Recipe for Success Starts with Scouting

A scout team is one of the most thankless positions in football. The players aren't smiling in the end zone on Saturday. They aren't easily recognizable, and they don't show up on the videoboard for a pregame montage. They won't make the big play to electrify a crowd on national television.

There's no glory, but the scout team players are some of the most critical members of a football team. They shoulder the heavy responsibility of preparing the first team every week by mimicking an opponent before wiping the board clean for a completely different reboot after each game.

"We meet with (scout team players)," head coach Steve Addazio said. "They'll come in (on Tuesday morning), and guys on the scout team will meet with the graduate assistants. The defensive coaches will meet with the offensive scout team players, and the offensive coaches will meet with the scout team players."

That meeting will provide a knowledge transfer and translation of the next opponent's scheme. Meeting with players and coaches from contrasting positions generates level-setting expectations in order to identify or expose key gap schemes for further work. It requires coaches to work with players from the opposite side of the line specifically to tax their own position groupings.

"We'll prepare them within their (assigned) scheme," Addazio explained. "We do that for a lot of reasons. I'm not a big card guy. I think when you put up cards, people have a tendency to read cards and kind of tune out. An inside zone is an inside zone. An outside zone is an outside zone. A gap scheme is a gap scheme. A six-man protection is a six-man protection."

The resulting translation is a dual-edged education. Players have to study and learn an opponent's scheme in order to simulate possible upcoming situations, but they do so by using BC's signals and terms. This allows them to continue developing within the team's language instead of simply memorizing something else.

"We put it in our terms so that our kids will play within our structure and get something out of it," he elaborated. "We have to coach them formationally in some of the nuances (of an opponent), so we meet with them. That's critically important. We did that last week and obviously we'll continue to do it this week."

It's a complete change of pace every week. Last week's scout team defense needed to learn Virginia Tech's formation changes within a unique, three-safety set. The offense had to play a shotgun spread. This week, Richmond provides a completely different look after quarterback Joe Mancuso led the team in both passing and rushing during last week's victory over Jacksonville.

It requires constant communication among the coaches. Addazio will meet with the assistants to identify potential soft spots or deficiencies during practice, all of which is passed to the scout team. The scout team meets to highlight those areas, and the first and second teams consequently implement corrections or changes.

"Every day, (the coaches) will meet," Addazio said. "They'll review film of the opponent and then review our practice. Any points, for example, they want to make with the offensive scout team, (they'll say), 'Hey, we need to do this better.' (We) show the clip from practice. And then we show a clip from last year's tape from that opponent and say what we have to do a little better. (We'll point out) how they did it on the tape."

Scout team practice is its own beat with its own challenges. BC had a 10-day window between preseason camp's completion and Saturday's win. It gave the unit some breathing room and provided coaches with much-needed patience to fully study and implement Virginia Tech. That won't happen again until 2020, even with bye weeks built into the schedule, so there's a new sense of urgency facing the Eagles' preparation for Richmond this week.

"There was a little bonus with Virginia Tech because we started the process earlier," Addazio said. "We had three 'Virginia Tech Tuesdays,' if you will. We're going to have one for Richmond. You have to be accurate (and) fast. You don't have multiple days to work the kinks out. That's what happens in the season. You're in a race against the clock. Sometimes you play an opponent that's like you, (and) it becomes a lot easier.

"The film evaluation early on is always hard (though)," he continues. "Richmond played an option team last week. We don't get a lot of out of that on offense, looking at their defense against a wishbone team. So there's always the early-season things that I think make it a little harder."

Boston College will play Richmond on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. from Alumni Stadium. The game can be seen on ACC Network Extra, which is streamed digitally through ESPN. In order to watch, viewers will need a subscription for a cable provider with ACC Network. A list of cable providers is available at www.getaccn.com.

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