Category talk:College football

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The Scout Team

Contributed by NewsWatch Dallas

NCAA Division I-A football teams are limited to 105 student-athletes on their rosters. Many players on scholarship and almost all walk-ons will not see game action during a season. Their roles will be played out as part of the scout team.

Scout teams help prepare the starters for gameday by emulating the opponent’s plays and tendencies during practice when the game plan is implemented. Scout team players are not the starters. They do not appear on the two-deep depth chart, and many are not on the 70-man hotel travel squad. They may not get the glory, but they are an integral part of a team’s success.

They are redshirts who will not play during the season and walk-ons, as well as scholarship squadmen without playing experience, who hope to gain the coaches’ eyes by acting as their team’s opponents in practice. If a player is being redshirted, such as many true freshmen, this is the player’s opportunity to show coaches any valuable contribution to the team.

The redshirts use this time to show coaches why they were recruited and to prove what they can do in future seasons of their eligibility. The walk-ons on the squad team will try to impress coaches enough to get some possible playing time in a home game when the score suggests that the benches be emptied.

It is the scout team’s job to study film of the opponent and replicate that on the practice field during scrimmages. Some scout team players even wear the uniform numbers of their opponents. Quarterbacks on both sides wear black jerseys so that they will not be hit.

If coaches are looking at position changes early in the season, then, for example, they might position a quarterback at wide receiver or defensive back on the scout team to get a look-see at that player’s ability in the new position.

About half of the scout team will never make the “real team”, but the reward for the veteran scout team squadman who has found a way to get into a game would be more playing time – enough to earn that first varsity letter.