Strong game advancement: iPad supports college football

Joyful fans pour Cajun rice with toppings into bowls, a banner with the slogan “Geaux Tigers” catches a gust of wind that is rare in the Louisiana heat, and excited students begin to fill the stands. Baton Rouge is getting ready for today’s game, and there are a dozen iPad Pros on the field.

While pre-match entertainment and local cuisine have a long-standing tradition at Tiger Stadium, the iPad on the lines is a new thing. In April this year, the NCAA introduced a rule that allows college football teams to use up to 18 enabled tablets located behind the touchline, in the coaches’ box above the field and in the locker room during a game. Taking advantage of the new rule, three conferences – the ACC, SEC and Big Ten – have opted to use iPads during games. It is used, among other things, to film the game from the touchlines and the end zone, as well as to broadcast.

“The new iPad Pro with nano-structured display technology is amazing,” says Doug Aucoin, director of video at Louisiana State University. “Without the nano-structured glass in the new iPad Pro, it would be impossible to watch almost any video on the field because of the rain falling on the screen. sun.”

Weather conditions, especially sun glare, were a major issue for college football teams that required a different solution than the technology used for back-of-the-field analysis in the NFL. During NFL games, teams only have access to photos, not videos. Fortunately, the new nano-structured glass in iPad Pro displays images with high quality and contrast as it diffuses ambient light and reduces glare, making it perfect for watching videos outdoors.

Aucoin has a front row seat to the evolution of technology in the world of college football. He earned the nickname “The Godfather of SEC Conference Video Coordinators” and in 2022 was inducted into the College Sports Video Association’s Sports Film and Video Hall of Fame. The man remembers that when he started at LSU in 1997, one of the secretaries in the football team’s office still had a typewriter on her desk. Today, Aucoin supervises a complex match system that connects an iPad with sports software so that coaches have a video recording of the action in front of their eyes just a few seconds after the action ends.

Catapult, a sports performance analytics company, is the software provider for all teams in the SEC Conference. Video recordings of the game are created and used in the following way. Each team has its own video camera operators who film the game on the touchline and in the end zone, and they also have access to the broadcast image. Moreover, in each team there is a person responsible for recording the course of the game, i.e. details used later in the analysis of the match, such as duration, distance, offensive and defensive plays, kicking phases, runs with the ball or passes. “While they enter these details, we edit the video clips in the back room, sync them, and send video packages to iPads that are available in the coaches’ press room and on the pit lanes,” explains Catapult’s chief product officer. The result is a recording of the game, which allows players to improve the next time they take the field. The ACC and Big Ten conferences use solutions provided by the software company DVSport to create and use game videos. In these conferences, the main technician responsible for replays records the match, and the maintenance staff records images from the touchlines and the end zone. “The collaboration between DVSport and Apple is a great example of how revolutionary the integration of new software and hardware can be,” says Brian Lowe, president and CEO of DVSport. “Credibility, speed and visibility are key elements of this solution, and Apple’s latest iPad Pro and iPad Air excel at providing end users with simple and elegant solutions. “An iPad on the backlines allows coaches to work much more efficiently during the game,” says Mike Saffell of the University of California, who coaches wingers for the Berkeley team. “Access to live material allows players and coaches to quickly correct mistakes. Moreover, it makes the game more intense because both teams can make adjustments during the match.

Fernando Mendoza, the quarterback of the California team, thinks the same. “We used to be able to see a lot of things only after the match was over, so it’s great that we have such support on the touchline. When you’re on the pitch, the game is always the same. Off the pitch, you can consult with coaches, make changes, receive instructions and return to the pitch with them. This is extremely helpful for young players in their development,” says the player.

Assessing the implementation of the new technology, Bairos – like many trainers – believes that thanks to the knowledge of the iPad, the entire process is hassle-free.

“The interface is familiar and easy to use, so you don’t waste time learning how to use it,” says the businessman. “Trainers with iPad and our software are self-sufficient. They know how the iPad works and can use touch controls.”

Billy Glasscock, general manager of Ole Miss, points out that an additional advantage of working with the iPad is support for Apple Pencil Pro. “If we want to introduce a play based on a specific opponent’s positioning, in the Catapult application we can use the white board option and draw the tactics with our finger or using Apple Pencil Pro. You can also draw on a video clip,” he explains.

The players know the iPad well, so the implementation among them also went smoothly. “They’ve been using these devices since they were kids,” says Alex Mirabal, offensive line coach at the University of Miami.

Mirabal learned how useful the iPad is during a dramatic October game against a team from California, during which the Hurricanes overcame a 25-point deficit and won by one. “We allowed a sack on the sixth play of the game. After the series was over, I could show it to the offensive linemen and say, ‘Look how this happened. If we find ourselves in this formation again, we have to come out of this situation this way,’ says the coach. “When our opponents used the same aggressive move later in the match, we were able to stop them. It’s really very helpful equipment.” Mirabal adds that players often reach for the iPad, especially during breaks, to analyze something on their own.

“‘Where’s the iPad?’ Where’s the iPad? ‘It’s the first thing we do when we leave the pitch,’ says Isaiah Horton, a winger from Miami. Horton points out that in addition to streamlining the coaches’ work, access to the iPad also facilitates the coordination of players. “We can see everything on the video and we don’t have to say, ‘It looked like this to me, but I don’t know what you saw because the quarterbacks are looking at one half of the field and I’m on the other side of the field.'”

Horton believes that in the long run, the iPad changes the game for the better because it puts players and coaches on the same page. According to Mendoza, strategy is becoming more and more important in the game, and Glasscock expects that matches will become more and more complicated, because teams will introduce additional settings, because each action used once by the opponent will be able to review and prepare for its repeated use. Mirabal, in turn, believes that the overall level of play will increase.

“It’s up to us as coaches not to be afraid to allow for the increasing use of technology in the game,” says Mirabal. “I don’t think so much as I know that using the iPad on the touchline had a huge, positive impact on the game. There isn’t a coach in America who thinks this change is negative.

For Aucoin, seeing the impact the iPad has on what happens behind the touchline has an even deeper meaning. His father, Erby Aucoin, who joined the New Orleans Saints in 1967 as the NFL’s first full-time director of filming, pioneered in-game analysis and came up with a system that involved taking photos with a Polaroid camera from the coaching booth above the field. and sending them down the cable so they can be analyzed behind the touchline.

“I replaced Polaroids with thermal printers… And now we’ve moved on to iPads with perfect game video,” Aucoin says. “My father started this many years ago. I’m proud to now see how it’s all evolved.”

Source: Apple