In the high stakes world of college football, teams endlessly fight for a competitive advantage. The use of data and analytics to develop players are now an essential component for on-field success. This weekend the nation’s attention turns toward the matchup of unbeatens in Tallahassee, where Florida State University will face its toughest test of the season in the University of Notre Dame. Though these teams have met seven times before, you may not know that both programs actually have a much deeper connection. The search for a distinct competitive advantage has led each of these elite programs to test a potentially game changing technology called OptimEye.
Developed by the Australian sports science company Catapult, this cellphone-sized wearable GPS-oriented system measures over 100 metrics, including player speed, distance, acceleration, torque, hit impact, and body parts movement.
Several sports teams in the United States took notice of the product’s success.
“FSU football was the first major college football program to really adopt the Catapult technology,” says Ethan Owens, a Sports Scientist for Catapult.
“We created it, but they had to figure out how to take it and use it to benefit FSU football.”
In 2011, Florida State debuted OptimEye at all practices. Initially armed with 30 sensors, FSU now has 80 of them at the cost of more than $100,000 per year.
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The most valuable metric OptimEye provides is known as “PlayerLoad”; a single figure that represents how hard a player is working. Applications for this data are endless. Improved drills, more effective workout plans, and reduced injuries are a few of the advantages teams are seeing from the use of this new technology. According to a report by Men’s Fitness: “Soft-tissue injuries—muscle, ligament, and tendon issues that arise from overstretching, lack of strength, and, most important, fatigue—are down 88 percent over the past two seasons, primarily because FSU is limiting overtraining.”
After hearing of FSU’s success with OptimEye, Notre Dame Head Coach Brian Kelly knew they had to test the system as well.
“At first I was a bit — I don’t want to say resistant — but I wasn’t sure of the applicability of Catapult,” Kelly said.
“For 25 years I had been setting practice schedules and I knew when to taper down to get a team ready, so Catapult to me was like, ‘Well, I can do that myself’ — until we started to use the device and the numbers started to come back.”
It’s no coincidence that Catapult’s client list is full of champions. The San Antonio Spurs, Philadelphia Eagles, Alabama Crimson Tide, and Oregon Ducks have also bought into this new technology. Expect this weekend’s battle of unbeaten Florida State and Notre Dame to continue to demonstrate the value of technology and analytics in sports.