Self-scouting can be beneficial for any team at almost any level. Knowing your tendencies and what your opponent anticipates from you and your squad should be used to your advantage.

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Rob Everett, former defensive coordinator at Bridgewater College (Va.), knows what it takes to self-scout when trying to stop your opponent. “The big thing is, and I firmly believe this whether or not you’re talking self-scout or opponent scout, it really needs to be a four-pronged attack with frequency,” says Everett. “What you are doing most often, average – how many yards they gain based on how many times they run it, efficiency – how you are doing in each situation and the last one is putting film together with it.”

Diving deeper into the numbers, Everett ensures that the stats from each game maintain their significance, although they don’t detail every facet of the game. “In those three numerical categories, we’re looking for what we’re calling the most. We break that down based on personnel, and it’s broken down into front, pressure and coverage. And then we’re able to cross-reference between those things to really get an idea as to who we want to be.”

Early in the season is the perfect time to begin self-evaluation. “We’re starting to get two, three games in where you’re going to be able to get a good idea of who you are,” says the former assistant coach of the AAF’s Memphis Express. “So defensively, we start on the backend where we have our all-down calls. [We have] the non-descript first and second down calls. In our playbook there’s a menu of about four of them, but as the season progresses it really gets down to two. We’ll use all of them at some point or another, but we really start to major in about two of them. And that self-scout gives us an idea of what [calls] we want to focus on.”

The numbers also aid in finding who the best 11 are to have on the field for your team. “We played some even fronts, some odd fronts, some different sub-packages and things like that,” starts Everett. “You’d be surprised. It might not be something you want to be best at, but there [could be] certain personnel that’s been productive for you. So, are those your best 11 players out there? Our job as the coach is to get those guys on the field, but you don’t know that without knowing your successes and failures through the numbers.”

Having a plan of who you want your team to be going into a matchup as well as later in the season are two pieces to keep at the forefront according to Everett. “Having that plan will confirm what [you need to improve on] because our numbers are matching this up based on our self-scout after the game,” says Everett. “Going in there blindly [and saying], ‘This is what my call sheet is going to be,’ and not looking three weeks down the road as to where you want to be when the playoffs or going into conference play [won’t be good]. Thinking beyond just one game will provide more value for your self-scout.”  

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