Scouting Football Games

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Lynn Lashbrook, President and Founder of Sports Management Worldwide and today I'm going to talk to you about how to scout a team. It's an exciting job, it's an advance scouting; you're asked by the coaches to go out and scout a team that your team is going to be playing a week or two later. Yes, you have all the film in the world; but scouts want to go out; they get into the press box and they go through every tendency; they make marks on different players, how do the wide receivers get off the ball; how does the other team play against this; what formations work best. Films don't show everything. So you analyze positions; you analyze the quarterback. How does the quarterback break from the huddle? How does the cadence, you try to go down before the game and get the cadence; something you can't get on the film. And then you monitor through a lot of digital video editing; you monitor the tendencies; you break down films. So what did they do on first down? What did they do on the second down? What did they do on third and long? What did they do on goal line? What is their tendency? Who they're going to go to in a fourth and short? What kind of blockage schemes are they going to do? On defense, what are they going to run when they're down on the goal line defense? All these goes back in preparation for a scouting plan for the team that you're facing that way; so the advance scout in football; in college football; the coaches, the scout, they go out and they, they scout and they come back and coach during the week; but they also provide a scouting port. In the pros they have quality control scouts that assess the team to how they're doing on tendencies and they have advance scout; so they're out there looking at players, learning more about individuals. If somebody's hurt, what are their weaknesses? Finding out how another team takes advantage or compensates for a certain defense or a certain offense. What will they do in this particular situation? It's all about tendencies. The more knowledge you have and understanding the game and understanding the team that you're representing and what their, trying to exploit the weaknesses of the other team, that's all called in general word, advance scouting and that's team scouting which is different in individual scouting for a draft; but team scouting is coming back with tendencies to give the coach and the, and the assistant a chance to have a plan, a game plan; hopefully a successful game plan. The scout is a very important component. They come from being ex-coaches many times or coaches that are young coaches that want to get into the business; but scouting itself is a profession; is a very important component in a winning successful football program."