He agreed to share some of his secrets with The Athletic to provide insight on the practice of signal stealing in college football. We agreed to not disclose his identity or the details of the teams he’s worked for or faced.
One example of his handiwork came against a conference rival. “I got their stretch, boot and power signals as soon as I saw their first series,” he says, acknowledging the simplicity of the boot giveaway. It was someone on the sideline gesturing as if they were putting boots on. “It’s too simple sometimes because they have to communicate it to the players and they don’t want to add another layer onto the players to not screw it up.
“Their coach makes the call. Right as he makes the call, I said, ‘You’re getting boot.’ They booted right into an edge blitz, and we made a pick.”
That interception, a pick-six, was a game changer, and by the end of the day they had held a gifted quarterback and his offense to less than half their offensive production from a year earlier.
This season, the business of signal stealing could become more challenging. In May, the NCAA passed a rule limiting the number of people who can use headsets during a game to 20, including the 15 coaches (head coach, 10 assistants and four graduate assistants). The other five headsets will go to four players and one other staffer who is in a non-coaching role. “What a drastic change that may be for some schools,” said one Power 5 coordinator who suspects some programs used those additional headsets as part of their signal-stealing operation.
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