College football may have a Spygate situation brewing

The first incident dubbed Spygate took place in the NFL when the New England Patriots were accused of taping the defensive signals of the New York Jets during the 2007 season.

Now, there appears to be a second iteration of Spygate brewing at the college level.

At his presser yesterday, first-year Jacksonville State head coach Rich Rodriguez shared that they've caught people filming at their practices and spring game ahead of their week zero match up with Stephen F. Austin (FCS - TX).

"Pretty good sources shared that they had a couple staff members at our spring game, which is...kinda...well, that's not supposed to happen. But we're making plans accordingly, so if they're over there thinking they have our plays or our signals or something like that, well, we've changed those things since the spring."

"Then, we caught someone possibly trying to film something the other day. First, my daughter caught them, Raquel saw them. Then we caught them again. Saw them peering through with his camera."

So how did Rich Rod handle someone filming his practice in an attempt to get an edge?

"So, I sent the biggest guy in our program, Cru, one of our assistant strength coaches. He's about 6'7 and about 350 and probably bench presses about 1,000 pounds or something. I sent him up the bleachers to run him out and that guy disappeared pretty quick."

The Cru that Rich Rod is referencing is Cru Birdyshaw - and don't be fooled by the friendly sounding last name. The first-year strength coach started his college career as an offensive lineman at Southern Miss before transferring to Jones CC (JC - MS). He ended up finishing up his playing career at UT-Martin (FCS) where he was listed at 6 foot 7 and 325 pounds.

Surely there is denial and rebuttal from Stephen F. Austin coming soon on these allegations, so it's always a good idea to stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.

The two teams square off on Saturday in Montgomery, AL at the Cramton Bowl at 2:30pm on ESPN.