Although in-helmet technology isn’t new to football, it is new to college football.

2024 marks the first season college teams can optionally use in-helmet devices and tablets to communicate play calls and review game film from the sideline.

Helmet tech is an aspect of modern football that college football has severely lacked for many years. The NFL first introduced the technology in 1994.

Teams around the country are trying to figure out the best way to utilize this technology to give their team an advantage. However, how effective is it?

During the first 30 years of in-helmet communication’s existence in professional football, college teams used hand signals and big poster boards to communicate to their players on the field from the sideline. It may not have been the most practical form of communication, but it worked, especially in loud environments.

With the introduction of helmet tech to the college game, many coaches, including James Frankin, are still figuring out how to balance the technology and sideline signals.

“Are you going to huddle on offense? If you’re going to huddle, then the quarterback can communicate with everybody,” Franklin said in his first press conference of the regular season in August. “If you’re not going to huddle, how do you still get that communication between 53 yards, from one receiver to the other, essentially? And the same thing with the corners?”

Franklin then mentioned going through trial and error using the technology during the offseason and said he spoke with NFL teams about how to strategically use it.

The new rule also cuts all headset communication with 15 seconds remaining on the play clock, allowing only one player on the field on each side of the ball to use the headset — signified by a green dot on the player’s helmet. For Penn State, those starting players are quarterback Drew Allar and linebacker Kobe King.

Everything seemed to go smoothly after beating West Virginia in week one. The crowd noise didn’t seem to cause any issues, and Franklin said after the game that the tablets were a big help during the over two-hour rain delay during halftime.

However, a week later against Bowling Green, Penn State’s usual stout defense was gashed by the Falcons in the first half. It was very unusual to see the Nittany Lions’ defense let up 24 points and 286 total yards in the first half, especially to Bowling Green.

The Falcon’s high-tempo, hurry-up offense seemed to be too overwhelming for Penn State, but it would be overwhelming for any team if the defense couldn’t hear the play call over 103,000 fans.

For obvious reasons, this caused issues when the defense either couldn’t hear the call on the headset with the loud crowd noise or couldn’t communicate with the rest of the defense fast enough before the offense snapped the ball. Against Bowling Green, Penn State’s defense was affected by both.

“You’re asking that linebacker to turn around and communicate to the safeties. While he’s doing that, he’s not seeing the formation, he’s not seeing the alignment,” Franklin said during his press conference on Monday. “It’s created some challenges that we’ve had to work through in the first couple of weeks, specifically on the defensive side of the ball.”

However, Penn State’s defense looked entirely different after halftime. Defensive tackle Coziah Izzard said after practice Wednesday that the defense started to lean on signals from the sideline rather than through the headset. Franklin said the same on Monday.

“I think the other thing that’s a big one for us that we got settled in the second half is the communication,” Franklin said. “We were trying to rely specifically on the headset communication, and at home that can be a little bit more challenging with the linebacker trying to verbally communicate to all 11 guys on the field.

“That created some challenges for us and allowed us some opportunities to get those things cleaned up in the second half and moving forward,” Franklin added.

The Nittany Lions allowed just six total yards in the third quarter and three points in the entire second half against Bowling Green.

Penn State is coming off its first bye week of the season and is gearing up to face Kent State on Saturday. The week off has given the defensive coaching staff and personnel more time to strategize with the in-helmet communication.

Linebacker Tyler Elsdon, who also has the helmet tech as a reserve, said Wednesday morning that the defense has done just that.

“We’ve just got to learn to be a little more efficient with it,” Elsdon said. “Our urgency has to continue to develop, just so everyone’s on the same page so we have no mishaps.”