Amid questions about the integrity of the coach-player communication systems used in Power 4 college football games this season, the Big 12 is taking steps to provide encryption and more protection.

Bruce Feldman, Sam Khan Jr., Justin Williams and Ralph Russo of The Athletic and ESPN Max Olson reported Wednesday that the conference instructed its teams to send their headset communication devices to GSC, which is the company that provides the system, to receive a software update that encrypts the communication.

Communications have so far taken place on unencrypted frequencies, meaning they could have been accessible to anyone with a scanner and the ability to locate the correct frequencies.

Olson reported that Texas Tech specifically requested a report from the Big 12 regarding the games against TCU and Baylor out of concern that they may have been compromised.

The Red Raiders lost both games.

“We need to have a game whose integrity is not in any way questionable on a Saturday afternoon,” Texas Tech director of athletics Kirby Hocutt said. “We owe it to the 120 young men in our football team to make sure that happens, that it’s a fair competitive game and that the same set of rules apply.”

The integrity of college football games was a major topic of discussion last season when Michigan won the national championship despite being embroiled in a sign-stealing controversy that is still under investigation by the NCAA and could lead to penalties .

In the wake of that scandal, this was the first season in which coach-to-player headset and tablet communications were allowed in the FBS, even though such practices are occurring in the NFL.

However, as Olson noted, a frequency coordinator who organized a September game between Arkansas and Texas A&M discovered that the communications were unencrypted and notified the SEC.

“We have been aware of this issue and have remained in communication with the GSC and our peer conferences, as well as our schools,” the SEC said in a statement Wednesday. “We are not aware of any cases where the system was compromised during the games. GSC has developed an update to address the issue and we have made our schools aware of their ability to update their systems at a time of their choosing.”

As for the Big Ten and ACC, there have been no reported issues or teams raising concerns with the conference offices.

It should be noted that one Big 12 personnel chief wasn’t particularly concerned and said, “There’s no real upside. First, you speak another language. Second, if you think you could implement in real time what they say and try to do it on the field, you are delusional, you are just your paranoid football coach.

Olson called creating an advantage from gaining access to these real-time communications “a much more challenging task than the secondary signal theft” that previously made headlines.

The Big 12 expects software updates to be in place and returned to teams in time for Saturday’s slate of games.