During his weekly briefing with the media on Tuesday, Virginia offensive coordinator Robert Anae made a reference to Navajo code talkers from the World War II era. The 2002 movie Windtalkers covered the story of soldiers recruited to disguise communications by using their native Navajo language in the Pacific Theater.

Anae’s point is that offenses are always looking for ways to confuse defense’s reads, to scramble the keys, and to hide favored plays so that the opponent doesn’t get a pre-snap jump on stopping the play.

“It’s the defense’s job to decode kind of like World War II like the Navajo language dudes,” Anae said. “The offense, it’s our job to make sure our code is complicated and it’s hidden and it’s clever. It takes a lot to do that. It takes a lot of really smart kids to play in different spots. I believe that the nature of the kid here at the University of Virginia.”

An example of that type of cloaking device on plays actually popped up this past weekend against Ohio. It happened early. And it happened fast.

...