Although the benefits of helmet communication outweigh it, giving them a net advantage of the offseason, Tennessee Football can’t be happy with the SEC’s new plan to bring Apple iPads to the sidelines for every team. All that does is give teams more of a chance to read Josh Heupel’s offense.
Southeastern Conference Commissioner Greg Sankey announced at SEC Media Days in Dallas, Texas, that the league partnered with Apple to give every team iPads that allows them to study film in real time. They can look at teams’ tendencies immediately with numerous camera angles.
This is something the NFL has done for years, and it’s evidence of the SEC being out ahead of the curve. However, changing with the times hurts some teams, and there can be no doubt that this hurts Tennessee Football for more than one reason.
UT’s offense is based on tempo and keeping teams off-guard. Heupel wants to run no-huddle constantly. With helmet communication, though, and now the iPads, defensive coordinators will be able to adjust in real-time and relay that information to their players as Heupel is pushing the tempo.
You may say Heupel and his staff can do the same thing, but they showed in last year’s loss to the Missouri Tigers that they don’t actually do lots of in-game adjustments. As a result, this is 100 percent a benefit for teams that like to slow down and adjust in games.
Nick Saban would be scary good, as if he wasn’t already, with an advantage like this. Now, it’s not like the Vols haven’t taken advantage of so many other rules in Heupel’s offense. Downfield blocking and the wide hash marks are just two of those factors.
As a result, Heupel has his first real test. Is he a gimmick coach, or can he adjust on the fly to the changes in the sport? With a generational quarterback, he should be able to show Tennessee Football very quickly which one he is given these rules.
Although the SEC’s motives seem obvious, there could be an underlying incentive on their plan to do this as well. What if the league is positioning itself with this new technology (even if it is a decade old in the NFL) just so it will be able to take over the college football landscape soon? That’s always possible.
Either way, Tennessee Football has to adapt to it. The Vols were unable to adapt to the league increasing payouts due to TV deals and other schools in the 2000s getting more on par with them. If they make the same mistake this time, Heupel will decline before he even had success.
