OKEMOS - It’s the first round of the high school football playoffs, and the Dewitt Panthers are in control over their rivals, the Haslett Vikings. But not without the help of their secret weapon
“Hopefully teams don’t get it too soon because it’s an advantage for us right now,” said Dewitt Head Coach Rob Zimmerman
The secret weapon Dewitt Head Coach Rob Zimmerman is referring to isn’t much of a secret at all. It’s used all over the world by thousands of athletes, and can be found right in your pocket.
It’s a mobile app called “Coach’s Eye”, and it’s developed by Techsmith, a company headquartered in Okemos.
The convenience of Coach’s Eye might be its biggest selling point, just go into the app store on your iPad or your iPhone and search coach’s eye.
“All you need with coach’s eye is a couple ipads androids or windows surface, and you’re ready to go out of the box,” said Mike Curtis.
Mike Curtis works in business development for Coach’s Eye, and has been selling the software to teams across the country.
“I kinda call it like a real time TiVo. You record let's say a football play, right? You put down offense, first down, how many yards it is, pass, etc., all this metadata gets carried with the video, you record the video, and it’s instantly sent to the sideline,” said Curtis.
Coach’s Eye’s new feature is called instant replay, which allows video to be sent to the sidelines almost instantaneously.
"The thing that’s most beneficial is how fast the film is down to us," said Zimmerman. "So we’re able to between each series look at how they lined up, and what they did, and it's just been a tremendous asset to our team.”
“Play after play we always get a good look at it, we can correct our mistakes after every single drive and perform what we need to do," said Dewitt quarterback Will Nagel.
While the program has focused on football, Coach’s Eye and Instant Replay can be used for almost anything.
“it's very beneficial i'm sure not only for football but for other sports as well," said Zimmerman