One major change that college teams are going through this spring has been learning to use and adapt to helmet communication. That includes at Nebraska, where Matt Rhule has been working on it with his quarterbacks.
This Spring, Rhule shared his thoughts on adapting to helmet communications, even noting that they’ve been able to use some helmet communication in practice last season.
“For the two freshmen, it’s all they know,” Matt Rhule said. “So, it’s like they’re kind of like, ‘Okay, this is what it is.’ We’ve been doing it non-stop all training camp and interestingly enough we did it some last year in the Spring. It’s a Lincoln-based company that does the NFL and so we have it. So, we used it last Spring with the hopes that this was gonna pass and it’s really, really powerful.”
Matt Rhule came to Nebraska from the NFL, where these types of helmet communications have been used since 1994. So, he has a familiarity with it that many other college coaches aren’t going to have.
“What I really like about it [that] people wouldn’t think about is all the quarterbacks are hearing what’s being said to the starting quarterback the entire practice. Does that make sense? So, if I get 20 reps, I don’t just take my helmet off now and sit there for 20 reps and kind of watch. I have the helmet on. I hear the coach say we’re running dada dada. Hey, if you get man here, don’t be afraid to go to this. So, they’re getting all these mental reps and I’m hearing it now. So, I can hear what’s being said.”
Prior to being allowed to communicate with one player on the field, coaches needed to use signals from the sideline to give the play to their team or have a player run to the sideline and be given the play verbally from a coach. Now, the coach can communicate with that one player, the quarterback on offense, and they communicate the play with everyone else on the field.
“I think they’re adjusting really well,” Rhule said. “I think it’s going to be a tool for a lot of people, but I think it’ll be a tool for us — I think it’s pretty useless on defense. It was misapplied on defense.”
Heinrich Haarberg shared his thoughts on helmet communication
Nebraska quarterback Heinrich Haarberg recently shared that he doesn’t feel helmet communication helps him as much as it does others.
“So for us, we had it last spring and then for me, at least, last year with the signals, you almost become fluent in signals. So the helmets help a little bit, for me, but not a ton just because of how — it gets to a point where Coach [Satterfield] or someone may just say the first word of the play and you just automatically know what the play is. And that’s experience,” Haarberg said.
“But I think it helps those two younger guys, a lot. But I think by the start of the season, those two guys will be at that point, too, where we know, we can kind of anticipate what kind of play we’re going to call. Even if we can’t hear the whole play call, that’s something that we can just hear the first couple words and go from there.”
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