In a small way, your college football team is likely cheating every game day. At least, that’s what a long-tenured college football equipment manager believes.

With the college football season coming to a close, we conducted a Q&A with an equipment manager about some of the white lies and misdemeanors that occur in the sport. Specifically, the focus was to revisit the football-deflating fiasco at USC earlier this season, when an allegedly rogue student manager for the Trojans was busted and dismissed for deflating footballs in a loss to Oregon.

While not exactly a high crime in the eyes of fans, tampering with balls is something the NCAA and member conferences take seriously. And it got us wondering how often such low-tech cheating takes place. The question brought us to a longtime equipment manager who agreed to talk about the sideline shenanigans – so long as we didn’t identify him or his team. What we can say is that his resume includes longtime employment in a power conference, with a program in perennial bowl contention.

Y!: Ball-tampering in general, it’s sort of a behind-the-scenes thing in college football, maybe like a major league pitcher scuffing a baseball. Were you guys surprised someone got caught deflating footballs?

A: Not really. Being around football, it’s just common. It’s just the way it works. Everybody does it. You know you’re not supposed to do it, but nobody thinks it’s that big of a deal. I don’t think anybody looks at it as cheating.

Y!: When you say everybody does it, that’s obviously an assumption.

A: Yeah, but I have talked to a lot of coaches since the USC thing happened, and they say it happens in all the places they have coached.

Y!: In theory, a softer ball is easier to hold onto and can prevent less fumbling. So, in theory, you deflate it because it makes easier to throw, carry and catch. If the other team isn’t deflating their balls, it gives you an edge. That’s not cheating?

A: I don’t think in the amount I have seen them changed that it really makes that big of a difference. I think it’s just a comfort thing for the quarterback.

Y!: So in football parlance it’s not exactly like stealing defensive signals. It’s not serious.

A: Not in my opinion. Both teams use their own set of footballs [on game day]. Both teams can do whatever they want with them – maybe not by the definition of the rule, but in reality both teams can do what they want. If you were sharing balls with the other team, then I can see why there would be something wrong with it.

Y!: You view it as, these are our balls, so we can do what we want with them.

A: Yeah.

Y!: So how does it work, exactly? Take me through the process of how you would deflate a ball.

A: Before the game the officials ask for like, six footballs. You provide them to the officials before the game in the locker room. Then they take a Sharpie and they mark them on the white strip with whatever marks or colors they recognize as saying, you know, ‘We’ve approved these balls.’ After that, you’re not supposed to touch them at all. But between your ball boys and the ball being on the sidelines – and then at halftime, when you control all of your own balls – there is ample opportunity to adjust them.

Y!: When you’re adjusting them, how do you know when a football is soft enough?

A: Every team I have been around, the quarterback position has their own manager. And it is that manager’s responsibility to go to the quarterback with around 12 balls and give the quarterback a chance to pick out the six balls they like. At that point, it’s more so the quarterback can get the feel for the leather of the ball. Then you give them to the official and after they are checked and you get them back, that’s when you adjust the inflation.

Y!: So it’s really something between the quarterback and their specific manager. But the quarterback takes part?

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