The playbook used by NCAA football champions Miami Hurricanes was stolen and sections were posted on the Internet but rival coaches hoping for a quick peek at the schemes were out of luck. The site was pulled down "to avoid future prosecution by certain universities."

According to a report in the Miami Herald, thieves stole the team's playbooks last month and returned most of the 150 pages in manila envelopes. But, once the school ran a search on the Web, it found scanned pages of the touted "Sandman's 4-3 Defense On-Line" at the site.

The site has since been pulled down but a google's cache of the www.padirectory.com/43defense/ site shows the links to the stolen playbook was "dedicated to the modern 4-3 defense."

"The purpose of this site is to both gather and share information about the widely used, modern 4-3 defense. If you have a 4-3 playbook that you would be willing to donate, please e-mail me to exchange addresses," the site's unidentified owner posted.

However, once the police got involved, the following note appeared at the Public Trading section of the site : "To avoid future prosecution by certain universities, the trading page has been OFFICIALLY CLOSED on 3/29/02. This is very unfortunate because I have always felt that the coaching profession has always been based on a sharing of schemes and instructional information, for the benefit of the athletes and athletics. However, some of the universities don't feel the same way."

Attempts to contact the owner by e-mail Thursday morning were unsuccessful. The university declined comment to the Miami Herald and cops said they had no suspects in the case.