Cougars on the cutting edge: UH football embraces use of tablets, helmet communication in 2024 games

If Jamal Morris needs a look at what happened on such a play he has in game video at his disposal by the time he reaches the bench.

University of Houston’s senior linebacker Morris shot at the camera and simply said: “Just like that. ”

In an addition Morris added that sometimes when he goes to the sideline, his coach will tell him to explain the particular play. “I will be like ‘Okay, I think I did this or he did that’, I am a critical thinker anyway, but having a tablet is going to be mind blowing. ”

Coaches and players are going high-tech this college football season as use of smart tablets on the sideline is going to be allowed for FBS teams and coach-to-player helmet communication on the field.

Under the agreement signed with Microsoft in July, Big 12 and all 16 schools Houston included will receive 18 surface tablets that can be utilized in the locker rooms, on the field, and even in the coaches’ booth of this season

Speaking of supplies, Apple has a similar agreement to provide iPads in the SEC, Big Ten and ACC while the Big 12 is the only power conference to ink a deal with Microsoft.

Tablets is the last attempt to revamp the (college) game, Gabe Rudolph, a Microsoft senior manager for sports partnership concurred.

Prior plays are ‘uploaded’ and the tablets are intended to present the video feeds of previous plays as ‘real time,’ which is done while hardwired (Rudolph added that the wireless options are planned for the 2025 season). Tablets only have gameday videos; there is no possibility to load other videos before gameday.

Instead of waiting to catch a clip after the game, which was standard years ago, a play of a video is posted to a server and then transmitted to the Surface devices in 3 seconds, Rudolph added. Other views will be possible, and coaches will make marks and some zooming in of particular players will be possible.

Furthermore, players and coaches mentioned that the tablets will enable the team to make specific changes for almost any aspect of the game starting with the coverage and blocking arrangements, how to take advantage of a mismatch, and even to assess what succeeded or failed with a certain formation and to note whether a player missed the call or not.

There will be multiple views available and while they cannot input data or communicate with the video the NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel, which passed the use of tablets in April, has ruled. The parody is useful some schools tried a base on tablets involving the playoff bowl games of the previous season.

He said that it is not a matter of having one over the other but more of supplying the players and the coaches with more information to assist them in performing their tasks effectively. A sample of such demonstrations was displayed by Rudolph at the big 12s two day media in Las Vegas in July. “If you are a player and you come off the field and miss an assignment and the coach is yelling at you, You can’t really visualize that until the game is over you get the postgame footage well now you come off the field with in couple of seconds of the play has ended or that has happened, you get all the information in the live videos and that helps the players, the coaches to adjust there game. ”

UH quarterback Donovan Smith added that the tablets will bring college football a “different ball in the game. ”

“It will be able to give instant feedback, almost,” Smith was quoted to have said. “What was there to observe in the theatre And do you notice some characteristics which are reflected on the film? ”

The NFL has integrated the use of tablets for the past ten years, but the coaches have no access to videos of the plays just the photographs.

However, if the college game is to follow those things used in the NFL, then Fritz will want it to be a general uptake.

“I always thought that was part of coaching; being on the sideline and watch the game that is unfolding on the field and being able to communicate and watch,” Fritz stated. “I don’t know if we have that advantage anymore. I just think if we want to get to the NFL, let’s get to the NFL. Let’s apply the same rules. It looks like that direction is being taken. There is nothing wrong with that.

While some coaches are glad with the idea of bringing tablets during games, not all of them are in support with it.

What I noticed is that, it’s like cheating, Arizona State coach Kenny Dillingham noted. The audience is just as important in this case as in any other; “You don’t have to see the game live. You don’t have to adapt. It creates bigger game plans, because before you may have gotten away with something that somebody didn’t see, but now people can see it. ”

As per Texas Tech’s Joey McGuire, those tablets are nothing less than a ‘game-changer’, but Aranda from Baylor has some concerns.

“I used to say that we pride ourselves on quick adjustments, and in a way, it almost makes it diminished that,” Aranda stated.