Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Interview with Iowa CB Michael Ojemudia | Breakdown of mens win over Rutgers | John Pollard from Zebra Tech joins the show to discuss advanced analytics

Episode Date: January 23, 2020

It is an action packed episode today as the men took down Rutgers to move to 14-5 on the season. We unpack that before discussing Michael Ojemudia's performance at the Senior Bowl and have a quick interview with him for the show. We wrap up with an advanced analytics discussion with John Pollard from Zebra Technologies, who will be partnering with us to send some insightful data metrics throughout the week. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I thank God I was born on the good arms of the Midwest, and not on the battlefields of the U.S. It's a time of panic, and it's intercepted! It's picked off all the way! Intercepted by Marty Hooker! Pick six! Eight seconds into the game! Buffen sets up deep in the pocket, goes down the field for Smith!

Oh! He got it! Smith! Touchdown. 85 yards. Iowa. Touchdown, 10. Taking a shot in the end zone.

It is caught. No offense. Touchdown. That's the one you had. Go ahead and three. Yes. Two-point lead for the Hawkeye Nation? It is a Thursday morning and we are back with the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast, a part of

the Locked On Sports Network. As always, I am your host, Andrew Wade, and we have some great content coming to you this morning. Coming to you a little bit later. I am recording a little bit later in the morning. I've had a little bit later of a night and getting a little bit late of a start this morning, but we are going to be having some great stuff to talk about on today's episode of the show. As promised, I was at the Senior Bowl yesterday, had an opportunity to talk to Michael Ojemudia

and had a chance to see his play on the field. And, you know, just a spoiler alert, he did a really good job, especially considering his lack of experience in man coverage, which is what they were predominantly playing during the practice on the north side this, you know, yesterday afternoon. So we're going to be talking about that, have an interview with him, a short interview that I'm going to be posting on the show as well. And then we're also going to be covering the men's basketball team and how they won over Rutgers last night.

So breaking down that game. And then finally, I had an opportunity to sit down with the director of sports from Zebra Technologies, John Pollard, who is going to be talking about the technology that is used to track some of the really cool metrics for these players, speed, distance covered, etc. And talk a little bit about Michael Ogjemudia and what that means. I know we covered it a bit on the show yesterday, but I want to give you some of that insight and context behind some of the information that he is providing. Just so when you see that kind of stuff, I think it's really interesting.

Not exactly Iowa specific, but just a really cool opportunity and something that I learned and gained a lot of value from. So I thought it'd be awesome to share with you all right here on the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. So before we do that, though, make sure to like, review and subscribe wherever you downloaded this podcast at, whether that is Apple podcast, Google podcast, Spotify, or the brand new Himalaya podcast app. And make sure to go to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and follow us

there. I'm posting videos all over Twitter and Facebook with the interviews that I am getting. I'm also at an opportunity to talk to a few other Big Ten players, and they're giving their thoughts on some of the Hawks that have entered the draft or the Hawks that have transferred to or the guys who have transferred to Iowa this past week like Cole Kronk. So getting some information on those guys as well. We're going to be providing that later on this week. Not exactly super pertinent or time-sensitive information, so I want to make sure that we get some of the time-sensitive stuff out of the way

before bringing you some of that stuff. So lots of stuff coming out of the Senior Bowl this week, and I'm really excited to provide you all that content and coverage right here on the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. Before we jump into the show, though, make sure to watch the Iowa women's basketball team tonight as they take on Ohio State, excuse me, they take on Ohio State this evening at home at Carver. Go out there, support them. They have an opportunity to move to 16-3. They're

continuing to climb in the AP Top 25, which is a testament to the fact that people are starting to realize this is a good Iowa basketball team. You know know again they they lost some players from last year but this is you know it's a different team and Lisa Bluter's done a really great job of getting this team ready and making them competitive so fantastic coaching job on her part and the team has been playing really well so make sure to check out that and like I said Iowa landed Coy Cronk a graduate transfer from Indiana a guy who has four years of Big Ten starting experience under his belt at the tackle position. This is an absolutely huge transfer for Iowa,

an opportunity to potentially move Mark Kallenberger back to guard for another season, have some stability at that tackle position with Tristan Wirfs leaving. But we're going to be talking more about that on tomorrow's show, trying to get a hold of a few guys who have some more experience with Coy, have seen some of his tape and whatnot to get them on the show and give you their feedback and input. That way we provide that expert analysis on that. So potentially more to come on that on a later episode of the show. But now that we've covered all of that, let's jump into it. The men's basketball team won 85-80 over a ranked Rutgers team last night.

Again, another exciting win for the Hawks as they move to 14-5 and 5-3 in the conference, putting them in fifth place. If you asked me what Iowa would be with this record at this point, especially given everything that's happened, I would have without a doubt said no. So let's think about that first Iowa is ranked they are playing a very small bench just eight players in the rotation and let's be honest

Cordell Pemzel is just a guy that you're like okay we're gonna put him in here and hope he doesn't mess anything up I know he's had some pretty good games in the past couple weeks but overall I think you know he's by far the weaker one the weakest one of the eight guys. So, I mean, my point of this is not actually a diss on Pemzel,

but more of the fact that this team doesn't have a lot of depth, and they're still doing this. So, I'm going to keep bragging about the Iowa Hawkeyes and Fran McCaffrey and how well the men's team is doing this year, especially if they keep this up, just because it's been a really impressive performance throughout the season. But again, they went to 14-5, moved to fifth place. They get another Quadrant One win under their belt.

I read somewhere on Twitter that that is the second most in the nation, so another great opportunity for the Hawks to solidify the NCAA tournament resume. They have another game coming up this Monday against Wisconsin. We're going to be covering that right here on the show. We're actually working with the Locked On Badgers to have a crossover episode, probably a full 25-minute episode just talking about that basketball game and give you some insight as to what to expect from the Wisconsin team and what to expect from Iowa when they play Wisconsin.

But with this game, a couple things that kind of stood out. As usual, Luka Garza had another stellar night. It feels like this guy just isn't taking a single night off, and if he is not firmly at the top of the National Player of the Year discussion, I'll be upset. He should be a first-team All-American. He's without a doubt the Big Ten Player of the Year at this point. 28 points on 11 of 17 shooting, 2 of 4 from 3. He had 13 rebounds, 4 blocks, and 2 steals. What a freaking stat line for a 6'11 guy like Luka Garza. Joe Wieskamp had a great night shooting as well.

The guy who I really want to focus on is Joe Chassant. Had a fantastic night adding 14 points, 7 boards, and 4 assists. Came out a little bit hot. I struggled a little bit at the very beginning, but I think obviously calmed down and played a great game. And against a team like Rutgers, a scrappy team, a very physical team, you need a guy like Joe who's going to be able to get his hands in the dirt and play some basketball and help Iowa secure that win.

Ryan Kreener, again, another guy who's been just really superb coming off the bench as that sixth man, provided 18 minutes and got a few points and boards and whatnot and then Connor McCaffrey I know he's been having a great season so far been a really key cog in the Iowa wheel not sure what happened last night wasn't his best performance by any means but played well down the stretch and converted all of his free throw opportunities towards the end and per usual a bad shooting team like Rutgers had a great shooting night against Iowa which kept them in the game.

But if you'd have told me that Iowa was going to score 85 points on one of the best defenses in the nation, I would have been shocked as well. So that was great to see Iowa's offense come to play and handle that defense pretty well. And then Fran McCaffrey secured a third technical for the season. And for anyone who gets upset about that, again, he is a pretty smart coach. He does these things intentionally. He knows when he's about to get teed up. He did this at the end of the half when Iowa was trying to get a foul and are trying to, you know, get intentionally foul and the refs were just not calling it. Iowa came out of that half and played really well. Ultimately, Rutgers did come back later in the game,

but with two and a half minutes left, Iowa put on the burners and pulled away for that 85-80 win over Rutgers. So another great opportunity for the Hawks to go to 14-5. Love seeing that. Excited to see what happens on Monday when they play Wisconsin, a team who they've really kind of struggled against both on the basketball court and on the football field over the last couple years. So it'd be huge. I know Wisconsin

isn't the same Wisconsin basketball team as we've seen over the past couple years, but still a good team nonetheless. Definitely a well-coached team, so that'll be a great game to watch on Monday night with an opportunity to move to 15-5 and be five wins away from that magical NCAA 20-win mark. So more to come on that.

Coming up, though, we're going to be covering Michael Ojemudia and his performance in the Senior Bowl yesterday. So stay tuned for that after a few messages from our sponsors. All right, we are back with segment number two of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. And as promised, we're going to be talking about Michael Ojemudia in the Senior Bowl. If you are an Iowa Hawkeye fan and not a huge draft fan, I am sorry, because combining the NFL draft and combining the Iowa Hawkeyes really is my two passions. So I love talking about both those things. Love being down here at the Senior Bowl and covering Michael Ojemudia here as well.

Had an opportunity to talk to him about his performance on the field. And I'm going to be inserting that audio clip here in just a few short moments. But I wanted to give you my breakdown of how I thought he did. First, just kind of a breakdown of the day. Had some meetings at the hotel down where kind of everyone is staying, the headquarters for the Senior Bowl, and met up with a few draft guys who actually had some nice things to say about Michael Ojemudia. One of the guys really felt, and Jonah Tools, he records for Locked On College Football,

part of the Locked On Sports Network as well. He said he really liked Michael Ojemudia, felt like he had great length, had a great potential. The fact that he plays in a predominantly zone scheme is definitely going to hurt him as far as the draft goes, but he thinks he'll be a good, probably a fifth or sixth round draft pick that could be a player who can make a difference in the NFL later on. And we've seen this before, a la Desmond King, a la Micah Hyde. So that's no surprise to me, but excited to hear that from a draft analyst, a guy who's doing that review. And honestly, despite coming from a zone scheme, I really thought Ojemudia looked like one of the better corners in man coverage. And he was going up against some pretty good competition. Chase Claypool, a big, big guy, just a monster out

there on the field. Also was doing a great job of creating separation and had a lot of speed in his routes. And I thought Ojemudia really blanketed him pretty well. There's a couple of chances that Claypool got the better of Ojemudia, but I thought in one-to-one drills, it's very tough for the corner as they're playing just on the island. And I thought he held his own pretty well. In the earlier individual drills, he did miss a fumble recovery, and he did drop a ball in one of the comeback catch drills. So that happens, though. He picked it up pretty nicely after that.

Had a great catch down the sideline as kind of a tracking the ball type of thing, and we've seen that as well. I mean, his ball skills are pretty solid overall, at least from what I've seen in his Iowa Hawkeye career and saw yesterday on the Senior Bowl. Fun, he actually went up against Michael Pittman a few times and then went up against K.J. Hill a few times as well. And again, I thought he played really well, had a great performance.

Like I said, blanketed the guy in man coverage, was really sitting in that guy's back pocket. One play really set out to me, though. When they went to full teamteam drills and full-team practices, he did a good job of attacking the guy. So there's a quick out route. He broke on it. The guy caught the ball, and he was able to get the ball out of the guy's hands by knocking it out.

Showed a little bit of motion, too. Did that incomplete type of celebration and yelled a little bit, got the guys going. So that was really fun to see for Michael Ojemudia. And excuse me, that was in 7v7, not the full team drills, but kind of the same concept applies. He did allow a pretty big catch on the sideline, but it was less of a Ojemudia issue and more of a Denzel Mims making a huge catch. The Baylor product just kind of went up and got the ball. Ojemudia issue and more of Denzel Mims making a huge catch. The Baylor product just kind of went up and got the ball. Ojemudia, though, was right there. Probably had about as perfect coverage as you could possibly have, so not an issue there from my perspective.

And then towards the end, getting a little feisty with the guy out of Liberty. Sounds like Ojemudia has been training with that guy, and you're going to hear more about that as well right here. But got a little feisty with Gandy in coverage. They're pushing and shoving each other after the whistle. So fun to see those guys take it pretty intensely there during the practices, you know, despite the fact they're trying to, you know, they're all trying to make it. They're all trying to, you know, prove a point and prove themselves to NFL draft scouts and

NFL talent evaluators that they're ready to play in the NFL. So great stuff. But now I'm going to go and insert the audio clip from talking to Michael Ojemudia right here. Just a quick one minute kind of outlining some of the stuff he did and what he kind of thought on his performance during the Senior Bowl. So that will be right here. Staying patient, you know, using my length that God gave me. I'm just trying to serve receivers and stay hip with them.

You had a pretty good practice today, so it looks like you're a little more acclimated to it. Oh, yeah, man, just, I mean, it's different than Iowa, you know, you just focus on your man, but it's definitely a lot of things to it, you just got to give more toughness, effort, and just finish plays, that's the big thing here. Absolutely, on two guys, you're going against Pittman, obviously, had him at the Holiday Bowl as well, what was that like? Man, it's nice seeing him again, you know, he's a really good guy, I respect him, you know, it's a good competition all around. And then Gandy at the end towards that, a little bit chippy there, what was that like man it's nice seeing him again you know he's a really good guy i respect him you know it's a good competition all around and then uh gandy at the end towards that a little

bit a little bit chippy there what was that like oh yeah man throughout the week bro we're just going back and forth because i'm training with him in uh florida right now so man it's just battles every time i see him a little friendly competition yeah what are you looking to improve on day three definitely um you know even more physical day three i just want to make make it be a staple you know make more plays make my name known you know can't more physical. Day three, I just want to be a staple, you know, make more plays, make my name known, you know. Can't go through this whole week without, you know, just making my name a household name. So that's what I'm trying to do. That is the audio clip from the conversation I had with Michael Ojemudia.

Going to be grabbing him today after practice as well, if I can, and try to get some more information out of him. Just kind of focusing on his draft preparation and what he's doing to get ready for April and the Iowa Hawkeyes Pro Day and the NFL draft. So more to come on that. But again, as you kind of heard from him, having a good time out there playing against some of the, you know, stiff and stellar competition at the wide receiver position. Also doing pretty well and trying to figure out that man coverage concept that he's not as familiar with. But like I said, on day two, he really improved, I thought a lot. I think he's kind of making a name for himself, like he said, and showing out pretty well for himself and the Iowa Hawkeyes. Coming up, though, we're going to be inserting an audio clip from the interview I had with Zebra Technologies, talking about their kind of sports technology and their tracking

devices. I think it's a pretty cool opportunity for you to see some insight as to how some of the next-gen stats are being calculated and determined. So I'll be dropping that in after a few short messages from our sponsors. We are back with segment number three of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. Coming up, like I talked about, we're going to be talking to John Pollard of Zebra Technologies about their technology they use to provide some of those great metrics, such as miles per hour, like where we saw Michael Ojemudia run over 19 miles per hour during the first day of senior bowl practice, and talk about spin technology and how they put these sensors in the footballs and on the shoulder pads in order to do that tracking.

So I thought it was really great. Hope you enjoy it. That'll be the final segment of the show today. So here it was really great. Hope you enjoy it. That'll be the final segment of the show today. So here it is right now. technology. The technology in a nutshell is a combination of receivers that are installed permanently around the perimeter of the stadiums and that includes all 31 stadiums in the US, one in Mexico City, and three in the UK. So all games in the NFL regular season and preseason games are tracked by our system. What those receiver boxes are communicating with are these chips that

are installed. I guess I have one right here. Oh, yeah. Right here. Yeah. And they're put into the shoulder pad on one of the leaflets. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. And that's it with an adhesive thing. So those sit in all season. And those chips actually are going to awake in an active mode and a sleep mode. So before a game or a practice, somebody will go through with a piece of hardware and just wand, what we call wand the pads,

and turn it, wake up the chips so that they're ready to communicate with the receiver boxes. The chips and the shoulder pads emit a signal 12 times a second to the receiver boxes. The information being collected is, are you on the field, your location, proximity to other people on the field, whether it be your teammates or other vendors in a game time situation or a practice team situation. Also, how fast you're going at a certain moment and how far you're running during a play, series of plays over a course of the game. That information, of course, then generates things like next-gen stats, the fastest runner, or you're able to calculate separation, which is now prevalent in a lot of categories like next-gen stats,

and also tight window throws, which is also one of those exciting categories of information. It really differentiates quarterbacks. What we start to appreciate, to your point earlier, we start to appreciate with empirical evidence the athleticism and capabilities of these athletes. We know that Drew Brees is an extremely accurate quarterback, and we start to appreciate he's throwing into half-yard windows at a completion percentage rate of X, a high number of most, probably higher than most of the quarterbacks in the NFL,

it really brings a new dimensionality to the game, not only for us as fans of media, but to the coaches and personnel evaluators themselves. Most players on the field have two chips in their shoulder pads. Down linemen and offensive linemen have a third chip between the shoulder blades. That's because these chips emit what we call a halo signal and so when the guys go down to the ground we want to make sure the chips communicating clearly. That makes sense. Not only are the players chipped on the field, tagged on the field, we also have a chip inside the ball.

That is in front of you there. The chip weighs less than 4 grams. Just for reference, the NFL football weighs about 400 grams. So you're talking about less than 1% of the total weight of the ball. That's right. Working with the NFL support and working with Wilson Sporting Goods, we provide the chips to Wilson, and then Wilson puts them in the ball and melts the tag inside the rubber liner of the football, the bladder,

and it's located just underneath the NFL shield. Oh. Just for idea. The data is collected. Now, that chip's collecting a lot of information. Yeah. So that, what we call blinks, it sends a signal 25 times a second to the receivers,

and you get velocity information. You get spin rate. And you get velocity information. You get spin rate. And you get spin rate information. So can the guys spin it? We can actually calculate. Yeah. And what we're seeing in terms of the coaches looking at that information in the practice environments, so we have almost a third of the league using the same systems that are

in the NFL stadiums in their practice facilities. So they're able to track players' activity and workload during the practice week in their practice facilities. So they're able to track players activity and workload during the practice week in their indoor and outdoor facilities and then match that data to game output on the same analogous set of information. So we're looking to of course expand our footprint with each team using our system in their practice facility. But when they look at that information

you start to look at really unique analytics like, okay well, what's the spin rate, and velocity on what type of route? In what type of weather conditions, indoor and outdoor? What can we do to put that player in a position to accelerate and optimize his performance? And so what we've seen certainly over the last couple of years, our team's becoming much more reliant and comfortable with using ball metric information in really unique ways. I also say in terms of ball metrics, special teams coaches are well-known for being kind of analytically inclined and into the details of information.

So they also enjoy the information that we get from the ball on punts and kicks and kickoffs, rotational information, placement information, height information. They find the information that the ball gives them really interesting. Then from a punting standpoint, especially for punt returners, they could really get some value out of different punters and how much spin they're putting on versus a left versus a right and what kind of movement it's having as well. Right. And one of the reasons we come here at the Senior Bowl, this is the third year of our relationship with the Senior Bowl as an official sponsor and the official contracting

technology of the Senior Bowl, is that it allowed us to expose all the information our ball data actually provides. And so the professional scouts who are all here, looking at these players, they love to come to this, and each day we give them access to the practice reports. Again, we'll say how quick was somebody on the field, how fast, how much acceleration, how many times did they have their max speed rate. But the ball metrics are also available, and they use that and incorporate that in their evaluations of these players. That's fantastic. So are you working with every team then to also provide each of these metrics, or is it kind of like on a pay-per-play basis where if you want certain metrics, you pay for that? How does that work?

Yeah, so in the past, we've provided some level of a team, a certain level of all reports, or a certain level of reports to all the teams the teams that actually are what our clients are always on the practice facility side they have access to the full catalog of information which with your background and knowledge of the space includes the raw data the teams love to get the raw xy data from use the way they want to do their own analytics and calculations against that. So our practice clients receive all of that. Teams who aren't using our system in their practice facilities have to pay a fee to access that.

That makes sense. Just out of pure fan's sake, do the Denver Broncos use it? You can't mention all the teams. Okay, that's totally fair. But I can tell you the Denver Broncos are not one of our practice clients currently. Okay, yeah, that makes sense. I think Vanjie is a little bit old school. Denver Gromit is not one of our practice plans currently.

Okay, yeah, that makes sense. I think Vanjie is a little bit old school. Well, we definitely see what's really fascinating about the job. You know, analytics, I have a background in stats analytics. I used to work in stats. I created some software with New Orleans Saints back in 2009. I saw that. And did some work. Are you information driven?

Analytics is one ingredient to the idea that Are you information driven? Analytics is one ingredient to the idea that are you information driven? Can it be a resource that's leveraged to a way that allows you to be more informed and efficient in your decision making? What we're glad to see, certainly in 2019, we felt like it was a watershed year. We're tracking data we feel like has graduated

from a nice to have, somewhat curious data set to, you know, we need to use this as something. Absolutely. Key data point. Each team has its own culture. When new administrations from the general manager to a head of player personnel or a head coach and the entire staff changes, things can change there as well.

But again, we're excited to see now that not only are strength and conditioning coaches and performance coaches who are really into this data at the outset, that's now graduated into more coaching staff being comfortable referencing some aspects of the information and also the personnel staffs. That's awesome. So just as a kind of like on a personal standpoint from a development process, you have it with the NFL teams, you have it with some, I'm assuming with some college football teams. What is the process of maybe even getting it into the fans' hands? So like you see the data on TV,

you see some of that stuff, right? But kind of like a pro football focus standpoint, you have the section that's for NFL teams, you have kind of the elite subscription, you have the very generic subscription, then you have the very base data. Is that something that you're looking into as well to provide to fans? Yeah, very much so. Now in terms of the NFL, our relationship with the NFL is such that they control, as was agreed on by both parties, they control all aspects of the data collection and distribution. So the NFL licenses this data to support Radar, their official data partner, and they can also determine what other outlets they can publish the data to. Now in some cases, and that's for

game day data. For practice, in some cases, and that's for game day data, practice information, we have the teams that we work with, they own that data, of course. It's extremely detailed and actually maybe overly disclosing, so you wouldn't expect to see any of that publicized. So we're fairly constrained with how much we can do with the information based on our relationship with the NFL and the arrangement of our partnership. But things like the Senior Bowl, full access and flexibility to leverage the information, not only for the Senior Bowl,

so that they might entice other sponsors to access it, but they can publish it through their social media sites or digital outlets. For us, we also can use it as a reference and a flexibility. What we're looking for as we go into college is have the opportunity to have more control on our own destiny on what we do with the information. not just for monetization purposes for creative purposes we have such knowledge and access to the information we love to do unique calculations and think there's a real you know

the horizon is very broad and what we can do with this and so as we build other relationships not just in the college football but perhaps other sports absolutely we'd love to try to get a piece of the opportunity that goes along with the analytics and data output. That's awesome. And so what about, you know, Michael Ojemudia from yesterday, kind of what were some of the metrics for him compared to some of the other folks? So we got the information.

Thank you for passing that on to us. So he had a max speed of 19.49 miles per hour, which is really, you know, for a DB, especially of his size, was really strong. He was flying around in practice. He was fourth among all players in distance covered during the practice. That's awesome. Yeah, active.

He had a total of 5,199 yards during practice yesterday. But I would say, look, I was talking to someone a little bit earlier. What's interesting, the last couple of years, even I, thinking about miles per hour, five years ago, miles per hour was not a metric we would reference. It's a 40-yard dash, or it's a 10- and 20-yard split, or it's a shuttle of time. Miles per hour now is, I think, the professional evaluators

and coaches are more comfortable in referencing it. And we realize that somewhere, you know, 17 miles to 22 miles an hour is a good range for wide receivers. Linebackers can run from 14 to about 18 to 19 miles an hour inside of an average range. And so teams have made those calculations and now have these categories and characterizations in their heads. So for a DB of his size to be running at 19.5 miles an hour,

that's pretty significant. Yeah, I mean, he's 6'1", 200 pounds. He played linebacker in high school, was looking at playing kind of the dimebacker role in Iowa this year too. So the speed is kind of the biggest question mark when any Iowa DB comes out. So that's pretty interesting to see. Yeah, it's really impressive. And it also suggests, one, he can recover if he needs to.

Yeah. Pass coverage professionally, but also if he's needed to run support with his physicality, his physical nature, he might get to a point of attack pretty quickly. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, especially playing zone the entire time at Iowa, it is gonna be important that he can show that he can recover and man coverage. Cuz he's probably gonna be a little bit weaker in man coverage just from not having to do it at all at Iowa.

Right, there's an affirmation period, right? Yeah. And a lot of college defensive backs go through that, right? But he certainly has promise. And I know Tuesdays, three days of practice, Tuesdays are typically the days when the players really want to come out. They want to make a good impression. Wednesday, you see some consistency in that amount of power. Then Thursday, you can literally see kind of, they're not holding back. The coaching staff is trying to get them settled down now and get close to the game time

so they can pull on side. That's a quick week. Yeah. Quick occupation period. And emotion, and you've just kind of shut down your engines for most of these teams for a couple of weeks and now they're getting back into it. So it's the beginning of their draft process, which is why we're really excited to be here as a partner in the senior club as well.

The professional evaluators love accessing this information. They're used to using it for their own players now. And, you know, we can explore more of these ball metrics, which is always exciting. The quarterbacks always do the story. But the defensive backs and wide receivers are always at a high point here, too. Definitely.

So are you able to track in their, like, one-on-one drills how well they are – like, how well a wide receiver is creating separation against certain cornerbacks? Is that something you're tracking while you're down here as well? Because I know they do a lot of one-on-one drills. We can derive it from what we are tracking. We don't do the analytics here. It takes a little bit more calculation on the back end to derive the separation information. But once the raw data is collected, we can do post analysis to limit separation. That's great. I was looking at something earlier. I didn't realize that you can do some of this stuff in basically real time. I was watching a video, I think you guys posted on Twitter, that it was recording the

practice and then it spanned over and it was literally showing where every player was running at the exact same time, which I thought was pretty impressive to be able to do that in real time. Yeah, that's one of the multiple benefits of ours versus competitive sets in GPS or optical tracking systems. Because RFID, local tags can look at local receivers, the latency in data is low. In a couple of seconds, the information is available on the screen. And teams who are using our system in their practice facilities are walking around with a circus or whatever tablet they have and they're tracking and quickly respond to things

that they see based on certain ranges and parameters they're putting on players. They can intervene very quickly to make sure they're either getting their sprints in or they're pulling back a little bit if necessary. And so that's something that we get celebrated for is the RFID, this accuracy, we're stuck a couple of inches in terms of locations. Yeah. Specificity, where GPS can be anywhere from two to three to even four feet sometimes per rep, but data availability, and then it's actionable. And that's not only a story that we do in football,

but that's derived from the categories of businesses you've been doing for 30-plus years, because you have to have information. Yes, it's available, but is it actionable? How do you present it to the user so that they can act on it? Definitely, yeah. I think I've seen some of the graphics. I was actually watching a Packers game, and they showed Blake Martinez.

And very interesting enough, obviously, the league leader in tackles, and you see him running around on the play. And the ball's over here, and his guy is literally just running around in circles. And I think it was very clearly articulated that he's a little bit weaker in pass coverage, so I thought it was pretty interesting as well.

Yeah, that's actually personally I play linebacker myself, so I think it's one of the areas I find interesting for a linebacker at the point of a handoff, since we have a chip in the ball and where everybody's located,er at the point of a handoff since we have a chip in the ball and where everybody's located. From the mesh point of a handoff to the point of attack to a tackle. Oh, that's a... What's the acceleration rate? So if you've done no tackle, you've got tackles more in pursuit. That type of information from professional evaluators, Yeah. they may grade somebody on that metric on a 1 to 10 or a 1 to 5 or a 1 to 3 scale based on

their scouting philosophy or the program that they use. And now I'm putting numbers to it so I can actually see the linear path and acceleration rate into a tackle for a player. That'd be really cool because that can really separate the difference between a guy who has 100 tackles and a guy who has 110 tackles. Who is actually the better tackler and who's actually the better read and react kind of player? Yes.

Yeah, exactly. Now you start to get, again, I'm sure you can appreciate this, we never present to the team or suggest to any team that this is a silver bullet, but it's a more organic, enriched ingredient of information that allows them to support, but their expert eyes are already seeing through film study and studying and evaluating the player. We have now empirical evidence to support, or with these numerous players you're looking at, what if there's information for a player that you haven't had a lot of time to look at

and something pops in a category of information like the type of situation we're talking about? That might drive your work effort to evaluate that player even more. So that's why we like to position the value. All right, and that will do it for our show today. I appreciate you all tuning in to today's episode of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast.

Again, I apologize for getting this out a bit later to you. You know, obviously had a late night down in Mobile, Alabama covering the Senior Bulls. So again, apologies on that. Thank you for tuning in. And if you liked what you heard today, make sure to like, review, and subscribe wherever you downloaded this podcast

at. And make sure to go follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. I'll be posting some of the player interviews over the course of the next week on all three of those mediums. So make sure to go follow that. I might not put them all in the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. So if you want all that content, make sure to follow us on whatever social media that you actually follow. So again, appreciate it. You know, tuning in.

Appreciate the love and support for the Hawks. Make sure to tune into the women's basketball team today as they take on Ohio State and get that win as well. And again, thank you all. Hawkeye Nation, love the support. Go Hawks! We'll see you next time.