but impossible to recreate.

There was Grimace, the purple McDonald’s blob who spontaneously became the franchise’s unofficial mascot after throwing out a first pitch in June. “OMG,” performed under Iglesias’ stage name, Candelita, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Latin Digital Songs chart, before a remix featuring Pitbull was released in October. Citi Field became a karaoke bar whenever Lindor stepped into the batter’s box with The Temptations’ “My Girl” as his walk-up song. Alonso unveiled a lucky pumpkin in October. They were gimmicks that might have felt forced if they hadn’t felt so right.

“I don’t know if what we did last year could be replicated because it was such a chaos-filled group,” Mets reliever Ryne Stanek said. “I don’t know if that’s replicable because there’s just too many things going on. I don’t know if that’s a sustainable model. But I think the expectation of winning is really important. I think establishing what we did last year and coming into this year where people are like, ‘Oh, no, that’s what we’re expecting to do,’ makes it different. It’s always a different vibe whenever you feel like you’re the hunter versus being the hunted.”

For the first two months last season, the Mets were terrible hunters. Lindor was relentlessly booed at Citi Field during another slow start. The bullpen got crushed. The losses piled up. The Mets began the season 0-5 and sunk to rock bottom on May 29 when reliever Jorge Lopez threw his glove into the stands during a 10-3 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers that dropped the team to 22-33.

That night, the Mets held a players-only meeting. From there, perhaps coincidentally, everything changed. The Mets won the next day, and 67 of their final 107 games.

This year, to avoid an early malaise and to better incorporate new faces like Soto and Opening Day starter Clay Holmes, players made it a point to hold meetings during spring training to lay a strong foundation.

“At the end of the day, we know who we are and that’s the beauty of our club,” Alonso said. “Not just who we are talent-wise, but who each individual is as a man and a personality. For us, our major, major strength is our collective identity as a unit.”

Organizationally, the Mets are attempting a dual-track makeover: Becoming perennial World Series contenders while not taking themselves too seriously.

The commemorative purple Grimace seat installed at Citi Field in September — Section 302, Row 6, Seat 12 in right field — remains there as part of a two-year contract. Last week, the franchise announced it will feature a New York-city themed “Five Borough” race at every home game — with a different mascot competing to represent each borough. For a third straight season, USA Today readers voted Citi Field — home of the rainbow cookie egg roll, among many other innovative treats — as having the best ballpark food in baseball.

In the clubhouse, their identity is evolving.

“I’m very much in the camp that you can’t force things,” Mets starter Sean Manaea said. “I mean, you can, but you don’t really end up with good results. And if you wait for things to happen organically, then sometimes it can take too long. So, there’s like a nudging of sorts. It’s like, ‘Let’s kind of come up with something, but not force it.’ So there’s a fine balance there and you just got to wait and see what happens.”

Stearns believes it starts with what the Mets can control: bringing positive energy every day and fostering a family atmosphere. It’s hard to quantify, but vibes undoubtedly helped fuel the Mets’ 2024 success. It’ll be a tough act to follow.

“It’s fluid,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “I like where guys are at as far as the team chemistry goes and things like that and the connections and the relationships. But it’ll continue to take some time. And winning helps, clearly.”

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Hunter marks quiet day at Colorado Showcase

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Hunter marks quiet day at Colorado Showcase

BOULDER, Colo. — A horde of NFL talent evaluators headed for the mountains Friday for the Colorado Showcase, where Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter was one of the big draws.

However, it was going to be a limited look at best as Hunter was not seen when players’ heights and weights were taken or for the jumps and 40-yard dash.

Hunter, who is expected to be a top-five selection in this year’s draft and is the No. 1 player on Mel Kiper Jr.’s Big Board, was initially not expected to participate in any on-field work, but Friday morning some scouts in attendance said they expected the two-way star to run routes as a receiver for quarterback Shedeur Sanders‘ throwing session.

Hunter did not work out at the scouting combine or Big 12 pro day but did meet with teams in Indianapolis. Sanders, one of the top quarterbacks on the board and Kiper’s No. 5 player overall, also did not work out at the combine.

Sanders’ brother, Colorado safety Shilo Sanders, measured in at 5-foot-11⅞, 196 pounds, but he did not participate in the jumps or bench press that opened the workout, citing a right shoulder injury.

The highly attended event — by scouts, coaches and personnel executives as well as fans packing small bleachers — had a festive atmosphere. Colorado coach Deion Sanders named it the “We Ain’t Hard 2 Find Showcase,” completed with a large lighted “showcase” sign next to the drills.

Hunter, who has said he wants to play offense and defense in the NFL, won the Chuck Bednarik (top defensive player) and Biletnikoff (top receiver) awards, in addition to the Heisman. He said whether he would primarily be a wide receiver or cornerback in the NFL “depended on the team that picks me.”

He had 96 catches for 1,258 yards and 15 touchdowns as a receiver last season to go with 35 tackles, 11 pass breakups and four interceptions at cornerback. In the Buffaloes’ regular-season finale against Oklahoma State, he became the only FBS player in the past 25 years with three scrimmage touchdowns on offense and an interception in the same game, according to ESPN Research.

Hunter played 1,380 total snaps in Colorado’s 12 regular-season games: 670 on offense, 686 on defense and 24 on special teams. He played 1,007 total snaps in 2023.

With all NFL eyes on the Colorado campus to see Sanders throw, one player who made the most of it was wide receiver Will Sheppard, who was not invited to the combine. Sheppard, who measured in at 6-2¼, 196 pounds, ran his 40s in 4.56 and 4.54 to go with a 40½-inch vertical jump and a 10-foot-11 in the broad jump.

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