BAMANEWSBOT
Staff
SEC, Big 12 and Pac-12 received permission to experiment with electronically tracking players this season. Tennessee may still do it, and the Big 12 has delayed the trial.
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BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- College football's future with technology is temporarily on hold. At least two major conferences have yet to debut a planned experiment this season to electronically track the speed and movement of college football players.
The Big 12 delayed for a year putting electronic chips on players from all 10 teams. Tennessee has discussed being the SEC's representative in a similar experiment, but has not used the technology yet. It's not clear if the Pac-12 is experimenting.
The information gleaned from the technology could eventually change how the game is coached, what types of statistics consumers see on phones and TVs, and how to track hits that help with player safety. The NCAA Football Rules Committee approved the experiment last winter for the SEC, Big 12 and Pac-12.
SEC officiating coordinator Steve Shaw said Tennessee volunteered to wear the chips and has met with the manufacturer.
"There's still some things between the software and chip manufacturer to be tweaked and worked out," Shaw said. "It's still our intent to do it this season. I thought we would have started by now. We want to do it properly. I would think somewhere during the season we will start it up."
Tennessee spokesman Jimmy Stanton confirmed the athletics department's discussions and said in an e-mail "we're not at the stage where anything has been finalized or put into place."
The Big 12 had planned to experiment this year with every team wearing chips from Sportvision, the company that brought TV viewers baseball's strike-zone box and football's yellow first-down line. Sportvision declined to comment for this article.
"As we entered into the process with Sportvision, they were eager to generate the next generation of the technology and we thought it would be best to hold off until it was implemented," Big 12 spokesman Bob Burda said. "We thought it would be least disruptive until the end of the season."
Burda said his understanding is that Sportvision's enhanced tracking features will impact player safety.
"One of the selling points for our administrative groups was the ability to not only track player movement, but also have data that could be used to reference the impact of hits to be used around player-safety issues and in medical diagnosis when trying to determine if a player suffered a concussion," Burda said.
Pac-12 spokesman Dave Hirsch said the conference is not using Sportvision. Stanford is conducting a concussion study involving mouthpieces with transmitters and chips, but it's not quite like tracking player movements, Stanford spokesman Kurt Svoboda said.
What's the point of the technology?
Why track player movements? Shaw, whose conference is about to start the SEC Network with ESPN in 2014, said the No. 1 application would be for media use.
"The TV producers would have this information and would track player movement and routes and speeds and tremendous data," Shaw said.
ESPN has been testing this technology for years with many sports leagues and vendors. The network believes there's interesting data that could tell compelling stories about players through trends, said Anthony Bailey, vice president of emerging technology for ESPN.
Bailey imagines statistics showing how wide receivers read coverage defenses. The tracking could show where receivers stop in open space.
Bailey envisions statistics for offensive linemen and blocking schemes. Imagine stats such as how well linemen push defenders away from the running hole or pocket, how well linemen are aligned, and how well they block into the second level of the defense.
"In football, really the only statistics are about moving the ball forward or tackling the guy," Bailey said. "Now you could get other stats that could really open eyes for different opportunities. Who knows, you might be able to take offensive linemen for fantasy football?"
The problem is there's no real data. The NBA has done optical measurements, but not put devices on players.
The NFL tested some players last year and this season has required every player to wear what the NFL calls "non-obtrusive tracking devices" in select practices and games. NFL.com reported the NFL will likely require all players to wear them at some point over the next few seasons.
"Nobody has really done anything where you built consistent data," Bailey said. "You probably need about three to five years of data to quantify that it's consistent to see trends, and you need to be consistent on how you're capturing it."
In addition to media use, Shaw said the technology could be applied as a coaching component and for player safety. Coaches could make in-game adjustments based on data from player movements.
"As an example, are your safeties too far off the line of scrimmage and do they need to be closer?" said Burda, the Big 12 spokesman.
If this technology emerges in college football, new questions about competitive equity would emerge. That's why the NCAA rules committee only allowed the chips on an experimental basis, Shaw said.
"Nobody really knows what the value is from a coach's perspective," Shaw said. "Does it have minimal value, great value? How will it be used? Is there a competitive advantage? What's the cost and would only certain teams be able to afford it? I think we really have to figure that out."
Read More Here...
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- College football's future with technology is temporarily on hold. At least two major conferences have yet to debut a planned experiment this season to electronically track the speed and movement of college football players.
The Big 12 delayed for a year putting electronic chips on players from all 10 teams. Tennessee has discussed being the SEC's representative in a similar experiment, but has not used the technology yet. It's not clear if the Pac-12 is experimenting.
The information gleaned from the technology could eventually change how the game is coached, what types of statistics consumers see on phones and TVs, and how to track hits that help with player safety. The NCAA Football Rules Committee approved the experiment last winter for the SEC, Big 12 and Pac-12.
SEC officiating coordinator Steve Shaw said Tennessee volunteered to wear the chips and has met with the manufacturer.
"There's still some things between the software and chip manufacturer to be tweaked and worked out," Shaw said. "It's still our intent to do it this season. I thought we would have started by now. We want to do it properly. I would think somewhere during the season we will start it up."
Tennessee spokesman Jimmy Stanton confirmed the athletics department's discussions and said in an e-mail "we're not at the stage where anything has been finalized or put into place."
The Big 12 had planned to experiment this year with every team wearing chips from Sportvision, the company that brought TV viewers baseball's strike-zone box and football's yellow first-down line. Sportvision declined to comment for this article.
"As we entered into the process with Sportvision, they were eager to generate the next generation of the technology and we thought it would be best to hold off until it was implemented," Big 12 spokesman Bob Burda said. "We thought it would be least disruptive until the end of the season."
Burda said his understanding is that Sportvision's enhanced tracking features will impact player safety.
"One of the selling points for our administrative groups was the ability to not only track player movement, but also have data that could be used to reference the impact of hits to be used around player-safety issues and in medical diagnosis when trying to determine if a player suffered a concussion," Burda said.
Pac-12 spokesman Dave Hirsch said the conference is not using Sportvision. Stanford is conducting a concussion study involving mouthpieces with transmitters and chips, but it's not quite like tracking player movements, Stanford spokesman Kurt Svoboda said.
What's the point of the technology?
Why track player movements? Shaw, whose conference is about to start the SEC Network with ESPN in 2014, said the No. 1 application would be for media use.
"The TV producers would have this information and would track player movement and routes and speeds and tremendous data," Shaw said.
ESPN has been testing this technology for years with many sports leagues and vendors. The network believes there's interesting data that could tell compelling stories about players through trends, said Anthony Bailey, vice president of emerging technology for ESPN.
Bailey imagines statistics showing how wide receivers read coverage defenses. The tracking could show where receivers stop in open space.
Bailey envisions statistics for offensive linemen and blocking schemes. Imagine stats such as how well linemen push defenders away from the running hole or pocket, how well linemen are aligned, and how well they block into the second level of the defense.
"In football, really the only statistics are about moving the ball forward or tackling the guy," Bailey said. "Now you could get other stats that could really open eyes for different opportunities. Who knows, you might be able to take offensive linemen for fantasy football?"
The problem is there's no real data. The NBA has done optical measurements, but not put devices on players.
The NFL tested some players last year and this season has required every player to wear what the NFL calls "non-obtrusive tracking devices" in select practices and games. NFL.com reported the NFL will likely require all players to wear them at some point over the next few seasons.
"Nobody has really done anything where you built consistent data," Bailey said. "You probably need about three to five years of data to quantify that it's consistent to see trends, and you need to be consistent on how you're capturing it."
In addition to media use, Shaw said the technology could be applied as a coaching component and for player safety. Coaches could make in-game adjustments based on data from player movements.
"As an example, are your safeties too far off the line of scrimmage and do they need to be closer?" said Burda, the Big 12 spokesman.
If this technology emerges in college football, new questions about competitive equity would emerge. That's why the NCAA rules committee only allowed the chips on an experimental basis, Shaw said.
"Nobody really knows what the value is from a coach's perspective," Shaw said. "Does it have minimal value, great value? How will it be used? Is there a competitive advantage? What's the cost and would only certain teams be able to afford it? I think we really have to figure that out."
