North Dakota State Football is now partnering with STATSports in the use of an "athlete monitoring system". Using vests no bigger or more cumbersome than a compression shirt, GPS technology is now allowing the Bison training staff to monitor the movements and the speed of their players in real-time during practice.

The Bison currently have around 25 of the tracking units and are utilizing them with their "skill" position players.

"They've got an accelerometer, a gyrometer, and a magnetometer, speeds, distances, distances at a certain speed, we can even measure impacts and collisions. There's a whole lot of data we can get, we are trying to use that data with injuries, when guys are starting to wear down or when to start backing off of them. Even when guys get injured, we can bring them back with a proper, technical rehabilitation program," said assistant strength coach and former receiver Eric Perkins.

Here's what STATSports' website has to say about the product:

"STATSports has grown from its humble origins in Ireland to be the world-leading provider of GPS player tracking and analysis equipment. We now have offices in Ireland, London, Chicago, and Florida.

The STATSports APEX/Viper System is a customer-driven platform. The unique, user-friendly interface was designed and shaped alongside some of the world’s top strength coaches, medics and sports coaches. It is the only system to offer sports specific software for Football, Basketball, American Football, Rugby and Athletics.

Our Pods have been tried and tested by many of the top teams and research facilities the world over and time and again results prove our system to be the most accurate, reliable and consistent device on the market."

There's also a "fun" aspect to the player tracking, namely the top end speed of each individual athlete. Perkins mentioned multiple players walking up to him during and after practice asking about their numbers. "Max speeds are always a big one.... I've had some guys hit 21.5 mph in pads, that was kinda crazy to see. Guys coming up to me: 'What did I get, 25?', fellas, AJ Green ran 23.6 in full pads in a game, so you have a little ways to go before you're getting to 25," said Perkins. The fastest Bison according to the technology? Cornerback Marquise Bridges.

Speaking of Bridges, Head Coach Matt Entz indicated that he felt that Bridges may have already avoided a hamstring issue using the STATSports tech. Players are only "allowed" 30 decelerations during live parts of practice. When Bridges started decelerating more often than his numbers would normally indicate, he was rested for the remainder of practice.

"We're trying to get our kids to perform at a higher level. Some of the numbers we look at: total yards covered in a practice, high-speed yards -- we use 16 mph as a high-speed threshold, number of decelerations in a practice, number of physical contacts in a practice (sudden stops). Other things that we'll see are yards per minute, top-end speed, on average how fast are we traveling? This is the first year we've done it. We're utilizing Virginia Tech and Oklahoma as resources. Those schools have used them longer, so we're trying to compare our data to theirs. We practice probably a little bit different than other schools, but it's giving us kind of a threshold for each individual's maximum yardage that they can play at. More importantly, high-speed yardage and decelerations have become the two metrics that have jumped out to us the quickest as measurables that might be correlated to injury prevention," Entz told Bison Report.

"Right now 700 yards of high-speed training, and 30 decelerations or more in a day would tend to make us alert that this young man is getting to a point where we need to be careful about what he's doing."

The use of STATSports' GPS technology puts North Dakota State in rarified air, certainly in the FCS. Most users are in the professional ranks, or in the FBS. North Dakota State mentioned Wisconsin as another school using STATSports, and the company's website also lists Florida State, Purdue, Kentucky, and Oklahoma. Other notable clients include the Carolina Panthers, Charlotte Hornets, FC Dallas, LA Galaxy, the New York Knicks, and the Washington Wizards. In fact, Western Michigan is the only non-Power-5 school using the technology today. No FCS schools are listed.

"When we proposed it to some of our supporters, and people out there that wanted to help us to continue to evolve and grow as a program this is something that we thought we could utilize. We max out everything we do in the weight room and nutritionally we're trying to do the very best in the country. Here's another tool that we're utilizing, trying to train our guys to be the very best football players they can, and if we can alleviate an injury here or there, it's worth it," Entz said.

Jim Kramer, famous for his old-school hard-nosed attitude, is on board. "He likes it! It's interesting stuff for him. I've gotta tabulate everything out for him and show him what it looks like, but he loves all of it," said Perkins.

Always on the cutting edge of player performance, the Bison football program has taken another step forward in making sure their athletes are at the top of the conditioning mountain. We'll see in the fourth quarters late in the season just how much STATSports might be paying off.