The “Wakeyleaks” scandal is just getting started.
Even by the standards of college football, this Wake Forest scandal is quite out there. The basis of the whole deal is that a former Wake Forest assistant coach, a coach that became a radio announcer, has allegedly been leaking details of the Demon Deacons upcoming game plans to its opponents.
The announcer in question is named Tommy Elrod, the same Tommy Elrod that played football at Wake in the 1990s, has been fired from his position and various coaches have either come forward or been contracted to see if Elrod gave them secrets before they played the Demon Deacs over the past few seasons.
One team that may be involved here is Army. After all, the Black Knights have played Wake in each of the last three seasons, so odds are the something was at least suggested to the school by Elrod at some point during that time.
Army athletic director Boo Corrigan said Wednesday night that Wake Forest officials reached out to the school in connection to the potential leaking of confidential game plans. “We were contacted by Wake Forest,” Corrigan said in a phone interview with Sports Illustrated. “We’re looking into it.”
If the Black Knights were leaked game plan information then it really didn’t do Army that much good. Army did beat Wake this season (21-13) in Winston-Salem, N.C., in October this season, but Wake won both of the previous meetings in 2014 (24-21) and 2015 (17-14). For now, the Black Knights are just looking into the allegations to see if anything happened with Elrod and the school after the Demon Deacons concluded a month long internal investigation earlier this month.
Army became the second school to publically emerge as having been contacted by Wake Forest after Louisville athletic director Tom Jurich admitted in a statement on Wednesday that the Cardinals had received information from Elrod. In their case, it was through Lousiville assistant coach Lonnie Galloway, who had worked previously with the radio announced when both were at Wake.
It is hard to say what actions/penalties/fault Army would be facing in this situation. Louisville said in their statement that the information was limited to a few plays, none of which were ran in the game between the two schools. Also, all this info came directly from a Wake Forest source spilling, as opposed to Louisville/Army/whoever chasing it down.
For now, this is very much a wait and see situation, while the Black Knights work on preparing for their bowl game against North Texas.
Given the honor code at all of the services academies, I think it would be disastrous for the Army coaching staff if they accepted the stolen game plan information. It doesn’t matter if Army lost to Wake Forest or not. If the Army Coaches accepted the information then Army Football cheated. Honor is everything at Army / Navy / Air Force. These football programs should never cheat. If the coaching staff used stolen game plan information, I pray the cadets did not know. That is a potential honor violation. From a USNA Grad, congrats to Army Football for a great 2016 season.