Novi — Novi Detroit Catholic Central will be the only Catholic High School League team this fall as a “pilot school” for a portable, computerized method of detecting concussions immediately right on the sideline.

While attending a seminar this summer at the University of Notre Dame, athletic director Aaron Babicz learned about research the university is conducting to develop an app for tablet computers it hopes will allow coaches and medical personnel to diagnose concussions quickly and easily.

The project is caller Contect — which stands for Concussion Detection Test.

Christian Poellabauer, associate professor of computer science and engineering, who led the research project, said that “because almost 90 percent of concussions go unrecognized, this technology offers tremendous potential to reduce the impact of concussive and sub-concussive hits to the head.” Poellabauer indicated the program could also be used by the military.

The app first records a baseline sample of a player reading a series of phrases before a competition. After a particularly dreadful injury, the player reads the same phrases again, which the software compares to the original recording, looking for brain injury symptoms such as distorted vowels, imprecise consonant pronunciation and hyper nasality. Not only is it remarkably accurate, but the test can’t be fooled by an athlete hoping to stay in the game.

Babicz said if a player passes the test — i.e., no concussion is detected — the final decision will be up to the coach and team physician whether the player may return to activity.

“I’m excited about this,” Babicz said. “It’s another way for us to keep players safe.”