Helmet communication, 2-minute warning among changes proposed by college football rules committee

College football is one step closer to widespread coach-to-player helmet communication, 30 years after the NFL first introduced it in football.

The NCAA Football Rules Committee on Friday created a proposal that would allow FBS teams to use the technology between a coach and one player on the field, who would have a green dot on the back midline of the player’s helmet. Communication between the two would be cut off with 15 seconds left on the play clock or when the ball is snapped, whichever comes first.

The creation of a two-minute warning for the second and fourth quarters like the NFL is meant to emphasize certain rule changes for the final two minutes, like first-down clock stops, and help the flow of a game broadcast by preventing some back-to-back media timeouts. Committee co-chair and Big Ten VP of football administration A.J. Edds emphasized that the “two-minute timeout” as it’s officially called will not be an additional timeout. It’s a fixed stoppage point that will use the final TV timeout of each half that would happen anyway.

The proposals must still be approved by the Playing Rules Oversight Panel in April to become official, but that is likely to happen.

These proposed communication changes come after a successful bowl trial run, where six games allowed helmet communication tools and 12 allowed sideline tablets. There were zero issues with the technology in the games, coaches and officials said. In the trial run, the helmet communication never turned off, and multiple players on the field could use it. This proposal adds the same time and player limit as the NFL.

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Georgia head coach and committee co-chair Kirby Smart noted Friday this will not completely get rid of sideline signals and giant cardboard signs, because no-huddle teams will still need them, as only the quarterback will get the play-call in the helmet. NFL teams by comparison almost exclusively huddle.

“The intent is to get a little closer to what the NFL has done to allow communication,” Smart said. “It’ll allow communication with a quarterback and someone on defense, and we’ll find out where it takes us.”

The Big Ten last summer proposed to allow its teams to use helmet communication and sideline tablets for conference games. The rules committee did not approve it but instead created the bowl trial experiment. This all happened before awareness of the Connor Stalions sign-stealing and scouting scandal, but once that scandal became public, coaches across the country called for communication changes.

“Everybody write an article about why doesn’t college football have coach-to-player communication so I don’t have to deal with sign stealing and I spend half my week changing signals and signs rather than coaching the game of football,” Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said in November.

Smart also emphasized this wasn’t a new topic.

“I don’t think there should be a knee-jerk reaction to what happened in our game last year with the accusations out there,” he said. “That’s not what the sole intent was. I’ve been on this rules committee for three or four years and communication has come up every single year.”

Because of the quick turnaround to bowl games, teams only had a week or so to practice with it. DVSport (which handles film for most teams) ran the tablets, while CoachComm (which handles coach headsets for most teams) and GSC (which supplies the NFL) provided the helmet communication.

“It went as well as we could’ve hoped,” CoachComm owner Peter Amos told The Athletic last month, adding that his company is prepared to supply many more schools this spring if widespread use is approved.

Teams don’t need to agree on using this communication in a game. Any FBS team can use it, even if their opponent is not. Conferences will likely set their own rules on what to do if one team’s communications go down, similar to the NFL, NCAA coordinator of officials Steve Shaw said.

The committee also proposed giving teams the option of using tablets to view in-game video only for all three football divisions. The video could include the broadcast feed and camera angles from the coach’s sideline and coach’s end zone and teams could use up to 18 tablets total. This would be different from the NFL, which only allows images on tablets. The NCAA rules committee first approved sideline video technology in 2016, but it was rescinded a month later, citing the need for more time to create guidelines.

This time, college football appears primed to finally get out of the in-game technological stone age.

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