What is everyone on your social media feed up in arms about today? Right now, it's this. Online Sniper Games. We have indexed & categorized games from all over the web. Over 100,000 games to choose from! Play Now! With season seven of Game Of Thrones underway, Oldtown and the maesters - and all their secrets - are on the field of play. Online Sniper Games. ![]() College football coaches paranoia knows no bounds. Aug 8, 2. 01. 7Alex Scarborough. ESPN Staff Writer Ronald Martinez/Getty Images. IT'S THE FALL OF 1. Houston Nutt is rummaging through trash cans around Oklahoma's campus. Boss' orders, he says. Two- time Super Bowl- winning coach Jimmy Johnson, then in his fourth season at Oklahoma State, has sent his ambitious graduate assistant to do some scouting of the rival Sooners, which means that in addition to timing kickers and punters and tracking distance, Nutt has to get his hands a little messy. His task is simple: Look around and try to find every bit of information he can. And with wins and losses hanging in the balance, he and the rest of Johnson's GAs know to leave no stone unturned - - even if that stone is buried underneath a discarded cheeseburger. Nutt can laugh about it now - - and does - - but back then that kind of dirty work was normal. Sometimes all he'd find was garbage, but other times he'd stumble upon a discarded depth chart or a play sheet with a few notes scribbled on it that had been carelessly left behind, he says. It's that chance discovery, no matter how small and no matter how consequential, that feeds into a larger sense of paranoia that has been pervasive among college football coaches dating back to the beginning of the sport and continues today. Everyone is looking for an edge, and everyone is guarding against giving up theirs. Pete Carroll may have oozed cool as the head coach of USC from 2. Norm Chow admits that the two- time BCS championship winner was "unbelievable" when it came to his level of paranoia, believing everyone to be crooked. Not only did Carroll employ assistants to look for discarded play sheets - - "and they actually found some," Chow said - - but he took it a step further by having staffers leave behind fake sheets in the garbage in hopes that opponents would find them and act on bad information. ![]() ![]() Today, technology has evolved to give some teams an extra layer of security. Digital playbooks can be easily stored on tablets, and when they fall into the wrong hands they are automatically erased by what one company calls a "dead man's switch" that activates after three consecutive incorrect passwords are entered or if the device's GPS shows that it's not within a predefined safe zone such as the team's facilities or dorm rooms. If a player transfers, coaches have the ability to remotely wipe tablets in a similar fashion. Some coaches have moved away from using playbooks altogether, though, says former Texas legend Mack Brown. The Longhorns used to make practice video available to players online, but Brown sensed a "potential for abuse" and put a stop to that. Before Texas faced Iowa State one year, a trick play Brown planned to open the game with was leaked on the Internet the night before and had to be scrapped. We never found out how it happened," he said with no small measure of regret all these years later. Protecting information is integral to the game. Jim Harbaugh won't even release a formal depth chart at Michigan, and hardly anyone provides anything close to an NFL- style injury report. Before Alabama faced Washington in last season's College Football Playoff, Nick Saban became apoplectic when a reporter asked why he'd seen veteran wideout Ar. Darius Stewart throwing passes at quarterback during practice. First of all, Saban said, "If we had a good reason for it, do you think I would tell you?" Then, remembering it was four days before Christmas, he added, "I'm doing everything I can not to say bad words in the holiday season.""Coaches are paranoid," Nutt said. There's no doubt about it."And remember this: They pay you to win. You can talk about community service, you can talk about the graduation rates, and all that is very important. But I got fired for the first time in my life because I didn't win enough."The line Nutt draws is repeated by current and former coaches alike: The pressure to win is enough to make anyone worry."You know your time is short," Chow said. You know you're not going to make all this money for a long length of time unless your name is Nick Saban. So you do whatever you can to protect yourself."There's an enormous amount of pressure now to win football games. It's crazy. .. You got people getting that first 4 or 5 million- dollar contract saying, 'I got to hang on to this puppy.'"Want to bring Nick Saban to a stop? Ask a question about a play in practice that he didn't really want you to see and then duck. It happened before Christmas last year. I'm doing everything I can not to say bad words in the holiday season," he said. Vasha Hunt/AL. APNO STORY, WITH THE POSSIBLE EXCEPTION of the actual national championship game, took a backseat to the high- level intrigue that took place at Wake Forest last season. On Nov. 1. 1, 2. 01. Louisville, a Wake Forest equipment manager discovered documents inside Papa Johns Cardinal Stadium that appeared to show specific plays the team planned to run against the then sixth- ranked Cardinals. Coach Dave Clawson launched an immediate investigation, ultimately concluding that the team's radio announcer, Tommy Elrod, had shared sensitive information with Louisville and attempted to do the same with a number of other schools throughout the season. Elrod, who played for Wake Forest and was formerly an assistant on staff, was fired and has not spoken publicly since. But a curious thing happened when current and former coaches were asked about the scandal that came to be known as Wakeyleaks. As a whole, they basically shrugged."My first response, to me, was no big deal," Kentucky coach Mark Stoops said. I didn't think much of it."Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald, who is also chair of the American Football Coaches Association Ethics Committee, said: "Anytime you see that, it's disappointing."But did it change anything? Did it make coaches more concerned about their own vulnerabilities? On the whole, not really. They were never unaware of the risks in the first place."I'd love to say it's rare," Fitzgerald said, "but it happens every day."He added: "Sometimes, maybe, is there some impropriety and guys cross the line? Yeah. To think about the great [coaches] I've had work for me and think that the great things we do here stay here and they don't leave here, I'd be the most naive guy in the world."Even if you can keep your staff tight- lipped, it's almost impossible to keep them all together for years on end. Coaches move on to other jobs, and your information goes with them. Before there was Wakeyleaks, there was Faxgate when, in the early 1. Tennessee assistant Jack Sells was caught at Kinko's sending diagrams and notes from the Vols' playbook to friend and Florida defensive coordinator Ron Zook. In 2. 01. 4, Texas Tech defensive coordinator Mike Smith accused his predecessor Matt Wallerstedt of giving opposing teams the Red Raiders' signals. Chow remembers a volunteer coach who went all through spring practice with him at BYU before leaving the team. Nine weeks later, Chow said, he looked over at a rival's sideline and saw the former coach holding a clipboard. He didn't believe it was a coincidence. It's not just the coaching staff that had Brown worried, though. He often wondered whether walk- on players might be persuaded to share information since they didn't have the same money afforded to them as scholarship players. Asked about that prospect, Chow said matter- of- factly, "Oh yeah, that's happened."Enticements or the situation at Wake Forest cross a line, coaches agree. But ask exactly where the line is and no one is certain. In baseball, gamesmanship is accepted. In college football, it's less out in the open but certainly there."I've been accused of being overly paranoid," Fitzgerald said. I guess we all are."Things like Wakeyleaks might shock the fans, but coaches know better. I'd love to say it's rare, but it happens every day," said Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald, who is also chair of the American Football Coaches Association Ethics Committee. Jeffrey Becker- USA TODAY Sports. CHANCES ARE THAT EVEN THE COACHES who say they don't care about things like stealing signs are the very ones using two or three dummy signal- callers to confuse opponents. Then, in all likelihood, coaches will change their indicator sign once a quarter or once a half - - just in case. It's all one big cat- and- mouse game. Said one former Big 1. Stealing signals?
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