BERKELEY, Calif. — For a preseason scrimmage in August, the University of California football team tried to replicate the game day experience as best it could. It stayed in a hotel the night before. It scheduled the kickoff earlier than usual to acclimate to the time zone in which it would play its season opener at North Carolina. And it spent the whole week of practices tapering down.
For this last task, the Golden Bears relied not just on traditional methods, like fewer and simpler drills. They also relied on little chips implanted in the players’ gear capable of confirming that they were indeed working less.