CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – As the Virginia football team has practiced for games this fall, a six-story building has been under construction just to the southwest of the team’s fields and facility.

It’s a hotel and conference center the university plans to open this spring.

And as it goes up, it raises a question: Does having hotel rooms overlooking the UVA practice fields present a concern to the football program? Could an opponent use that vantage point to spy on the team’s workouts? Could an overzealous fan spot and share sensitive gameplan or injury news gathered by looking out a window from one of the rooms on the hotel’s east side?

The university is aware of the question and is even “exploring options for enhancing privacy” for the outdoor practice fields, an athletic department spokesperson told Cville Right Now. But the department said views of the field that could compromise information about the Cavaliers’ personnel and game plans are very limited.

“There are no direct lines of sight to the football practice fields from the Virginia Guesthouse’s restaurant, café, conference center or rooftop amenity,” UVA spokesperson Erich Bacher said in an email. “A small number of north-facing guestrooms have limited views. However, these do not offer full visibility of the two outdoor fields.”

University spokesperson Bethanie Glover told Cville Right Now that “there are no room windows of the hotel overlooking the football practice fields. North facing rooms overlook the Emmet/Ivy parking garage.”

Still, Bacher said the school is considering installing “a visual barrier, such as windscreen netting or a perforated material, along the southern edge of the grass practice fields.”

The $130.5 million, 223,000-square foot conference center and hotel will be at the campus’s Emmet-Ivy corridor entrance. It will have 214 guest rooms in addition to 25,000 square feet of conference space and a 10,000-square foot ballroom.

The location allows for it to serve as a public entrance point to the university’s Grounds, and places it near the School of Data Science and the-set-to-open-in-2026 Karsh Institute of Democracy. But it also puts it adjacent to the athletic facilities.

At rival Virginia Tech, in Blacksburg, none of the buildings with a view into the Hokies’ practice fields are public. They are all athletic department facilities.

But in Harrisonburg, at James Madison, anyone standing on the hill outside the university’s D-Hall dining hall has a clear shot of a view into Bridgeforth Stadium, where the Dukes hold most of their practices.

Espionage in college football became a major storyline in 2023, when the NCAA investigated Michigan’s coaching staff for sending people to the games of upcoming opponents to videotape and steal their play call signals. Ultimately, the program received financial penalties and was placed on probation for four years.

Before that, from 2014-2016, Wake Forest had the “Wakey Leaks” scandal, where an assistant coach provided opponents with copies of the Demon Deacons’ playbook in advance of games.

At some programs, staff members, graduate assistants or student managers are tasked with sweeping through the press box, club suites and concourses to make sure no one is watching a practice in a stadium that should not be.

“That’s how serious they take it,” one Commonwealth school official told Cville Right Now. “I’ve never met a football or basketball coach who wasn’t paranoid about people watching their practice.”

Virginia quarterback Chandler Morris has been around the game for most of his life. His father is a former college head coach and coordinator, and while Chandler said he didn’t speak with his father much about the different concerns coaches have about their programs being surveilled, he did note that the Michigan case was not the first, nor will it be the last, case of its kind.

“I think it’s real thing, signals getting stolen,” Morris told Cville Right Now. “I think that’s been going on for a long time in football.”

Morris noted that the use of in-helmet communications has helped curb sign stealing.

Of course, if UVA is worried about who’s watching its practices, it can always move inside to the George Welch Indoor Practice Field.