Today’s football is the domain of the short-passing game, whether it’s packaged as the West Coast offense, the spread attack or the run-pass option.
“The only way that you can successfully the modern style of offense is if the quarterback is looking at the right defender because there is a very specific read and it happens right away,” said Fox Sports lead college football analyst Joel Klatt, who had a record-setting career at Colorado. “If your quarterback has not trained his eyes to know exactly where to look and exactly when to look there, then you can’t run that.”
Reinforcing the instruction of where a quarterback should look and when has always been problematic, which the QBit — a new sensor technology from Precision Sports Devices — hopes to remedy.
The QBit is a headpiece worn by a quarterback to measure his head positioning on the horizontal axis, which is then broken into four quadrants — in other words, to determine if the quarterback is looking far left, left of center, right of center or far right. The companion app permits coaches to input plays and schemes from the playbook with desired head positioning so quarterbacks can practice against scripted plays and receive real-time feedback.
The makers of the QBit hope this patented wearable technology can be used to help a quarterback with rudimentary fundamentals, such as learning not to stare down his intended receiver, as well as with more advanced concepts at elite levels. That potential excited Klatt to join the team as a business partner and de facto football strategy consultant.
“You’re training the quarterback how to, first, identify the defense, hold the secondary and then get to the movement key or the progression,” Klatt said. “You can put this on the 10-year-old and surely it would help him learn how to look off a wide receiver, but it also is going to help the college kid or even an NFL quarterback in the development of teaching and coaching an offensive system.
“It’s because of that depth and width that I think this is a pretty revolutionary and vital project.”
The idea originated from an armchair quarterback: Dave Churchman, a longtime sporting goods executive who has worked for Keen Footwear, New Balance, Adidas, Russell Athletic and Puma. A self-described “college football junkie,” he would regularly noticed a dozen examples of signal callers making poor decisions under center every Saturday.
“I’ve never taken a snap in my life,” Churchman said, “but I don’t think you have to be an All-American to recognize bad quarterback play.”
Churchman, a University of Colorado graduate who resides in the area, had gotten to know his alma mater’s College Football Hall of Fame coach, Bill McCartney, who led the Buffaloes to a share of the 1990 national title. Churchman said that he ran the idea past McCartney and received an endorsement of its promise in aiding young quarterbacks understand a hard-to-learn discipline. McCartney then connected Churchman with Klatt who, beyond his own playing and broadcasting experience, grew in a coach’s family. Klatt’s father, Gary, coached for 30 years at Pomona High in Arvada, Colo., and his brother, Jason, is currently coach at Mead High.
“It’s a skill, the ability to use your eyes and to train your eyes,” Klatt said. “It’s obviously a big part of playing quarterback. Part of the problem, pre- the QBit, is that you have to take your quarterback’s word for where his eyes are.”
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Production has not begun on the QBit, but Churchman has lined up a manufacturer (Denver Plastics) and expects prototype testing at the University of Colorado next month. Some features remain to be settled — such as whether to provide an audible or tactile warning (such as a beep or a vibration) when a quarterback is looking in the wrong direction — but the hope is to have the product ready for distribution by July, the start of college and NFL training camps.
“There are a million wearables out there, but 99.9 percent of them are trackers, not trainers,” Churchman said, adding: “It’s not complicated, but it’s cutting-edge.”