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
Texas Tech athletics director Kirby Hocutt, during a conference call this week with other Big 12 ADs, raised questions about the security of the new coach-to-player helmet communication technology used this season by Texas Tech football and all other energy conference teams.
Hocutt told ESPN.com on Wednesday that he raised the issue after “learning that the Red Raiders’ helmet communications are unencrypted and available to anyone who has a scanner and knows how to locate the frequencies.”
Tech senior associate athletics director Robert Giovanetti told the Avalanche-Journal that the Red Raiders were notified Tuesday after a pitching coordinator, whom he declined to otherwise identify, contacted Tech coach Joey McGuire . Giovanetti said the frequency coordinator had previously told some other schools about the system’s vulnerability.
“When Kirby realized that other schools might have known before we did, he asked (the Big 12) for a review,” Giovanetti said, “just to make sure the integrity of our games wasn’t compromised. He asked the league to do this. … I know the league is complying with our request.”
Giovanetti said the Big 12 has asked teams to send their communications systems back for an encryption upgrade to GSC, the provider for all 68 Power Conference schools this season. They are expected to be updated and returned before Saturday’s games.
Giovanetti said the next step from Tech’s perspective is to find out what comes out of the Big 12 review.
“Our request for this is part of the league’s sports policy,” Giovanetti said. “If you raise a concern with the league, they will conduct a review and provide a report of their findings…
“I think it’s going to be important to find out when the schools knew about it, when they knew about the vulnerability.” We are not pressing any charges. Again, Kirby emphasized that he just wanted to make sure the integrity of the games was not compromised.”
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 of his findings, as did Baylor and TCU, who forwarded the information to the conference.
“The vulnerability,” Giovanetti said, “is not a new vulnerability.”
Tech played Baylor and TCU the last two weeks, losing to the Bears 59-35 and the Horned Frogs 35-34. Giovanetti said Tech is not accusing any of the opposing teams of criminal activity.
The Red Raiders were among the teams that used in-helmet communication on an experimental basis during last year’s bowl season. In Tech’s Independence Bowl victory over California, three offensive players and three defensive players from each side were allowed to use the devices.
In April, the NCAA approved full usage this season, but only for one offensive player and one defensive player per team at a time. Before each click, communication is interrupted with 15 seconds remaining on the game clock.
Texas Tech uses CoachComm headsets to communicate between its coaches.
ESPN obtained a memo sent by the Big 12 to ADs and coaches after Tuesday’s AD meeting, which acknowledged that the GSC system could be compromised by people with the technological know-how.
“GSC and the frequency experts we consulted shared that the risk of someone being able to access this communication is very low,” Big 12 Chief Football and Athletics Officer Scott Draper wrote in the memo. “The four conferences met weekly to discuss next steps and each chose the same path forward to inform the chief equipment managers of what we knew. As an interim step we have changed the frequencies until the software update from GSC is complete. In retrospect, the conference should have shared this information with you.”