LSU QBs use video game to prepare for national title game

NEW ORLEANS -- When practice is over and film study is done, LSU quarterbacks, as most college kids do, play video games.

The difference is Matt Flynn and Ryan Perrilloux are usually still working on the game plan for the BCS National Championship Game against Ohio State when they fire up the Xbox these days.

LSU offensive coordinator Gary Crowton has used a custom-made video game to help his quarterbacks learn to read defenses.

XOS Technologies, a company that specializes in gearing technology to the needs of coaches, worked with EA Sports to produce the PlayAction Simulator that LSU has used this season.

"What they've done is they put our plays into the video game and then they put in our opponents' defenses," said Crowton, the Tigers' first-year offensive coordinator.

The game looks and plays just like the popular Madden NFL and NCAA football games, though all the goofy stuff such as player celebrations, cheering crowds, mascots and bands have been removed.

LSU and Tennessee were the first schools to use it this season and it went well enough that XOS expects to make it available to all its clients this year. The company provides technology to most Division I schools.

"The video game is an excellent resource we have," Perrilloux said. "Whenever we hit a play, that play would automatically match up with the defense that we would see or blitz we would see.

"If you make the wrong decision it's an automatic interception or it's an automatic incompletion."

Crowton is able to customize each quarterback's video game playbook.

"You can make it faster and harder for my experienced guys; more experienced people running the offense and more experienced guys who know how to play the games," Crowton said.

So when Flynn, LSU's fifth-year senior starter, sits down to play, he's got an extensive selection of plays from which to choose, compared with Perrilloux, the No. 2 quarterback whom Crowton usually limits to about 10 plays per game.

When Flynn plays, the game forces him to make decisions faster than say, third-stringer Andrew Hatch, who's in his first season and not as adept at running the offense.