How Iowa football has approached in-helmet communication, sideline tablets

IOWA CITY — Jay Higgins was somewhat channeling his father Roy, a minister, during the first defensive series of Iowa’s Week 1 win over Illinois State.

“When my dad’s preaching and the mic guy is in the back, sometimes he’ll give a little signal,” Higgins said, to boost the volume.

Higgins needed a volume boost, too, albeit for a much different reason than a sermon. The Iowa linebacker needed the in-helmet communication to be louder to account for the resounding Kinnick Stadium crowd.

“I don’t think they got it, so I had to tell him after the first series,” Higgins said last week.

This is the first season with in-helmet communication between coaches and players after the NCAA approved the change in April. One offensive player and one defensive player can hear differently from coaches until either 15 seconds are left on the play clock or the ball is snapped — whichever happens first.

In Iowa’s case, Higgins and quarterback Cade McNamara are the designated players. The in-helmet communication can be particularly helpful on the offensive side of the ball, especially if the offense is pushing the tempo, as McNamara does not need to “take so long to look at the sideline.”

“Basically the communication with me and (offensive coordinator Tim Lester) would happen with the coaches on the sideline and then the sideline has to communicate with me,” McNamara said last week, referring to the process before in-helmet communication. “So then we’re taking multiple steps out of that process.”

On the defensive side of the ball, Higgins has been wary of getting “bombarded with too much information” in the headset.

“Too much can slow you down,” Higgins said.

Higgins did not “want to give away our secrets” in terms of everything that Iowa’s defense monitors and communicates pre-snap, but the headset-to-helmet dialogue could include “where the ball’s at on the hash and obviously where we set our defense.”

“Whatever side (safety Sebastian) Castro’s at, a lot of guys try to line up away from him and get him into the box,” Higgins said. “And then obviously if they go tempo, if I can look at the offense to see where they’re lining up without looking to the sideline and get a call, that’s best.”

Schools also can have tablets on the sidelines for viewing past plays. The Big Ten has a partnership with Apple and DV Sport for iPad Pro tablets. They have custom cases to avoid glare and provide protection against weather elements.

“These offenses are doing so much motion, divide ... I feel like last year, you kind of don’t really know until Sunday,” Higgins said. “Now, as soon as you go to the sideline, you know what they ran, how they got to it. You know if the guard pulled or not. You’re not guessing anymore.”

Higgins described the addition of the tablets as a “blessing and a curse,” though, because opposing offenses “can see where we messed up” in the middle of the game.

“A lot of times, we get in on Sunday and we go, ‘Oh God, they could have thrown that,’” Higgins said, referencing opposing teams’ missed opportunities. “Well, now they see it. So you got to guard everything. You got to guard the fakes, you got to guard the RPO. ... Everything that you don’t guard — they’ll just come back to it.”

Iowa Coach Kirk Ferentz, who coached for the first time with in-helmet communication and sideline tablets in Saturday’s Cy-Hawk loss, expressed a positive opinion about the changes.

“It's kind of what we expected based on practice, but I think it's all positive,” Ferentz said at this week’s news conference. “And I don't have many suggestions in that way.”

He added on his weekly radio show that the tablets are a “great teaching aide” and the in-helmet communication “makes the game better.”

Given that Iowa is coming off a frustrating, 20-19, loss to Iowa State, though, Iowa has a few other things to worry about aside from adapting to the new sideline technology.

“Just trying to figure out how to score a touchdown when we got the ball inside the 5,” Ferentz said in his news conference. “That's more important right now.”

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