LSU Flagship Program For State-of-the-Art JUGS Machine

Since I know many on these board love the work on the JUGS Machine, LSU is taking it one step further, being the flagship program to The Seeker.

(The article is a long read and is behind The Athletic paywall, but I think you get a few free articles a day):

LINK

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This January, Monarc is about to roll out its first official wave of products to teams across the country. The flagship? LSU. The Tigers are buying a fully customized $38,000-machine that has wowed head coach Ed Orgeron and passing game coordinator Joe Brady while also giving Monarc its high-profile case study for the rest of the college football world.

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So what does this machine actually do? The Seeker has six motors and a six-ball magazine that allows for minimal reload time. It can fire out six balls in as little as nine seconds, and it sits on a wheeled cart so the Seeker can be moved around easily. The machine operates out of two main modes: robotic and manual.

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Manual mode is more self-explanatory. Users can select where to place the ball using an iPad-style interface that displays a virtual field. To throw to receivers, you just pick a spot and it shoots. To work on punt returns, you can select the 24-yard line at the right hash mark and it can hit that spot as many times as you’d like. If you want to take over control of the machine and direct it yourself, you can control it with a joystick.

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Robotic mode, however, is what garners the most attention. Receivers wear what are called Monarc Pulse tags, small monitors worn on a player’s hip that track the receiver’s speed, location and drive out of the break. You pre-select the route and ball placement and a series of algorithms allow the Seeker to hit the receiver in stride.

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LSU had its receivers aim to catch 10,000 passes over the summer. Using the Seeker, staffers found that one receiver was able to catch 572 balls in an hour. Extrapolated out, they imagine those 10,000 catches could be finished in 20 days.

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