The tides are shifting on the gridiron sidelines under the bright Friday night lights. Ditching a clunky and time-costly pen and paper tracking method, LegUP founder and CEO Anthony Blake has found a new way to get a competitive edge over his opponents.
Instead of wasting a precious timeout or waiting until halftime to analyze the stats, regroup, and make adjustments, Blake and his team have created an in-game, real-time application that gives coaches the opportunity to examine performance data in the palm of their hands and make informed strategy decisions in a split second fashion.
“We want to be able to help coaches do what they natively do,” said Blake, a former football manager at the University of Michigan turned innovator. “They’re there to make good decisions to help teams and players do their job.”
In October 2014, Blake and his team launched their first product, The Basics, which allowed coaches to track the ins and outs of every play call and its subsequent result, such as formations used and yardage gained all with a few instantaneous finger taps.
“We chose to launch with a smaller set of things that we knew were incredibly impactful and that if we get a lot of feedback that tells us to do something in addition, then we’ll do that,” said Blake.
The product worked. LegUP listened to the feedback. Then they went to the drawing board once again to dial up enhanced improvements.
For the past several months, the company has been perfecting the newest addition of their product line, coined LegUP. Acting as a major overhaul to The Basics, LegUP allows coaching staffs to not only continue to track each and every play and survey the results but it also allows coaches to view a “hit chart” or visual diagram that displays how much yardage a team is gaining in various locations on the field on run and pass plays, monitor a situational scorecard which tracks how a squad is performing in certain down-and-distance scenarios, and finally track player involvement to help coaches discover which athletes are propelling the team down the field with ease.
“So far the reception, especially amongst the influencers within our space, has been really positive,” said Blake.
LegUP will be available for download August 10th but Blake’s never stop improving mentality will keep him busy sharpening this new art of coaching technology as the seasons roll on.
“We really do believe that at the moment, whether it’s at the high school game and it’s the guy who’s recording the play calls, whether it’s the college level and it’s the quality control guy putting data into the video system, those guys are undervalued and can be a source of competitive advantage if given the right tool to do so,” said Blake.