College helmet comms not secure, sources say
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Max Olson, ESPN Staff Writer
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&M–Arkansas 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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Jorge Castillo
NEW YORK — Giancarlo Stanton, one of the first known adopters of the torpedo bat, declined Tuesday to say whether he believes using it last season caused the tendon ailments in both elbows that forced him to begin this season on the injured list.
Last month, Stanton alluded to “bat adjustments” he made last season as a possible reason for the epicondylitis, commonly known as tennis elbow, he’s dealing with.
“You’re not going to get the story you’re looking for,” Stanton said. “So, if that’s what you guys want, that ain’t going to happen.”
Stanton said he will continue using the torpedo bat when he returns from injury. The 35-year-old New York Yankees slugger, who has undergone multiple rounds of platelet-rich plasma injections to treat his elbows, shared during spring training that season-ending surgery on both elbows was a possibility. But he has progressed enough to recently begin hitting off a Trajekt — a pitching robot that simulates any pitcher’s windup, arm angle and arsenal. However, he still wouldn’t define his return as “close.”
He said he will first have to go on a minor league rehab assignment at an unknown date for an unknown period. It won’t start in the next week, he added.
“This is very unique,” Stanton said. “I definitely haven’t missed a full spring before. So, it just depends on my timing, really, how fast I get to feel comfortable in the box versus live pitching.”
While the craze of the torpedo bat (also known as the bowling pin bat) has swept the baseball world since it was revealed Saturday — while the Yankees were blasting nine home runs against the Milwaukee Brewers — that a few members of the Yankees were using one, the modified bat already had quietly spread throughout the majors in 2024. Both Stanton and former Yankees catcher Jose Trevino, now with the Cincinnati Reds, were among players who used the bats last season after being introduced to the concept by Aaron Leanhardt, an MIT-educated physicist and former minor league hitting coordinator for the organization.
Anthony Volpe, Jazz Chisholm Jr., Cody Bellinger, Paul Goldschmidt and Austin Wells were among the Yankees who used torpedo bats during their season-opening sweep of the Brewers.
Stanton explained he has changed bats before. He said he has usually adjusted the length. Sometimes, he opts for lighter bats at the end of the long season. In the past, when knuckleballers were more common in the majors, he’d opt for heavier lumber.
Last year, he said he simply chose his usual bat but with a different barrel after experimenting with a few models.
“I mean, it makes a lot of sense,” Stanton said. “But it’s, like, why hasn’t anyone thought of it in 100-plus years? So, it’s explained simply and then you try it and as long as it’s comfortable in your hands [it works]. We’re creatures of habit, so the bat’s got to feel kind of like a glove or an extension of your arm.”
Stanton went on to lead the majors with an average bat velocity of 81.2 mph — nearly 3 mph ahead of the competition. He had a rebound, but not spectacular, regular season in which he batted .233 with 27 home runs and a .773 OPS before clubbing seven home runs in 14 playoff games.
“It’s not like [it was] unreal all of a sudden for me,” Stanton said.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone described the torpedo bats “as the evolution of equipment” comparable to getting fitted for new golf clubs. He said the organization is not pushing players to use them and insisted the science is more complicated than just picking a bat with a different barrel.
“There’s a lot more to it than, ‘I’ll take the torpedo bat on the shelf over there — 34 [inches], 32 [ounces],'” Boone said. “Our guys are way more invested in it than that. And really personalized, really work with our players in creating this stuff. But it’s equipment evolving.”
As players around the majors order torpedo bats in droves after the Yankees’ barrage over the weekend — they clubbed a record-tying 13 homers in two games against the Brewers — Boone alluded to the notion that, though everyone is aware of the concept, not every organization can optimize its usage.
“You’re trying to just, where you can on the margins, move the needle a little bit,” Boone said. “And that’s really all you’re going to do. I don’t think this is some revelation to where we’re going to be; it’s not related to the weekend that we had, for example. Like, I don’t think it’s that. Maybe in some cases, for some players, it may help them incrementally. That’s how I view it.”
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Eli Lederman
USC secured the commitment of former Oregon defensive tackle pledge Tomuhini Topui on Tuesday, a source told ESPN, handing the Trojans their latest recruiting victory in the 2026 cycle over the Big Ten rival Ducks.
Topui, ESPN’s No. 3 defensive tackle and No. 72 overall recruit in the 2026 class, spent five and half months committed to Oregon before pulling his pledge from the program on March 27. Topui attended USC’s initial spring camp practice that afternoon, and seven days later the 6-foot-4, 295-pound defender gave the Trojans his pledge to become the sixth ESPN 300 defender in the program’s 2026 class.
Topui’s commitment gives USC its 10th ESPN 300 pledge this cycle — more than any other program nationally — and pulls a fourth top-100 recruit into the impressive defensive class the Trojans are building this spring. Alongside Topui, USC’s defensive class includes in-state cornerbacks R.J. Sermons (No. 26 in ESPN Junior 300) and Brandon Lockhart (No. 77); four-star outside linebacker Xavier Griffin (No. 27) out of Gainesville, Georgia; and two more defensive line pledges between Jaimeon Winfield (No. 143) and Simote Katoanga (No. 174).
The Trojans are working to reestablish their local recruiting presence in the 2026 class under newly hired general manager Chad Bowden. Topui not only gives the Trojans their 11th in-state commit in the cycle, but his pledge represents a potentially important step toward revamping the program’s pipeline to perennial local powerhouse Mater Dei High School, too.
Topui will enter his senior season this fall at Mater Dei, the program that has produced a long line of USC stars including Matt Leinart, Matt Barkley and Amon-Ra St. Brown. However, if Topui ultimately signs with the program later this year, he’ll mark the Trojans’ first Mater Dei signee since the 2022 cycle, when USC pulled three top-300 prospects — Domani Jackson, Raleek Brown and C.J. Williams — from the high school program based in Santa Ana, California.
Topui’s flip to the Trojans also adds another layer to a recruiting rivalry rekindling between USC and Oregon in the 2026 cycle.
Tuesday’s commitment comes less than two months after coach Lincoln Riley and the Trojans flipped four-star Oregon quarterback pledge Jonas Williams, ESPN’s No. 2 dual-threat quarterback in 2026. USC is expected to continue targeting several Ducks commits this spring, including four-star offensive tackle Kodi Greene, another top prospect out of Mater Dei.
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