Virtual reality headset gives Hamilton Tiger-Cat quarterbacks unique learning opportunity
Virtual reality headset gives Hamilton Tiger-Cat quarterbacks unique learning opportunity
It’s early evening at McMaster, and Jeremiah Masoli stands in front of a video screen in a tiny meeting room overflowing with five other quarterbacks and a handful of coaches.
But, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats starting quarterback can’t see them. His eyes are across the road at Ron Joyce Stadium, tracking the pass patterns run hours earlier by his offensive teammates against the Tiger-Cat defence.
As his backups Johnny Manziel, Vernon Adams Jr., Dane Evans and Bryant Monitz are watching the traditional wideview video replay of that day’s offensive drills, Masoli studies a personalized vista on the eyeglasses of a virtual reality headset.
With a 360-degree view of the action in front of him, he can look to the left to focus in on the receivers and defenders on that side of the field: ditto if he shifts his vision right. He comments aloud on what he’s seeing and, sometimes, on what he should be seeing.
He’s essentially practising without being on the field.
“To me, the best thing about it is the depth perception,” Masoli says. “It gives you good angles from behind the centre, just to get some more mental reps. You can never get enough mental reps.”
The Ticats have purchased the virtual augmented reality headset, with two more on the way, from the company VAR Systems. It was designed by 29-year-old AJ Smith, head coach June Jones’ former assistant at SMU, current quarterbacks coach at Jackson State and a guest coach at Ticats camp.
Hamilton has CFL exclusivity on Smith’s VAR products, and Jones says he and his staff will certainly find broader teamwide applications for the technology as the 2018 season progresses.
Smith, who’s already coached football for 11 years, developed the system through a combination of video games and virtual reality concepts.
For the Ticats, team video co-ordinator Matt Allemang shoots video of practices from just behind the quarterback taking the snaps, it’s fed into the VAR system and the technology recalibrates the view to the pivot’s eye level.
So whoever’s wearing the set in the meeting room — in this case Masoli — can go over, from a truly first-person vantage
point, not only every play he conducted, but also the ones run by the other quarterbacks. For those few moments, he is them.
One hour of VAR time equates to between 90 and 100 reps: triple that when the other two VAR sets arrive. And it’s highly portable, so it can be used during practice breaks.
“For the quarterback, it’s like he’s back in his helmet,” Smith says. “We get the film and you use it for traditional teaching. We get the virtual reality film and you’re training. The reps that the guys standing there aren’t getting, they can get them with it. And the quarterback can hear everything, too; that’s been a little underrated.
“Wearing the headset, the quarterback can match his feet to move with the play. If he looks left and doesn’t like what he sees, he has to look right and see what’s there … and it’s exactly the same timing as in the real helmet. You’re training your neck muscles, you’re training your feet, you’re training how it should feel, and you’re opening neural paths.
“The other film teaches you, and this one trains you.”
The light headwear provides an amazingly clear, and sensoryeng ulfing, 3D point of view, and Masoli says the quarterbacks have already “brainstormed ideas” of where they can take it next if there’s enough time during the season.
One next step is already in place and will come via video game technology: The tendencies and key players of the Ticats’ upcoming opponent will be written into a video simulation to mentally practise against. Coaches already do that with chalkboard play diagrams and opposition ‘scout’ drills on the field, and now the quarterbacks will be able to get even more familiar with pattern and tendency recognition through their virtual headsets.
Case Keenum credited a virtual reality program called STRIVR with his shocking success after unexpectedly assuming the starting role for the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings early last year.
Over the course of the season, he felt he got more than 2,600 extra reps through the device. Smith argues that his system is more affordable and has better video quality.
“It’s been great,” says Manziel, who needs extra work to get up to CFL speed.
“It’s not exactly a live rep but at the same time, to see what the quarterback saw during those live reps, and taking those reps from a mental standpoint is extremely beneficial.”
And, concludes Masoli, “It’s another reinforcement of what we should be doing in making decisions.”