Florida quarterback Tim Tebow's success on football fields across the country -- and possibly his performance at Dolphin Stadium in Thursday's BCS National Championship Game -- may have some roots in a 2,500-square-foot room with 14 video cameras, two developing cutting-edge robots and a group of UF Gator Engineers.

When Tebow was experiencing a mysterious pain in his throwing shoulder after his first season, Gator Engineers in the Biomechanics and Motion Analysis Lab stepped up and helped him identify a possible source of the pain and ways to adjust his throwing style to compensate for it. The lab's engineers used video cameras and basic engineering principles to analyze the forces applied to various joints, bones and muscles during Tebow's movements.

"I think we're the only ones that do this on a regular basis for all the quarterbacks on a college level," said Bryan Conrad, a senior engineer in the UF Department of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation who worked with Tebow. "I know other places are trying to follow our lead, but it's not commonplace by any means."

Conrad said UF's lab also stands out because it is about three times the size of most motion analysis labs and it has about twice as many video cameras.

UF's lab uses the cameras to capture outward movements and force plates in the floor to create vectors with the magnitude and direction of the force applied to various joints during motion. When it comes to athletes, the engineers can use this information to identify areas of a player's body that could be prone to injury and maximize a player's movements to produce a more powerful outcome, such as a football pass or punt.

Conrad said the motion analysis lab began working with Tebow in the summer of 2006 as part of a routine examination of all Florida quarterbacks.

Gator Engineers applied about two dozen markers — which look like game pieces with a cone shape and small rounded ball on top — to Tebow's skin at several important bones and joints. The top of the marker is covered with reflective tape so that the computer can track the movement of each particular bone. Then they gave Tebow a football and told him to go to town.

With each throw, the engineers were able to see how much force Tebow applies to his legs, hips and shoulder when throwing. They were even able to calculate how long it takes him to release the ball once he decides to throw it — which is less than a second, by the way.

All of this baseline data came in handy in February 2007, when Tebow returned to the lab to try to figure out why his shoulder was hurting. Using the same procedures, Gator Engineers were able to suggest ways Tebow could adjust his throwing mechanics to reduce the stress on his shoulder, Conrad said.

When Tebow came back in June 2008, it was clear that whatever he did worked. And the quarterback's success on the field could be further proof that UF engineers are on to something.

Conrad and other engineers at the motion analysis lab are compiling all the data on Tebow and other Florida quarterbacks to create the "Florida quarterback model" — a database of normal ranges for basic football movements, such as the amount of force exerted in a quarterback's shoulder when he throws the ball. Football teams could then use UF's database to analyze their players' movements and maximize their performance.

"As we increase the number of players that we're evaluating, we expect that data to become more valuable and informative," Conrad said.

He added that the lab has already begun evaluating all 60-plus football players at the beginning of each season to build this database.

In the future, engineers at UF's Biomechanics and Motion Analysis Lab also hope to use their recently patented robots to take X-rays of an athlete's bones during motion so that they can see an exact picture of what's happening inside the athlete's body during a game situation.

Conrad said head football coach Urban Meyer has been especially receptive to the new technology, and the coaches often bring high school players to the lab during recruitment visits.

"I try to teach [the coaches] a little bit about the engineering, and they try to teach me about football and quarterbacking," he said. "The coaches usually aren't quite as excited about all the engineering."

He also noted that UF's motion analysis lab analyzes other sport activities, including baseball pitching, cycling and even Coach Meyer's golf swing.

"He's a very good golfer," Conrad added.

And what's it like working with Meyer's main man, Tim Tebow?

"A lot that you see on the field — his high energy, his enthusiasm, his passion for the game — all came through in the lab," Conrad said.

"Never in a million years would I have dreamed that going into engineering, I would've gotten a chance to work with football players," he said. "But it's funny how things work out."