How SEC technology is already making the Buffs more competitive

 

Nate Landman entered the offseason with two goals:

“I was trying to get faster and bigger,” he said.

It’s easy to tell Landman is bigger; when he steps on the scale, it tells him he’s 235 pounds, eight more than his playing weight last season.

But the second part of his two-fold plan is tougher to measure; how can he gauge his change in speed?

In the past, Landman would run a series of sprints ranging from 10 yards to 100 then check if his times were quicker than when they were last measured. But now, for Landman and his Buffs, measuring speed is much easier.

During every practice, each Buff is outfitted with a GPS tracker. The tracker measures the player’s speed and total energy output. After practice, the training staff provides printouts with each player’s total energy burned and top speed that day.

“The numbers don’t lie,” Landman said.

While Landman has used the stats to track his own growth, others have been just as interested in the numbers posted by the guys around them.

In the receivers room, there’s a new competition.

“I always try to be at the top. Always,” junior wide receiver Laviska Shenault said. “Unless it’s one of those days I’m just not feeling good. I’m always trying to be top three. All the time.”

At 220 pounds, Shenault probably shouldn’t be in top-three contention. He dwarfs the 14 other wide receivers on the roster. Only sophomore Daniel Arias (205 pounds) is within 25 pounds of Shenault.

The competition is stiff.

“We’ve got a lot of fast guys,” Shenault said. “K.D. (Nixon), of course. Dimitri (Stanley). Jaylon Jackson. I could keep naming them. Pretty much the whole receiving corps. We’re all competing with each other and that’s what I like.”

The competition is what Mel Tucker likes as well. That’s why he brought the monitors to Boulder in time for summer practices. The speed competition is beneficial to players and the energy output lets the strength staff know who needs to be called out. Tucker’s defenses used the monitors at Georgia and most Pac-12 schools have bought them as well.

“It was something that I thought was very important for our program,” Tucker said, “so we made a significant investment in those units. I really feel like it’s already really helped us.”

In 2017, the most recent year data was available, the University of Georgia athletics department, where Tucker spent the last three seasons, reported $120 million in total expenses. The University of Colorado reported $90 million. That’s 25 percent less.

The smaller budgets in the Pac-12 make purchasing toys like GPS trackers tougher to justify. After a few years coaching at the highest levels of the SEC the Buffs’ new head coach thinks he has an idea how to build a winning program. Sometimes that involves spending money.

“It takes what it takes,” Tucker said.

Tucker also noted that he feels like the university has his back financially. He shouted out athletic director Rick George and chancellor Phil Distefano in particular.

“I feel extremely supported,” Tucker said. “I’m really excited about that.”

Who knows what the next upgrade for the Buffs football team will be, but by all accounts the first major technological improvement seems to be a hit.

“It tells whether you’re going hard or not, every time you step on the field,” Shenault said.