Virtual Reality Accelerating Learning Process
QBs, offensive line use special film to get additional reps at home
As Clay Millen sets up behind center, another quarterback stands behind him with a camera raised in the air. In front of Millen, a few of his offensive linemen will have cameras strapped to their heads, protected by a diver’s case to absorb impact.
As the play unfolds, every aspect of the practice rep will be gathered on film from a first-person view, then transferred to film to be seen through a virtual reality headset.
It is the next wave of teaching the game, and Colorado State is fully emersed in advancing a couple of position groups through two different virtual reality systems.
“I was surprised first off to see they even had that technology. I think it is super cool,” Millen said. “When I first put it on, it’s as close to an actual rep you can actually have, because someone stands two yards behind you with a camera so it gives you as close to a real rep as you can have. I think it’s especially beneficial to you as a quarterback because you can see the whole defense, you can go through from your own perspective and rerun it and go see, hey, I wanted the ball over here, it should have gone there. You can repeat it over and over and go through your progression on that play.”
The days of 8-millimeter film are gone. They were replaced by VHS tapes, which gave way to digital recordings which can be played on any device a player choses from the comfort of their room. Virtual reality is the next wave, and while it’s not being widely used quite yet, Colorado State is on the front line with the technology and systems being devised by two different groups.
Quarterbacks coach Matt Mumme has incorporated the VAR (Virtual Augmented Reality) system his father, Hal, helped back financially after it was developed by A.J. Smith, a college coach himself. Matt said basically all Air Raid systems in college are using it to teach their signal callers.
Offensive line coach Bill Best was approached by Dutch Franz, who has a military background, and Joe Ashfield, who Best worked with at Rice, to help develop their system, REPS VR, for the offensive line. It was originally tested on quarterbacks and linebackers, and their system incorporates a voice recognition aspect the Department of Defense has used in virtual reality training for decades.
In either case, the technology isn’t used to replace practice or game video. It is used as an addition to help advance progression.
“I don’t think the old-school way of watching film is ever going to leave; it’s very important,” Best said. “But kids play video games now. This is a way to make learning fun. We can watch film all day long and guys sleep and nod off. When they have this on, there's none of that. They feel like it's real.”
Hal used it at Belhaven University, where he inherited a team on probation and a redshirt freshman quarterback, Hunter McEachern, who had never played in the Air Raid. Smith, an offensive coordinator at Tyler College, used it for his quarterbacks.
Both of them said the results were amazing, seeing young quarterbacks develop faster, both of them among the nation’s leaders in passing.
“I think they love it because it gives them the exact point of view they saw from practice,” Hal said. “Anytime you film from a tower, film from a drone or ground level, you are not going to be able to see all the stuff you could see if you do it virtually. The other thing about the virtual reality I really love is you can pause it in any position and look at your feet, look at your hands, look behind you – it’s a 360, total global filming system – so you can pause and see where your feet were when you make contact if you’re an O-lineman. If you’re a quarterback, as you release the ball, you can look and see if your feet were properly aligned. It’s really got some tools that are a bit subtle, but it’s kind of the coming thing.”
It’s an added bonus. It’s not a replacement, it’s a third element. Do it, see it, then experience it in virtual reality.Matt Mumme
Best had seen it used by other positions and, while he didn’t fully grasp how it worked at first, he was intrigued about it’s potential on the offensive line.
He used it for the first time at Nevada last year, but mostly from a scouting perspective. They could get coaches to mimic the movements of opponents and put it on film, then let their players watch it in advance. While he’s still tweaking aspects of the system, he’s encouraged by the initial foray into using it as a teaching tool every day.
“It was flattering to have somebody ask me to do that. It was a lot of fun for me to develop it and find the best way to get it done,” Best said. “Once I got it developed and got my teaching system developed -- and it’s taken time -- but now at Colorado State we’re filming it and you can see their eyes and their heads showing up on film. You can see their responses have really sped up.”
That’s what Matt has noticed most, even more so this year teaching the system to a group of newcomers. They used it with Carson Strong first at Nevada, calling him the guinea pig. Millen used it too, and because of the viewpoint, Matt feels Millen is ahead of where Strong was at the same point in their careers.
He entered spring camp expecting it to take time for the new quarterbacks to pick it up, but he’s been shocked at their rapid progression in the Air Raid, attributing much of the growth to virtual reality.
Repetition is key, and this increases reps. Speed in learning is of the essence, and this ramps it up.
“For a guy like me who came from VHS tapes and watching tape in the room, it’s amazing,” Matt said. “It’s amazing what we can do. Again, you save these young men time. Laugh for what it is, PlayStation and Xboxes, but these kids know coverages and understand it because they play video games. VAR just takes it a whole other step, and they get to see it.
“It’s an added bonus. It’s not a replacement, it’s a third element. Do it, see it, then experience it in virtual reality.”
Which is how Millen uses it. He will still watch more practice tape than anything, but he does see undeniable benefits to watching practice reps through a virtual reality headset. He can do it sitting in a chair, or stand up and be an active participant while he’s watching it.
It’s not just his tape he watches, either. He will put on clips from Giles Pooler to learn from what he’s seeing, too. It is what both he and the Mummes see as the main teaching tool of the technology – quarterbacks can really see if their eyes are in the right spot.
“I think from the wide camera up above, it’s harder to tell where you’re eyes are at. When it’s right behind you, you can see where you’re looking at the entire time and the coaches can go through and evaluate if you’re going through the right progression,” Millen said. “Left to right, here you’re processing and going through the right pace. It shows you what each quarterback was thinking. If Giles has a rep, I can watch it on VAR and see what he was thinking so I can learn from him, as well.
“You can look at yourself, look at all the coaches behind you. It’s pretty crazy technology. I was shocked how great of a tool it really was. Both have benefits. From the wide view you can see the full field and not just from the quarterback perspective. From the quarterback’s perspective, you can’t always see some little things. You’re on the field and in that spot, versus the wide view you can see everything from above. Both have their benefits. I couldn’t have one over the other. But when you see it from VAR, it’s more an actual rep.”
What the offensive linemen will use adds another layer with the voice recognition. As they watch practice reps through the headset, they can see the center making line calls and the checks going out to the edge. They will see their hand placement, how they punch and what the defensive lineman is doing.
When Best gets the tape, he can pause it and insert what they call brevity key words. In each instance, the offensive lineman will say what they should be doing when a defensive lineman moves a certain way. The headset picks up their response and grades it.
Brian Crespo-Jacquez has worn the camera, but he can’t wait to actually use the virtual reality for his own teaching after having Jacob Gardner explain it to him.
“It’s a whole new technology. What they’ve told us is we’ll use it to learn how to set the defensive ends, where our hand placement is so we know what we’re doing wrong, if we’re punching too low or too high,” he said. “We use it to see point-of-view stuff. At first, when you put it on, it weighs your helmet down, but once you get playing, you don’t realize it’s on there. It’s crazy to think you’re using virtual reality to improve your game and see what you’re doing right and wrong and how you can fix it. I talked to Jacob because he played left tackle at Nevada. He said it helped him a lot.”
The voice recognition has led Best to the next step, where he can grade what the linemen are doing and decipher what they are learning and where they still need to improve. With the data, he can design individual lesson plans for players to go over and over it again to enhance teaching.
The questions Best and Matt had to the effectiveness of the use of virtual reality have been answered in real time by the advancement they’ve witnessed in the players they’ve used the system with. At this point, Matt is completely comfortable with the quarterbacks in his room and the speed with which they’ve picked up the Air Raid system.
Best is a firm believer and expects the pace to only pick up with a full emersion into the use of practice tape from this spring. When camp is done, all of his offensive linemen will be sent home with a headset to use whenever they want, and as the new data comes in, the more they can target.
“The biggest benefit is it’s a way to close the mental gap with guys. If I’m a right tackle and I have to be the swing and I have to play the right and left in a game, there’s so many limitations on practice,” he said. “We can film practice, put it in the VR, mark it up, use the voice recognition patent we have on it and a guy can go in his room, feel he’s at practice and feel he’s going through everything without banging up his body.
“We can throw it in a folder, they’ll take a headset home with them, and they can go through a practice every day in their room and get as many reps as they want to get. It’s not only pass or fail, but reaction time. As an offensive lineman, fractions of a second are an eternity. If you can shrink that, the better they become.”
When the players put on a headset, they can look all around. There is a real 360-degree view. A quarterback can take his drop and assess his reads. A lineman can take his steps and use his hands as if he is actually involved in the play. It will feel as real as it can.
There is nothing virtual about the results they’ve seen, however. They are very real, seen on virtual reality headsets and practice clips on a computer. More importantly, with the naked eye at practice, up close and personal.