Texas coach Steve Sarkisian, among others in the profession, had previously advocated for the move to in-helmet communication to help combat signal-stealing on gamedays.
“That’s not what the sole intent was,” Smart said, via ESPN. “I’ve been on the rules committee now three to four years, and coach-to-player communication has come up every single year. It’s been talked about. We’ve been evolving, trying to get closer to it. A lot of coaches debate, talk about how this is not going to stop people from signaling, or having the big cardboard signs on the sideline.
“A lot of people have said it would take 11 headsets to take that way, or three or four headsets to take that away. That’s not the intent. The intent is to get a little closer to what the NFL has done to allow communication. We don’t know where it’s going to take us, so we’re going to onboard one step at a time. It allows communication between mostly your quarterback and somebody on defense, and we’ll find out where it takes us.”
