Virtual reality system is beginning to catch on in sports

A former Stanford kicker has finally developed something Dallas Cowboys coach Jason Garrett has envisioned for the last 25 years — a virtual reality system that simulates practice looks and opposing team defenses.

The ex-kicker, Derek Belch, along with his mentor, Stanford professor Jeremy Bailenson, have spent the past several years perfecting the system and it is beginning to catch on.

Stanford, understandably, became the first school to test it and had great success with it a year ago, seeing quarterback Kevin Hogan increase his completion percentage.

Other major colleges, such as the Arkansas Razorbacks, have bought in, and the Cowboys became the first NFL team to sign on the dotted line with STRIVR Labs for the technology.

The Cowboys introduced it to their quarterbacks this off-season, and have gotten rave reviews. And it’s only a matter of time before more positions can use similar technology that essentially allows players to wear a headset and see a live-action 3-D replay of a play from any direction.

Not only do the Cowboys have the ability to run their own plays through the system, but they can also program it to where the quarterbacks can see opposing teams’ various defensive fronts.

The Star-Telegram caught up with Belch about this cutting edge technology:

How did you come up with this idea? Well, it goes back 10 years. Jeremy Bailenson and I discussed whether something like this was possible or not, and the consensus was the technology wasn’t ready. Then when I got into the grad program [in 2013] the technology was ready and we were going to do it. We’ve just taken it and ran with it. The first year was figuring out what’s going on and how to integrate it into coaches’ routines, players’ routines, tinkering with stuff and that was really it.

Players are so routine-oriented. Was it a tough sell? No, it really wasn’t a tough sell on how cool the technology was and how powerful it can be. We’re still developing the thing, and we didn’t have enough functional capability until Week 8 last year. Kevin finally uses it going into the UCLA game, and again before the Cal game, and then going into the bowl game, and has a lot of success. Not saying the device is the sole reason, there’s a lot of other things that go into it, but the fact is he’s telling me what he remembers seeing in the game and what we put into virtual reality. The offensive linemen used it as well, and we saw better blocking abilities, them making better decisions. So it does work.

How many positions is this useful for? Right now, we can do this for almost every position on the field. The wide receivers, cornerbacks … we’re still figuring out how we’re going to do it. It’s very challenging for positions with element of movement, very hard to move around at high speeds. Other than that, we have a found a way to do something for every position. It’s not perfect for every position, but we can give every position some sort of experience using virtual reality.

Was it all trial-and-error to figure out camera placement, etc.? Yes. We perfected where every camera needs to go for every single position. And that’s another thing that helped is we’re not tech people, we’re football people first and foremost. We speak their language, we know what they’re trying to do in practice. So they know we’re not going to disrupt the walk-through tempo or practice.

How nice is it to get endorsements for it by guys like Jason Garrett and Tony Romo? Oh, it’s great. A guy like Jason is very well respected in the NFL, and it means a lot. It’s been awesome working with Dallas because Jason’s enthusiasm has spread to the whole staff, and I don’t think there’s a coach on the staff who doesn’t think it’s cool. Tony thinks it’s awesome, conceptually loves it.

How many more NFL teams do you think will sign on? We have several more agreements in principle, but the Cowboys are the only ones to sign on the dotted line at this point. But I think we’ll have six or more teams signed up by the time training camp rolls around.

This story was originally published July 1, 2015 at 3:24 PM with the headline "Virtual reality system is beginning to catch on in sports."