By james art 
Texas Tech football coach Joey McGuire for Iowa State Beren Morton
Texas Tech football coach Joey McGuire previews Iowa State game, updates status of injured Red Raiders cornerback Beren Morton
(This story has been updated with new information.)
An internal review by the Big 12 into the security of communication equipment in helmets between football coaches and players found no evidence of impropriety in games this season, the conference said in a statement Thursday.
Texas Tech’s Kirby Hocutt raised the issue Tuesday during a conference call of Big 12 athletics directors, telling his colleagues that the Texas Tech football team was among many people who didn’t know they were using unencrypted devices , provided by GSC, the supplier of all 68 Energy Conference teams this season. In-game communications were accessible to anyone with a scanner and the technical know-how to find the frequencies.
Hocutt, in a Tech statement released Thursday, said he accepted the conference’s findings.
“We received a verbal report from the Big 12 Conference regarding our request to ensure the integrity of our recent football games,” Hocutt said. “This request was made after our head football coach received an audio recording on Tuesday, October 29, containing clips of our communications between coaches and players during a game.
“While acknowledging that a third party provided at least two member institutions with additional information about specific vulnerabilities in the coach-player communication system weeks before other members knew, Texas Tech accepts the conclusion of the Big 12 review that found no direct evidence that the integrity of any game has been compromised.
Technical senior associate athletics director Robert Giovanetti told the Avalanche-Journal on Wednesday that Red Raiders coach Joey McGuire was alerted to the vulnerability on Tuesday by a frequency coordinator, whom he declined to identify. He said the frequency coordinator works at various locations in and around the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, including Baylor, TCU and Dallas Cowboys games.
“Following industry-wide concerns surrounding helmet communications, the Big 12 has conducted a review of conference game and helmet communications processes to address any concerns raised by member institutions regarding this issue,” the Big 12’s statement said. “The review found that at no time was Big 12 competition compromised.”
All schools have been asked to return the equipment this week to the GSC for software updates with the expectation that it will be ready for use again on Saturday.
“All Big 12 helmet communication programs now have an encryption update from GSC,” the Big 12 statement said, “and schools may use CoachComm or GSC for coach-player communication at their discretion.”
The Red Raiders this season used CoachComm for communication between their coaches and GSC for conversations between coaches and players between games. Giovanetti said Tech plans to use CoachComm equipment for both this week. Tech (5-3, 3-2 in the Big 12) takes on No. 10 Iowa State (7-0, 4-0) at 2:30 p.m. Saturday at Jack Trice Stadium in Ames, Iowa.
In April, the NCAA approved the use of in-helmet communication for the first time. One offensive player and one defensive player on each team may use the devices on the field with communication turned off with 15 seconds remaining on the game clock.
According to ESPN, the GSC system vulnerability was discovered by a frequency coordinator preparing for the Texas A&M-Arkansas game on September 28 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington. The coordinator notified the Southeastern Conference, as well as Baylor and TCU, who forwarded the information to the conference.
Tech played Baylor and TCU the past two weeks, losing to both.
Giovanetti stressed Wednesday that Hocutt and Tech aren’t pressing charges against other programs, but they want to bring the issue to light to make sure certain calls can’t be compromised.