August 9, 2006
Pro Simulator: The Six Figure College Football Video Game
The world of athletics has officially come full circle. It used to be, parents told their kids to stop playing video games and go outside to play sports. For the budding Quarterbacks of the future, perhaps it will be the other way around.
Colleges around the nation are paying six figure sums so their athletes can...you guessed it....play video games.
It's the latest rage in preparing QBs for the season ahead, and it's called "Pro Simulator", developed by an ASU alumnus for the Sun Devils, and its popularity is booming.
"This is the next best thing to practicing or playing," Hollenbach says. "Watching film is a passive experience. This is as close (as you get) to the real thing without getting hit." Besides, what college kid isn't going to want to play a souped-up video game?Maryland coach Ralph Friedgen knows this. That's why he's smiling as he gazes out his office window at Byrd Stadium. A phone behind his desk rings. He ignores it. He wants to talk about this new gizmo.
"Decision making and vision are the two most important qualities a quarterback can have," Friedgen says. His voice rises. "It's all about accelerating learning and augmenting the learning curve. They need to learn to make decisions off what they see."
What makes the simulator better than the video game you bought at Best Buy is the fact a school can customize it with its playbook. Any play, any formation, any personnel grouping. The possibilities are limitless.
But the simulator will cost you -- as much as $250,000, according to developer GridIron Technologies. Arizona State was the first on board. Oklahoma State, Wake Forest and Virginia, among a dozen other schools, soon followed. The NFL might be next. Coaches around the country are pleading with their A.D.s for blank checks.
"A guy from the company told me he needed 20 minutes to pitch his product," Friedgen says. "I said I'd give him 10. Almost two hours later, I had bought the system."
The University of Colorado's new coaching staff has the Buffaloes QBs working on Pro Simulator "training" as well.
In Helfrich's office at CU's Dal Ward Athletic Center, the program is on a widescreen laptop. It is run by a PlayStation-type joystick, and figures on the screen are just shy of EA Sports' NCAA Football '07 quality.But that's where the similarities between it and your garden variety football video game end.
It is a test. CU's entire playbook is loaded onto the program. Every player on the team is listed, with correct heights, weights, 40-yard dash times and whatever else makes it as realistic as possible. From the moment the huddle breaks, the quarterback is asked a series of questions, everything from what the proper pre-snap front calls should be to identifying likely blitzers.
After he gets the pre-snap questions correct, the play starts. The offensive line blocks. The receivers run routes. The defense rotates. Now, he must go through the proper progressions on the play to hit the right receiver. Red or green marks - and completed passes - let the quarterback know whether he was wrong or right.
"You can almost brainwash the quarterback into thinking a certain way every play, all the time," Helfrich said. "So then hopefully that translates on the field."
The company producing Pro Simulator is GridIron Technologies which has a video available for download to see exactly how it works.
Even the most diehard EA Sports fans should be impressed. And at that cost, they should be.
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Diggs the Mountie said:
posted on August 9, 2006 8:57 PM — 68.34.52.84 — link — abuse?When I'm rich.... I'll buy one... until then anyone know where you could possibly pay for time on one of these?