Cal Quarterbacks Can Thank Miami Dolphins for Their Helmet Cameras

Cal QBs Fernando Mendoza and Chandler Rogers have a tiny GoPro camera on their helmets to track their eyes, like Tua Tagovailoa's helmet camera on 'Hard Knocks'

Cal quarterbacks Fernando Mendoza and Chalder Rogers can thank the Miami Dolphins for that little contraption attached to the front of their helmets during spring practices this year.

“That’s a GoPro camera,” Cal offensive coordinator Mike Bloesch said this week.

The two quarterbacks have a bunch of new tech equipment in their helmets this spring.  Not only is there a speaker inside their helmets to pick of the play call spoken into a microphone by Bloesch on the sidelines, but there is a camera atop their helmets that sees and hears what the quarterbacks see and say in the course of a play.

So when coaches watch film from the tiny camera after practice they can monitor two things the quarterback is doing immediately before and during a play.

“We can hear what they’re calling to the O-line, so we can make sure their calling the right protections and the right plays,” Bloesch said. “And also we can track their eyes as they go through their progressions.”

You hear TV football commentators talk about quarterbacks looking off a safety to open up a receiver elsewhere on the field, and this little gizmo tells coaches whether the quarterback is actually looking off a safety and where his eyes are directed during a progression.

The idea came from the Miami Dolphins and their imaginative head coach Mike McDaniel.

“It’s something we saw the Dolphins doing and obviously they were on “Hard Knocks,” everybody watched that, some of the video footage that was off of Tua [Tagovailoa’s] helmet,” Bloesch said. “We said, ‘Well, let’s look at it this spring and see if we like it,’ and there’s definitely been some times, especially on 7-on-7, dropback pass, full-progression concepts where we feel we’re doing a pretty good job of tracking their eyes.”

Here is a video of what Tagovailoa’s GoPro camera showed coaches and Tagovailoa:

Hard Knocks provides a look inside Tua Tagovailoa's helmet cam 🎥pic.twitter.com/26npLMDOMS

— Front Office Sports (@FOS) January 3, 2024

You need to be an astute observer to extract information from this herky-jerky film that follows the quarterback’s head movement.  But every bit of information helps, especially when coaches are trying to sort out the quarterback competition between Mendoza, who started the final eight Cal games last season as a redshirt freshman, and Rogers, a redshirt senior who has been a starter each of the past three seasons at Louisiana-Monroe (2021 and 2022) and North Texas (2023).

Mendoza is considered the Bears' No. 1 quarterback at this point in spring, so Rogers must beat him out to get the starting job for Cal’s 2024 opener against UC Davis.

The competition has been close during the spring, and what they see and say on a given play may be the difference.

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