Joe
06-08-2008, 01:23 PM
This is an awesome article on how Nebraska is changing the face of football. Just as the Huskers were the first to use weight training as a tool to "build better athelete", this new addition to Husker Football is making smarter football players! :)
NU grads develop interactive playbook system
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BY BRIAN CHRISTOPHERSON / Lincoln Journal Star
Sunday, Jun 08, 2008 - 12:35:02 am CDT
We are a long way from Vince Lombardi’s chalkboard.
We’re down in the Haymarket District, next to Brewsky’s, on a 13,000-square-foot third floor that right now sits mostly empty save for a few forward-thinking 20-something techies who like paintballing, the next big idea and, of course, football.
Sometimes they get called by coaches of the New York Jets.
[+]Enlarge (http://www.journalstar.com/huskerextra/football/doc484b3dbd12ce7646799330.txt#image)
[/URL]
Agile Sports Technologies founders (from left) David Graff, Brian Kaiser and John Wirtz. The team designed the Huddle system used by the Huskers and New York Jets. (William Lauer)
Agile Sports Technologies founders (from left) David Graff, Brian Kaiser and John Wirtz. The team designed the Huddle system used by the Huskers and New York Jets. (William Lauer)
[URL="http://www.journalstar.com/huskerextra/football/doc484b3dbd12ce7646799330.txt#cancel"] (http://www.journalstar.com/huskerextra/football/doc484b3dbd12ce7646799330.txt#image)
Related Link(s):
agilesports.com (http://agilesports.com/)
It’s easy to see why the phone is ringing as David Graff, a 25-year-old who went to Millard North High School and was one of the shining stars in UNL’s J.D. Edwards Honors Program, shows off their creation on a 50-inch flat screen, a Jets pennant on a nearby wall.
They’ve turned your grandfather’s black-and-white playbook of X’s and O’s into something resembling a video game.
This, it seems, is a football learning tool disguised as a toy.
This is an interactive playbook and scouting system that has been presented to and impressed the great Bill Gates himself. It is already being used by the Huskers and Jets and, if all goes as hoped, a flock of other teams before the football season kicks off. It sure beats staring at plays in a three-ring binder.
“Basically, they’ve created an Internet portal to help facilitate communication and player preparation,” said Jeff Raikes, the outgoing president of Microsoft’s Business Division and the soon-to-be chief executive of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. A Nebraska native, UNL is about to re-name the J.D. Edwards program after him.
It was Raikes, a lover of Husker football, who first approached one of the honors program’s students, John Wirtz, about the possibility of coming up with some sort of program that could help the football team with preparations.
It didn’t take long until the youthful trio of Wirtz, Graff and Brian Kaiser were in a room with former Husker coaches Bill Callahan, Randy Jordan and Jay Norvell, drawing up ideas.
As part of the Nebraska sports information office for a couple of years, Graff already was a familiar face to coaches. He had also noticed something while on the job.
“I saw issues. They had a great setup, real expensive software, but they could really only watch everything in-house,” Graff said. “They’re burning all these DVDs. I thought there must be a better way where players could access it anywhere.”
And so the Huddle system was born. The guys started working out of a small office near P.O. Pears. “The air conditioning was questionable,” said Graff. They literally put their sweat into it.
When Graff and friends showed a rough version of what they had to Callahan, the former Husker head coach was enamored and hoped to have the football program using the system as soon as possible.
Nebraska players got their first taste of Huddle last year and loved it. Coaches could plug in plays and see how it would look against a certain blitz. Quarterback Sam Keller became addicted to it. So did Jordan, the former NU running backs coach, who used to spend four hours each week putting together hand-written tests that quizzed his players about their on-field assignments.
Now Jordan could do his tests on the Huddle system, in 40 minutes. Players could access the tests immediately, be given their grades on the spot, and have the program show them what the right answer was if they were incorrect.
That is the system’s great selling point: the ability for coaches and players to always be in strategic communication even after leaving the football facilities. In essence, it’s provided the opportunity for game-planning on a 24/7 basis. Just plug in your laptop.
A Husker coach could be in his living room or in Boise, Idaho, for that matter, and use the system to not just view game film, but also write notes or draw diagrams on plays with a telestrator pen that could be viewed by a player sitting in his dorm room. If he wanted, the coach could record his voice over plays so that players could hear his thoughts when they logged in. He could even send a text message to the player: Hey, get on Huddle. I’ve highlighted a few plays you need to look at.
The program even has a tracking system that allows coaches, if so inclined, to see exactly how much time a player has spent on the system.
Huddle quickly grabbed the attention of some leading business figures. Some investors, Raikes among them, jumped on board, and the guys moved to a more cushy space in the Haymarket and added some more young brains. Called Agile Sports Technologies, the company now has 11 full-time workers and three interns.
They’ve already shown off their product to about half the teams in the NFL and a handful of college programs. That the Jets so quickly jumped on board is a natural, given that Callahan is now serving as an assistant coach for the team.
When Graff and co-worker Matt Mueller — who occasionally is awakened by a 5 a.m. phone call with a question from someone in the Jets’ organization — were first presenting the product to the New York football team’s brass, Graff pulled out the telestrator pen to show what the system could do.
“No,” Jets head coach Eric Mangini said. “Give me the pen. I want to use it myself.”
Jets video director Steve Scarnecchia said the organization gets pitched plenty of technological ideas on a daily basis. “We have inherent skepticism in anything brought to us and preached as the next big thing. We put it through the ringer,” he said. “I’d say there’s several types of similar products out there. This happens to be the best.”
The Jets signed on. The guys at Agile found a green-and-white banner to hang on the wall.
Graff has met with Husker coach Bo Pelini a number of times to discuss Huddle.
Nebraska football video coordinator Dusty Alves said the new coaches are really wrapping their arms around the system and seeing all of its benefits.
“Being a test market for (Huddle) and helping them develop it is a huge advantage for Nebraska football no matter the coaching staff, whether it’s last year’s or this year’s,” Alves said. “It’s almost a point of luxury for us.”
NU grads develop interactive playbook system
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BY BRIAN CHRISTOPHERSON / Lincoln Journal Star
Sunday, Jun 08, 2008 - 12:35:02 am CDT
We are a long way from Vince Lombardi’s chalkboard.
We’re down in the Haymarket District, next to Brewsky’s, on a 13,000-square-foot third floor that right now sits mostly empty save for a few forward-thinking 20-something techies who like paintballing, the next big idea and, of course, football.
Sometimes they get called by coaches of the New York Jets.
[+]Enlarge (http://www.journalstar.com/huskerextra/football/doc484b3dbd12ce7646799330.txt#image)
[/URL]
Agile Sports Technologies founders (from left) David Graff, Brian Kaiser and John Wirtz. The team designed the Huddle system used by the Huskers and New York Jets. (William Lauer)
Agile Sports Technologies founders (from left) David Graff, Brian Kaiser and John Wirtz. The team designed the Huddle system used by the Huskers and New York Jets. (William Lauer)
[URL="http://www.journalstar.com/huskerextra/football/doc484b3dbd12ce7646799330.txt#cancel"] (http://www.journalstar.com/huskerextra/football/doc484b3dbd12ce7646799330.txt#image)
Related Link(s):
agilesports.com (http://agilesports.com/)
It’s easy to see why the phone is ringing as David Graff, a 25-year-old who went to Millard North High School and was one of the shining stars in UNL’s J.D. Edwards Honors Program, shows off their creation on a 50-inch flat screen, a Jets pennant on a nearby wall.
They’ve turned your grandfather’s black-and-white playbook of X’s and O’s into something resembling a video game.
This, it seems, is a football learning tool disguised as a toy.
This is an interactive playbook and scouting system that has been presented to and impressed the great Bill Gates himself. It is already being used by the Huskers and Jets and, if all goes as hoped, a flock of other teams before the football season kicks off. It sure beats staring at plays in a three-ring binder.
“Basically, they’ve created an Internet portal to help facilitate communication and player preparation,” said Jeff Raikes, the outgoing president of Microsoft’s Business Division and the soon-to-be chief executive of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. A Nebraska native, UNL is about to re-name the J.D. Edwards program after him.
It was Raikes, a lover of Husker football, who first approached one of the honors program’s students, John Wirtz, about the possibility of coming up with some sort of program that could help the football team with preparations.
It didn’t take long until the youthful trio of Wirtz, Graff and Brian Kaiser were in a room with former Husker coaches Bill Callahan, Randy Jordan and Jay Norvell, drawing up ideas.
As part of the Nebraska sports information office for a couple of years, Graff already was a familiar face to coaches. He had also noticed something while on the job.
“I saw issues. They had a great setup, real expensive software, but they could really only watch everything in-house,” Graff said. “They’re burning all these DVDs. I thought there must be a better way where players could access it anywhere.”
And so the Huddle system was born. The guys started working out of a small office near P.O. Pears. “The air conditioning was questionable,” said Graff. They literally put their sweat into it.
When Graff and friends showed a rough version of what they had to Callahan, the former Husker head coach was enamored and hoped to have the football program using the system as soon as possible.
Nebraska players got their first taste of Huddle last year and loved it. Coaches could plug in plays and see how it would look against a certain blitz. Quarterback Sam Keller became addicted to it. So did Jordan, the former NU running backs coach, who used to spend four hours each week putting together hand-written tests that quizzed his players about their on-field assignments.
Now Jordan could do his tests on the Huddle system, in 40 minutes. Players could access the tests immediately, be given their grades on the spot, and have the program show them what the right answer was if they were incorrect.
That is the system’s great selling point: the ability for coaches and players to always be in strategic communication even after leaving the football facilities. In essence, it’s provided the opportunity for game-planning on a 24/7 basis. Just plug in your laptop.
A Husker coach could be in his living room or in Boise, Idaho, for that matter, and use the system to not just view game film, but also write notes or draw diagrams on plays with a telestrator pen that could be viewed by a player sitting in his dorm room. If he wanted, the coach could record his voice over plays so that players could hear his thoughts when they logged in. He could even send a text message to the player: Hey, get on Huddle. I’ve highlighted a few plays you need to look at.
The program even has a tracking system that allows coaches, if so inclined, to see exactly how much time a player has spent on the system.
Huddle quickly grabbed the attention of some leading business figures. Some investors, Raikes among them, jumped on board, and the guys moved to a more cushy space in the Haymarket and added some more young brains. Called Agile Sports Technologies, the company now has 11 full-time workers and three interns.
They’ve already shown off their product to about half the teams in the NFL and a handful of college programs. That the Jets so quickly jumped on board is a natural, given that Callahan is now serving as an assistant coach for the team.
When Graff and co-worker Matt Mueller — who occasionally is awakened by a 5 a.m. phone call with a question from someone in the Jets’ organization — were first presenting the product to the New York football team’s brass, Graff pulled out the telestrator pen to show what the system could do.
“No,” Jets head coach Eric Mangini said. “Give me the pen. I want to use it myself.”
Jets video director Steve Scarnecchia said the organization gets pitched plenty of technological ideas on a daily basis. “We have inherent skepticism in anything brought to us and preached as the next big thing. We put it through the ringer,” he said. “I’d say there’s several types of similar products out there. This happens to be the best.”
The Jets signed on. The guys at Agile found a green-and-white banner to hang on the wall.
Graff has met with Husker coach Bo Pelini a number of times to discuss Huddle.
Nebraska football video coordinator Dusty Alves said the new coaches are really wrapping their arms around the system and seeing all of its benefits.
“Being a test market for (Huddle) and helping them develop it is a huge advantage for Nebraska football no matter the coaching staff, whether it’s last year’s or this year’s,” Alves said. “It’s almost a point of luxury for us.”