UCLA ended a pre-Texas A&M practice because someone might’ve been spying on it

The Bruins were worried about football espionage.

UCLA cut short a football practice this week because of “concerns about privacy,” the Los Angeles Times reports. The Bruins play Texas A&M on Sept. 3 (7:30 p.m. ET, FOX).

“An issue came up [Wednesday],” head coach Jim Mora told the paper, “but I’m just pleased with the way everyone at UCLA has responded and trying to do the best that they can to make this a secure practice environment for us.”

The security issue was at a building next to the Bruins’ team facility, which the paper says “features an outdoor terrace overlooking the practice fields.”

It seems like UCLA was worried about getting spied on.

Most major college football teams take measures to practice in secrecy, but oftentimes, those aren’t the most high-tech. A lot of teams’ facilities are in the middle of campuses, and the only things shielding the practice fields are screens and signage on fences. UCLA practices on campus.

In general, football coaches are extremely sensitive about access to team information. That varies by program, of course, with some schools blacking out media access at practices altogether and others being more friendly. But the majority of major programs wouldn’t want anyone watching a practice who they didn’t know was there.

Are coaches overly protective? Sometimes, probably.

Plenty of practices don’t feature anything that would provide a competitive advantage to someone who saw it. Others are more valuable, such as when teams are running through new and different formations than the ones they’ve traditionally used in games. Not all practices pose the same espionage risks.

Last year, Wake Forest hired a radio announcer whom it said had been passing confidential game information to opponents for years. That scandal, which the internet has come to call Wakeyleaks, eventually caught up four teams and five games.