The Scouting Report

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Todd Graham returned ‘home’ this past January. A native of the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Graham was named Rice University’s 17th head football coach on January lst. In his previous coaching stops, Graham played major roles in reversing the fortunes of struggling programs. It started at East Central University where, in his three seasons as DC, ECU improved from a break-even program to the NAIA national championship in 1993.

    As head coach and athletic director at Allen High School (North of Dallas), Graham led a program that had no district wins in the year before his arrival to five playoff berths in six seasons. At West Virginia, Graham helped the Mountaineers improve from a 3-8 mark to 9-3 in his second season. At Tulsa, Graham’s last stop before Rice, the Hurricane jumped from 1-11 prior to his arrival to an 8-4 record in 2003. Last fall Tulsa won the Conference USA Championship and defeated Fresno State, 31-24, in the Liberty Bowl.

    We spoke to Coach Graham recently about the Rice program but, more specifically, how he and his staff prepare for an opponent.

What is your overall process in analyzing your opponents’ game tape?
    One of the keys is to watch the complete game tape… I do that to get a feel for the team we’re playing. We try to determine their philosophy of offense and defense and their kicking game – are they a pound it out team, pass to set up the run team, or strictly a passing offense? We also look at how they call the game and how they adjust in certain situations. From that, we try to determine what we need to do to stop their offense and score on their defense.

    We also determine what we need to do to win…that involves taking care of the football, making sure we score when we’re in the Red Zone, win the battle of both scoring defense and takeaways, limit our turnovers, make big plays such as tackles for losses, and aggressively get them into three and outs.

What do you look for in scouting an opponents’ offense?
    We look at and evaluate personnel. How is the quarterback under pressure? How does he react? Is he poised? Does he take care of the ball? We look at their big plays and determine what we can do defensively to stop them. What are our best match-ups with their offense? We analyze, as well, their kicking and punting game, kicking game coverage and the impact of field position.

What about scouting the opposing QB? Do you look for something specific?
    We look at the quarterback’s mannerisms, his checks, his cadence count and really, how does he manage the game? We also evaluate his eyes and where does he look pre-snap? Does he stare down his receivers or look at the D-backs? We analyze his skills – not just running and throwing – but how athletic is he? Does he carry out fakes well? We also look at how he performs in various situations: lst and 10 vs. 3rd and 3, for example.

    The best college quarterback I’ve coached against was Ken Dorsey of Miami. He read defenses very well, didn’t give away anything, and was like a coach on the field. He never got rattled and was effective against both zone and man blitzes.

What are the keys you look for in scouting your opponents’ defense?
    We evaluate their defense position by position and see what their tendencies are… what scheme are they in matching the down and distance? Do they like to blitz and what type of blitz packages do they favor? We have a total of 48 different cut-ups we analyze on defense.

How much attention do you place in zone vs. man-to-man coverage?
    We use both and you have to because of the complexity of today’s passing game… more teams are using the spread offense than ever before and you have to work with your best match-ups. We’ll disguise zone and use man or vice versa. Today, football is all about match-ups.

Tell us your process of self-scouting? How important is it and how often do you do it?
    It is very important…if a coach is not using a digital system today for both scouting your opponent and self-scouting he’s behind the times. The digital systems maximize your time as a coach. We grade the tape going back and forth on each play and giving our players a + or – in evaluating their performance. We also go through all of our calls and tendencies and see the balance of our running and passing.

How do you critique a player after the self-scouting evaluation of his performance?
    We do it individually, as a unit (coaches), and as a team. Eighty-five percent of what you see is coached technique so we have coaches grades first. Then we have a players grade evaluating his performance. Each coach is responsible for his position players and must take total ownership of that responsibility. Then we finally have an effort grade for each play.

What’s a typical week like in breaking down film, giving it to the coaches and preparing a game plan?

Sunday: By 1pm, our film is broken down and graded. We also will have our performance grades completed.

Monday: The players are off and it’s staff only. We evaluate the other team as a unit and develop the keys to stopping our opponent.

Tuesday: We practice certain situations: 1st and 10, lst and 2nd down and long, lst and 3 and 4th and 6 among other situations. We practice their sets and how they play defense. We also practice goal-line and short-yardage situations.

Wednesday: We meet with the players and have DVD’s of cut-ups ready for them to study. Included are Red Zone and third down tendencies as well as cut-ups of the kicking game. Our game plan is included. Kids are captivated by video and the cut-ups are a great teaching aid.

Thursday: Is what we call ‘script day.’ Here’s what they’re going to do even with overtime… all three phases – offense, defense, and special teams – are reviewed.

Friday: We have our walk-through… also, we have a regular written and video test with our players to make sure they’re as ready as possible.

Tell us about the digital system you use?
    DSV doesn’t pretend to understand the coaching terminology. They created the game analysis system that I wanted and it works for us.

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