Rex Culpepper stood in the office of Syracuse’s quarterbacks coach and co-offensive coordinator Sean Lewis’ and spun in a circle. It was January 2016 and, for the first time in his life, the quarterback new to campus had a virtual reality headset fixed around his cranium. He had to find out if he could actually observe this temporary world in a full 360-degree view.

He could, and just about every day this past summer, he did. Culpepper saw the passing lanes and Syracuse’s offensive line from the perspective of the pocket. Looking down, he studied the quarterback’s footwork. When he turned around, he sometimes noticed players on the sidelines dancing, because the all-encompassing camera is always watching.

“When I came here and found out that we had VR, I was impressed because it’s so cutting edge,” said Culpepper, now a redshirt freshman. “Nowhere I had ever visited had virtual reality. Knowing how much emphasis these coaches put on the quarterbacks is like, ‘Wow, this is a big deal.’”

Syracuse (4-4, 2-2 Atlantic Coast) uses ThunderVR, a 2016 add-on for the larger Thunder video platform created by a company called XOS, which SU has worked with for more than a decade. Roughly 80 percent of Power 5 schools use XOS for their primary film system, but only slightly more than a quarter of those schools use the ThunderVR, said Chris Taylor, XOS’s marketing coordinator. Louisville and Virginia Tech are the only ACC teams besides Syracuse with ThunderVR.

For Culpepper, starter Eric Dungey and the three other quarterbacks on SU’s roster, virtual reality provides an alternative approach to watching film. For head coach Dino Babers and his staff, it’s a selling point for potential quarterback recruits.

“We dipped into that world, so to speak, and our young people enjoy it,” Babers said. “It’s the way you guys play with your video games, and they attest that it helps to bring them along mentally faster.”

Yet the VR isn’t exactly like video games. During practice, the footage is filmed on a special Kodak camera specifically made for recording an image in every direction. The camera looks like a tiny pod and is elevated above the players on a stick. Austin Beehner, the team’s director of video operations, usually holds it and follows the quarterback. It captures sound, too, so users can hear receivers calling out route adjustments or defensive backs communicating coverages.

To watch that film, the quarterbacks go into Lewis’ office. One wears the VR headset and experiences the play from the viewpoint of the quarterback as the camera shot it. When he moves his head and therefore his line of sight, the picture in his headset corresponds. Everyone else in the room sees the same thing on a projector. It’s an expanded viewing experience compared with the traditional angle that is similar to what fans see on television.

During the summer, each quarterback took about 15 reps with the headset in daily sessions. Lewis was in control, starting and stopping the video and discussing with the players what the next move should be and why.

For Mahoney, the greatest aid VR provides is tactical. He used it to learn the intricacies of plays and how specific concepts match up with certain defenses. Now equipped with that in-depth knowledge, he looks at four plays he knows SU will run in a game and tries to devise what other plays it can run to supplement them. Because he has the VR experience, he hopes to see something schematically that coaches can’t.

“Anytime you can get a different look of what you plan on seeing, instead of just what you continuously watch, it helps,” Mahoney said. “… I try to be a leader and try to be as much of a coach to everyone that I can be.”

Culpepper, though, said the VR has helped his overall game. After redshirting his first college season a year ago and not cracking the two-deep depth chart so far in 2017, he hasn’t had a ton of reps in the pocket. By being able get some with the headset on, as well as watch his teammates’ views while they wear it, has helped his vision as a quarterback develop, he said.

“Your eyes are how you see, but they’re also how the defenses sees what you’re looking at — using them to look off instead of bringing more defenders in,” Culpepper said. “Eric, when he drops back, he looks this guy off but seeing something else out of the corner of his eye, that’s really what I was trying to mimic.”

As the starter, Dungey gets enough live reps that he prefers traditional film over VR. He hasn’t used it much at all during this season. Last year, though, he was able to put on the VR when he was hurt and couldn’t practice. His body couldn’t participate in game-like reps, but his mind could.

Its impact was far greater than the simulation of the old-school graphics of the VR system former offensive coordinator Tim Lester implemented when Dungey was a freshman, which drew a closer comparison to the “Madden” video games than the ThunderVR.

“The jump just from that is like Nintendo to Xbox,” Dungey said.

XOS also has four NFL clients and four college basketball clients utilizing ThunderVR, but it’s not alone in combining VR and sport.

STRIVR is a competing company co-founded by Derek Belch, a former Stanford kicker and current graduate assistant, and Jeremy Bailenson, the director of Stanford’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab. The pair started the VR trend in 2014, two years before XOS introduced ThunderVR.

STRIVR has worked closely with the Stanford football team, and head coach David Shaw is credited as an early adopter of VR in football. Defending national champion Clemson is a STRIVR client as well.

Babers said he was “standoffish” about the idea at first, but eventually gave in to Lewis’ pleading to try the new technology. Now, it’s helping out those in charge of his fast-paced offense in more ways than one — and making the idea of coming here to replace them all that more attractive.

“If it’s going to help a position come along quicker, and get more experience,” Babers said, “I’m all for it.”

Published on October 30, 2017 at 9:54 pm

Contact: jtbloss@syr.edu | @jtbloss