Who else is in your war room?
A former intelligence officer and security officer, for the department with one person wearing six hats. Sweeps, tradecraft, travel security and athlete safety, priced for programs outside the Power Four.
Arizona · On site anywhere a program plays · Founding programs receive a reduced rate
The threats changed. The security program at most schools did not.
A sign-stealing case put surveillance on the agenda of every staff meeting in the country. Name, image and likeness made nineteen-year-olds worth targeting. Bettors harass players by direct message after a bad night. The FBI has warned families about sextortion aimed at athletes. Coaching staffs carry the entire game plan on tablets into hotels they did not choose.
Campus police protect the stadium. Information technology protects the network. No one owns the space in between: the coaches' suite at a bowl site, the booster who keeps dropping by, the player receiving threats from a stranger who knows his dormitory, the staff member whose telephone is the leak. That is the space Smilodon works in.
Three numbers already on the board.
of the publicly posted social-media abuse aimed at college athletes came from sports bettors. Sexual abuse was the largest category at eighteen percent. Direct messages were not counted.
NCAA and Signify Group, October 2024reports of financial sextortion of minors in a single year, with at least three thousand victims, most of them boys. The FBI named student athletes among them.
FBI, HSI and NCMEC public safety alertshow-cause for a head coach, fines reported above thirty million dollars, and eleven violations, in the first sign-stealing case the NCAA brought to a decision. The institution is appealing.
NCAA Committee on Infractions, August 2025Six calls on the sheet.
Each one stands alone. Together they are a program. Most departments start with the assessment; its report says which of the rest they need.
- Afrom$18,500
Program security assessment
Five days on campus. Facilities, travel, devices and information, staff practice, athlete exposure, and incident response. A written report with a prioritized remediation schedule, presented in person.
- Bfrom$5,000 / day
Coaching staff tradecraft
Signal and information protection, device discipline, what a leak looks like from inside, and how recruiters, boosters and media work a building.
- Cfrom$3,000
Athlete safety briefings
Sextortion, bettor harassment, impersonation, NIL fraud, doxxing and synthetic media, and the correct actions in the first hour.
- Dfrom$4,000 / trip
Travel security advance
Hotel and meeting-space selection, room assignments, key control, and the decision of what travels and what stays home.
- Eretainer$5,000 / mo
Threat assessment and response
When a player or coach receives a credible threat: triage, documentation, liaison with law enforcement, and the digital side handled.
- Ffrom$3,000
Technical sweeps
Coaches' offices, meeting rooms, the war room, bowl and away-game sites, with a plain statement of what a sweep can and cannot establish.
Also on the sheet: leak and insider review from $8,000 · quarterly roster exposure checks
One engagement. Every chair in the department gets something different.
- Athletic director
A one-page summary of the program's exposure, the cost of remediation, and a written record that the department examined the question. The document a board requests after an incident, produced before one.
- Director of football operations
A travel checklist, a room-assignment protocol and a device plan the operations staff can run without the firm next season, and a number that is answered when something goes wrong on a Friday night.
- Head coach and staff
A signal and information plan built around how the staff actually works, delivered in half a day, and a straight answer as to which rooms are worth inspecting.
- General manager
Recruits and transfers briefed on what a stranger already knows about them, and the department's exposure explained before the roster's value grows again.
- Compliance
Athlete incidents reported by category and severity, never by content. Documentation that is useful to campus police and comfortable for counsel.
- Campus police
A counterpart who hands over usable documentation, stays within its remit, and never represents itself as law enforcement.
Built for the mid‑major first.
Power Four schools can hire a national security firm. Most programs cannot, and the national firms do not call them. Smilodon is structured and priced for the department that has one director of football operations wearing six hats, performing the same work for less, with the principal doing it personally.
- Who. Athletic directors, chiefs of staff, directors of football operations, general managers, compliance, counsel, campus police.
- Which programs. Group of Five and FCS football first. Basketball and the other programs carry the same exposure and spend more nights in hotels.
- Where. Arizona based. On site anywhere a program plays.
- Not. Event security, bodyguards, network security, background checks, or watching a department's own staff. Those are referred out, with an introduction.
Where the firm fits.
Every department already has people responsible for security. Smilodon does not replace any of them.
| Who | What they own | Where Smilodon fits |
|---|---|---|
| Campus police | The stadium, the response to a crime, and the law. | A counterpart who provides documentation they can use, stays within its remit, and does not pretend to be law enforcement. |
| Event security | Crowd management, gates, credentials on game day. | Not a competitor. The firm's work is the other six days of the week and the rooms the public never enters. |
| Information technology | The network, the accounts, the institution's devices. | The space between the network and the people: the hotel, the booster, the telephone on the bus, the personal tablet with the playbook on it. |
| Compliance and counsel | NIL rules, reporting obligations, the engagement letter. | Informed by category and severity, never handed anything they would rather not hold. Counsel receives the letter first. |
| A national risk firm | The same practice areas, for the programs that can afford an account team. | The same work, scaled to one principal who does it personally, at a price a Group of Five or FCS department can pay. |
| A sweep vendor | One instrument set, one afternoon, one room at a time. | The assessment says which rooms warrant inspection at all. When one does, the firm inspects it and writes down what the instruments cannot find. |
The report reads like this.
Fourteen to thirty findings, each with a severity, an owner, a cost and a fix that can be carried out by someone who is not a security professional. Most fixes cost nothing. The expensive ones are marked optional.
The one-page summary for the athletic director comes first. The appendix lists every room walked, every document reviewed, and what was not examined, so nobody mistakes the report for a guarantee.
The offensive staff room shares a drop ceiling with a storage closet on the corridor side. The closet is on the building master key and is serviced by a third-party vendor on an unscheduled basis. Friday installation meetings have been held in this room since the renovation.
- Fix
- Re-key the closet to the football operations key set. Move the Friday install to the war room until done. Add the closet to the Thursday walk.
- Owner
- Director of football operations, with facilities.
- Cost
- Under $500 and one telephone call.
- Sweep
- Recommended once, after the re-key.
From the first call to the first report.
Nothing is invoiced until the engagement letter is signed. The call, the proposal and the letter are the firm's cost, not the department's.
no deck. ever.- Twenty minutes on a call
What prompted it, the shape of the program, and whether an assessment or a single engagement is the right first step. On occasion the advice is to wait.
- A proposal within three business days
Four pages: what the firm heard, two or three options with pricing, the deliverables, and the terms of work. Written to be forwarded.
- The engagement letter goes to counsel
It states in advance what is reported and to whom, what is outside scope, and which state licenses apply. Counsel sees it before anyone else.
- On site
Five days for an assessment, a day for tradecraft, an afternoon for a briefing, two to three days for a travel advance. Scheduled around the calendar, without disruption to the building.
- The report, in person
Delivered in a meeting with the athletic director and the people who own the fixes. Never by email alone.
- Then the department decides
It implements what it chooses, with its own staff or with the firm on retainer. The report belongs to the department either way.
Five days on site. One report. Then you decide.
The assessment is the whole relationship in miniature. If the report is not worth more than it cost, the firm has not earned the retainer.
Asked on most first calls.
If yours is not here, the call is twenty minutes and the principal answers it. All twenty-seven questions, in writing.
Only football?
Football first, because that is where the information, the travel and the exposure concentrate. The assessment, the briefings and the response line apply to any program. Basketball departments ask most often.
Only Power Four?
No. Smilodon is structured and priced for Group of Five and FCS departments first. The work is the same work a national firm performs for larger programs. The price and the principal's time are different.
Do you investigate our staff?
No. Leak reviews examine access and process. An investigation of an individual is a separate engagement under a state investigator's license, and the firm will say when it considers that the wrong course.
What does a sweep actually find?
Consumer-grade trackers, cameras and transmitters, which is what is actually planted in athletic programs. Every report states what was instrumented and what was not. A sealed-room certification with laboratory equipment is a partner engagement, quoted separately.
How fast can you start?
A call within the week, a proposal within three business days, a letter to counsel the same week. On-site dates follow the calendar. A travel advance for a specific trip can usually be completed within two weeks.
Recent writing.
Short, practical notes for directors of operations and athletic directors. Each is something a department could act on before the next game.
- Who works a buildingOctober 31, 2026Boosters, donors, vendors, media and the recruit's uncle: the people in a football facility because someone let them in, how a few of them collect, and the five building habits a staff can own for a season.
- What is already public about a playerOctober 31, 2026Twenty minutes, a telephone and no special access: how a stranger assembles an athlete's address, vehicle, family and schedule from sources that are each harmless on their own, and what a department can do about it without reading anyone's messages.
- What an engagement letter should say before a security firm walks into your buildingOctober 31, 2026Nine things an athletic department's counsel should find in the letter from any security or investigative firm, and the three that are missing most often: the named contact, the reporting rules, and the licenses.
Someone who did this before it had a price.
Smilodon is run by a former intelligence officer and security officer. The tradecraft taught to coaches is the tradecraft taught to people whose safety depended on it, cut down to what a football staff will actually use.
Honest about limits.
Every report states what was examined, with what, and what was not. A room is never called clean on the strength of a walk-through. Investigative work runs under the applicable state license or a licensed partner, and the department is told which.