Colorado filed a complaint with the Pac-12 alleging that Oregon had illegally accessed its practice video and data after the Ducks' 42-6 win over the Buffaloes in 2023, Front Office Sports reports. According to the report, the league's investigation into the incident came to an end when Buffaloes ultimately declined to provide evidence for their accusations.
Colorado staff alleges it found found multiple "potential incursions" into the program's online server. Catapult, the system that Colorado uses, conducted its own independent investigation and concluded that there was no evidence that the system had been breached.
"We conducted a thorough investigation into reports of unauthorized access to Colorado's football video footage last season," Catapult said in a statement to FOS. "We can confirm that the security of our systems was not compromised during the investigation."
Oregon decimated Colorado 42-6 and went up 35-0 at halftime before putting in its reserves. The Ducks rushed for 6.3 yards per carry in the win.
"We are unaware of any information that provides any credibility to this claim and see no reason to comment further," Oregon said in a statement to FOS.
Cybersecurity has become a bigger topic in college football in recent months, especially after the NCAA opted to introduce both helmet communications and in-game sideline access to film via tablets for the 2024 season. Catapult came under fire in December after staff at Alabama and Michigan claimed they were informed about potential security concerns with the server. The Wolverines cut access to the server to anyone outside university facilities.
According to a Sports Illustrated report, Catapult sent an email to its users shortly after the allegations went public.
"Over the past few days, there were false reports that Catapult is under investigation by the NCAA and law enforcement regarding our ThunderCloud video system," the email read. "While we assisted a local law enforcement authority investigating an alleged unauthorized access into a customer's ThunderCloud system, this was not an investigation of Catapult. In conjunction with this investigation, Catapult proactively conducted a thorough security review of our ThunderCloud system and found no data breaches or unauthorized access to any customer's content. We are not under investigation by the NCAA or any law enforcement agency."