CRAWFORD | Louisville's Brohm talks sign stealing, technology and scholarship changes | Sports

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – While the financial and conference underpinnings of college football are changing rapidly and have been for a while, two new changes on the field will have an impact on the college game in the coming season.

Teams will have the ability to communicate with offensive and defensive captains via in-helmet devices, much as the NFL has been doing for some time. And coaches will be able to utilize in-game video replays via iPads or other tablet technology on the sidelines during games.

Louisville coach Jeff Brohm said his staff has been getting up to speed on all of it, and especially praised the use of in-helmet communications, noting that it’s about time. He speculated recent publicity over sign-stealing was a major motivation for the move.

“The fact that the earpiece has taken this long to get into college football, when it was even in the NFL when I played – which was a long time ago – was shocking to me,” Brohm said. “I think in general, with the emergence of sign stealing going on, as you guys are aware, it’s important to have that mechanism if you don’t want your signs being stolen. . . . So I think that’s a good mechanism to help control that. Are some teams going to utilize it more than others? Probably the no-huddle teams, the teams that haven’t used it before. So you’ve got to use it to your advantage.”

Asked how prevalent sign-stealing had become, Brohm couldn’t say. But he noted that it does happen. Most famously, Michigan was sanctioned by the Big Ten in a high-profile case last season.

“Sign stealing is a big part of college football and it’s really not as hard to do as you think, if people are trying to get that done,” Brohm said. “So, you know, I’ve been in the ACC and the Big Ten, and I know that it happens. So, there are mechanisms to control that. If you’re utilizing signals, there are methods to use and you’d better have a plan for if you don’t want someone stealing them.”

Brohm said his staff is still figuring out how much it will use the sideline video technology.

“When it comes to the iPads, I think in the NFL they’ve been using still pictures for years now,” Brohm said. “These are actually iPads where you can get video on things that have happened. You have the ability to use it on the sideline and in the press box. I think it can be beneficial. You’re not supposed to use it in the locker rom at this point. But I think you can adapt and adjust.”

One change that Brohm isn’t sure about was floated while he was at ACC Media Days earlier this week. A new scholarship limit of 105 in football (up from 85) is reported to be under consideration. It's a big jump for a sport that already carries the largest roster sizes in college athletics.

“Right now you’re at 85 with a slew of walk-ons,” Brohm said. “My biggest concern is how does it affect your walk-ons? Do you put them on scholarship, or do some have to go somewhere else? That would be unfortunate a little bit, but we’ll have to see how things pan out. I understand that there are changes going on and you’ve got to adapt. And there are going to be some roster size limits, so it’ll be interesting to see how it plays out. When rosters expand to that many scholarships you’ve got to worry about some other teams trying to steal your players even more, because the guards on that are not great in college football right now. So there are concerns, but we’ll adapt and adjust.”

Louisville is scheduled to open preseason camp on Wednesday with an open practice at 2:45 p.m.

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