Terrelle Pryor lights up Columbus
It looked like Ohio State was turning Terrelle Pryor into a video game. The Buckeyes were actually trying to keep the real Pryor on the field.
Using motion capture technology driven in large part by the video game industry, Ohio State put Pryor and seven other incoming football freshman through several tests Saturday designed to discover potential weak areas in their bodies, especially in their joints. The plan is to use the information to craft specifically-designed exercise programs that could help prevent injuries.
"A lot of times players have things they don't know are weak,"
said OSU head athletic trainer Doug Calland, who along with OSU director of football performance Eric Lichter is working with OSU's Sports Biomechanics Laboratory on the project. "If we can figure out things early and get guys in programs I think we can prevent a lot of injuries."
How many? No one knows. Ajit Chaudhari, OSU's director of biomedical research, said he believes Florida's football program is one school using the same type of technology Ohio State is putting to football use for the first time. But there's not a lot of data out there ... Chaudhari is hoping the results from the $500,000 facility help him create that initial set of data.
And that's why Terrelle Pryor had his shirt off.
Willie Mobley, Garrett Goebel, DeVier Posey, Travis Howard, Keith Wells, Lamaar Thomas and Orhian Johnson also went through the tests Saturday, with another round of freshmen set for the same on Monday. Lichter said he knows enough about his current players, so the plan is to get a baseline on the freshmen arriving in Columbus for the first time.
"It could send some red flags up before we put them in a full-go workout program,"
Lichter said.
Reflectors were placed on the players' lower bodies as they performed simple movements that tested their balance and flexibility, cameras capturing only the reflectors and putting the information into computers. Everything could have been the beginning of a "Buckeye Football 2009"
video game, and frankly, don't you give Ohio State about five years before the school produces its own game? Or at least until the Big Ten Network Wii?
Pryor arrived in town Saturday morning, with summer classes and training starting Monday that officially will make these freshmen Buckeyes. Walking in as a group to the testing area set up in a gym, Pryor and a few other players quickly grabbed a basketball ... and Pryor dunked.
Then it was time for the subjects to accept their reflectors, as cameras clicked and rolled. An Ohio State staffer on hand kept the players from doing interviews, contending any talk would violate NCAA rules. But observing reflector placement was fine.
Here's what we do know about Pryor. His high school quarterbacks coach, Roy Hall, said he's at about 230 pounds after workouts this spring in Hall's garage, the de facto weightroom at Jeannette High School in western Pennsylvania. Hall said Pryor played at 215 or 220 pounds during his senior year.
"I'm anxious for Coach Tressel to see him to see how much bigger and stronger he got,"
Hall said. "It's just unbelievable the things he was doing to prepare himself."
Besides lifting on what were supposed to off days, Hall said Pryor's work included learning parts of the Ohio State playbook and getting out on the football field and throwing some patterns. And Hall said Pryor wore an OSU tie to his graduation.
After all the attention granted to Pryor and the entire 20-player OSU recruiting class that ranked as one of the top two in the country, it's about time they're all in Columbus.
"Like a month ago it felt like it was so far away,"
Posey said by phone Friday before getting to Columbus. "And then it jumped up on me and it's already here and it feels kind of crazy."
You could tell from the way the players acted Saturday that many of them knew each other pretty well for a while.
"You're more comfortable because you can be yourself and nobody's star struck,"
Posey said. "It's a great feeling to go to school and know the people you're going there with."
And now everyone will know if a Buckeye freshman has a knee that might be vulnerable to an ACL tear, or a high ankle just ready to be sprained.
