UC Football Uses Simulators To Practice Away From Practice Fields

Ever on the cutting edge of technological innovation to give the team an edge, UC football has outdone itself again.

There are only so many organized, coach-led practices the Bearcats can hold per NCAA rules. They’re pretty simple. Outside of a few weeks during the Spring, coaches’ access to players are limited.  The players can certainly scrimmage and drill on their own but they just can’t be on the same field as their coaches. Team meetings are a different story, though, as they’re much less scrutinized.

Unfortunately there’s only so many learnings coaches can instill in their players by simply watching film. They can show them where they made a mistake and tell them how to correct it but it’s easier done on a practice field because the player can immediately get back in position and retry the play.

Coaches at UC are meshing the concepts together to get the best of both worlds, using footage of plays ran in practice and allowing the players to “simulate” reacting to the offense in the film room. It’s genius, really, no matter how simplistic it seems and boils down to being a walk through on smaller scale.

At the end of the day all it does is improve play recognition, reaction time, and communication in Cincinnati’s defensive players. They’re simulated reps, not true reps, but certainly better than nothing and another means to ensure Bearcats football is a extremely successful this season.

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