Communications between coaches and players during Power 4 college football games this season took place over 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 on a call with Big 12 athletic directors Tuesday after learning that the Red Raiders’ helmet communications were not encrypted and accessible to anyone. someone with a scanner and who knows how to locate frequencies.

The Big 12 asked its 10 schools playing games this weekend to return their headset communications devices to GSC, the supplier to all 68 Power 4 teams this year, for a software update that would provide encryption, they said. 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 demand for Big 12 equipment.

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

“We have to have a game that is in no way questionable in its integrity on a Saturday afternoon,” Hocutt told ESPN. “We owe it to the 120 young men on our football team to ensure that this happens, that it is a fair competitive game and that the same rules are applied.”

No school has made specific allegations that an opponent may have accessed their game frequencies, and several Big 12 and Power 4 coaches and staff have questioned whether a competitive advantage could be gained if that happened. .

This is the first college football season where in-game use of coach-player communications with headsets and tablets is permitted at the FBS level. The NCAA approved the rule change in April, six months after launching an investigation into Michigan’s alleged signal-stealing scheme led by former staffer Connor Stalions.

A frequency coordinator made the discovery in late September while preparing for the Texas A&M-Arkansas game at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. The coordinator informed the SEC of his findings, as well as Baylor and TCU, who relayed the information to the conference.

Football operations managers from the SEC, Big 12, Big Ten and ACC worked with GSC over the next four weeks to investigate potential issues and move to a more encrypted and secure platform .

The revelation that college football teams were not using encrypted frequencies frustrated several Big 12 athletic directors, who believed 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, concerns about potential vulnerabilities had not been addressed at the AD and head coach level until Tuesday.

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

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

The Big 12 informed equipment managers at its 16 member schools of the switch to backup frequencies in early October, but some staff members may not have relayed the information to their football teams. Several 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 their game against No. 11 Iowa State on Saturday, sources said, rather than wait for software update or Big results. 12 investigation.

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

Baylor athletic director Mack Rhoades could not be reached for comment.

Within the SEC, the league has communicated with all of its programs about the security update available through GSC. The league office is paying attention to the issue, sources said, but there is no major concern about communications being compromised.

The Big Ten was aware of the conversation around headset communication and had no issues. Programs are updating their technology, just like other programs in the sport.

Within the ACC, the league has been following the matter for almost a month. At no time did any ACC team express concerns to the league office. They all had the option to send material to GSC for the update, which some have already taken advantage of. ACC officials don’t have much concern, in part because no programs expressed concerns and all continued to use the system throughout October.

Power 4 conference officials have been assured by experts that the risk of vulnerability in coach-player communications is low. But a source at a Big 12 school told ESPN that his team purchased a scanner earlier this month after learning of the potential vulnerability and managed to locate its own coach-player communication frequency for a training.

Still, opinions from other members of the Big 12 are mixed on whether teams can gain a competitive advantage during a game through their opponent’s coach-player communications.

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

An opponent tuned into that frequency would also need to know how to decode their play calls and effectively communicate adjustments to their own team before the snap, a much more difficult task than the secondary signal theft that is commonplace in the sport.

“There’s no real advantage,” said a Big 12 chief of staff. “First, you’re speaking a different language. Second, if you think you can put into practice in real time what they say and try to do it on the field, you are wrong You are just your stereotypical paranoid football coach, you can’t pass it on to the kids fast enough.

ESPN’s Pete Thamel contributed to this report.