Notre Dame Enters Monarc Seeker Era
A few years ago, Notre Dame debuted a new toy for football practice as moving tackling dummies entered the practice fields.
Notre Dame now has a new machine and technology that will benefit a significant portion of the roster as the program added a Monarc Seeker earlier this week. The Seeker was developed by Dallas-based Monarc Sports, Igor Karlicic and Bhargav Maganti.
What is the Seeker? Well, the easiest way to describe it is a robotic jugs machine. The Seeker not only acts as a robotic quarterback but also a punter and kicker. In fact, it can emulate any type of ball a player would see in a game.
The Seeker has the ability to track a player’s position on the field and can be programmed to throw balls at a specific speed, but also location on the field. Speeds can reach up to 75 mph and can push out six balls in 12 seconds, so a receiver can catch up to 500 balls in an hour with ease.
"The Monarc Seeker has been a great tool that our team has used to gain a competitive advantage," said former Notre Dame running backs coach and now Western Michigan head coach Lance Taylor. "We believe this is going to give our guys the resources to be better in all three phases: offense, defense and special teams."
In manual mode, a user can program the ball to go to a specific location.
“So if you want to work fades 70 yards down the field, 50 on the numbers or 20 on the sideline,” Sawyer Theisen, director of business development at Monarc, said in a Forbes article. “All you have to do is click where you want the ball to go, and the machine makes the adjustment to put it there.”
There is also a robotic mode where a player wears a tracker, which allows the machine to track acceleration, location and speed, and the Seeker makes the adjustments
Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman was proud to have the new addition in the football facility and believes his players will grow from being able to work without a quarterback or kicker.
“Challenge everything,” stated Freeman to ISD. “If our coaches and players can prove to me that this is going to help our players succeed - nothing is for free. If we believe the value matches what it can do to help our players, then I’m all for it. Something Coach (Chansi) Stuckey has been very adamant about is getting the Monarc Seeker. It’s been a process of getting it, but I want to give our players the best chance to succeed.”
When it was first released in 2020, the Monarch Seeker had a price tag of $50,000, so while the ground-breaking technology is beneficial, it also isn’t cheap.
“I also don’t want to waste money,” explained Freeman. “If our university says yes to every want, we would all be broke. I know that’s a little extreme, but that’s the reality of it. You have to understand value and cost. You have to look at both. That Monarc Seeker was something we felt the cost didn’t matter. The value outweighed the cost.”
As of June 2023, Notre Dame was one of about 25 programs in the country with the Seeker in his football facility.
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