Turning PITCHOUTS Into PRINTOUTS : High School Coaches Increasingly Turn to Computers to Anticipate and Beat Their Opponents’ Moves

At thousands of high schools across the nation, chalkboards have been replaced by keyboards. Along with blitzes and bombs, coaches are using floppy disks to put the byte on opponents.

Computerized scouting systems are becoming as important to football programs as knee braces.

Nine of the 42 Valley-area high schools fielding 11-man teams use computers to scout opponents. Three schools plan to purchase systems next year and 16 said they would if time or budgets allowed.

Drawing information from a list of every play an opponent has run in past games, coaches use the computer scouting programs to discover trends in play selection. They input the details of each play--which have either been witnessed by a human scout or viewed on a game film--into a computer, which groups plays with similar variables. The variables include the circumstances before the snap--including down, distance to go, field position, formation and the type of defense faced--and the play’s result.

After doing some whizbang analysis on disk, the computer might indicate in a printout or on screen that an opponent passed to the tight end in the middle of the field 60% of the time when it had the ball on second down and long around its 40-yard line. Or it might show that a team runs a draw play 70% of the time on third down when it needs between four and eight yards for a first.

When those situations arise in an actual game, a coach aligns his defense in a formation best suited for stopping the play the opponent tends to run most.

Software Associates of North East, a Pennsylvania-based organization and the nation’s leader in computer scouting, has sold programs to more than 1,500 high schools in the past four years. Midwest Software, of Michigan, has sold to more than 1,000 coaches.

Scouting programs have been widely used by National Football League and NCAA Division I teams for several years. Their recent advent at high schools is credited to the creation of less complex and expensive software.

Bill Backstrom, who coaches at El Modena High in Orange and sells his own system, estimates that at least a third of Orange County coaches scout with computers.

Few trust the programs’ data more than Alan Epstein, coach at Birmingham in Van Nuys. Each Saturday, Epstein dissects printouts that reveal the offensive tendencies of his next opponent.

The investment--from nine-hour Saturdays to the $295 software--is showing a profit for Birmingham’s defense, which has allowed an average of only 200 yards and 17 points a game. All despite a small defensive line that includes a 150-pound nose tackle.

The impact was more pronounced last season, when Birmingham had three straight shutouts. The plan worked so well that Epstein said he used his second-string defense most of the game in two of those shutouts.

“It’s caused us to spend more time, hour-wise, but it makes scouting much more exact,” Epstein said. “We can’t overlook anything, it’s right there in front of us.”

Hundreds of systems are available--five varieties are used in the Valley-area alone--and although software ranges from $50 to $700, each program attempts to provide coaches with the same results.

Sometimes, those results offer a tantalizing bit more than the mundane. Most coaches, for instance, would expect a team to throw a pass on third and 10 or to run on third and inches. Scouting software, however, then goes on to reveal trends often missed by human evaluation--such as to which side the play will go, and who is likely to handle the ball.

Westlake Coach George Contreras, one of 65 California coaches who paid $600 for the Scout Plus program, discovered that Simi Valley has strong tendencies in certain formations.

“In one set, Simi runs the same pass pattern every time,” said Contreras, whose team defeated the Pioneers, 24-20. “It’s a very successful play and it’s hard to stop, but they always do the same thing.”

Contreras became a believer in computer programs in 1981, when a system designed by Radio Shack revealed that Saugus always ran the same four plays in a row when inside the 10-yard line. Westlake made a successful goal-line stand late in its game against the Centurions, and Contreras said he went by the computer instead of by the book.

Burroughs Coach Bob Dunivant said his team’s 41-29 win against Schurr on Oct. 17 was strongly influenced by his computer program.

Valley-area teams using computerized scouting programs have won 72% of their league games. Those who don’t have lost 58%.

Many high school coaches consider computerized scouting programs the innovation of the ‘80s, but their players weren’t even born when the first software was designed.

When the original system appeared in 1963, Mike Ditka was an All-Pro for the world champion Chicago Bears and Roger Staubach won the Heisman Trophy.

Tom Paton, meanwhile, began marketing a system called Compuscout, the pioneering program.

His system employed punch cards similar to those used for baseball all-star ballots. Coaches would punch out holes that corresponded with a team’s play selection. The cards were fed into a mainframe computer, which delivered its analysis on a printout.

Paton later wrote a program that required joy-stick entry for the Apple computer, but left the business five years ago when it became unprofitable.

“The problem is that coaches needed too much handholding,” Paton said. “They call you up in mid-season, and you have to go over and fix it for them. It’s fun, but it’s not a commercial venture.”

Most programs currently in use are designed to work with the Apple II computer. But the information in Scout Plus, a program developed by Ross Gentry of Tulare, is manipulated by a board that has touch-sensitive controls.

Contreras said the touch panel--designed specifically for football coaches--has helped him cut his computer scouting time from five hours to one.

“Scout Plus is very simple for coaches,” Contreras said. “In the past it was a problem converting our terminology to a system. Scout Plus is a keyboard of football terms.”

Most coaches using computers estimate the programs have made opponent analysis four times faster than searching for tendencies by hand. With programs designed before 1983, data entry can take up to four hours. But in the past two years, innovative software has cut that process in many programs to less than 30 minutes.

Some teams use the programs to reveal their own habits, and coaches have devised plans to reduce the accuracy of computerized systems that are used against them.

“When you get in the heat of the ballgame, sometimes you’ll call the same play over and over in certain situations,” Contreras said. “We have some tendencies, so we’ll go ahead and run the first 10 plays from a script.”

Not all coaches are sold on the idea of using computers, however. Their opinions can be grouped into four schools of thought.

The Revolutionaries. These people, who include Epstein, Contreras, Dunivant and Dave Carson of Burbank, believe that computers are the best thing to happen to football since the invention of the forward pass. They have made the programs the focal point of their scouting systems.

“I think a lot of the coaches who don’t use it don’t realize that the input you get back is so much greater than what you can do yourself,” Carson said. “I think it’s like everyone going to video. It took some people longer. When I go into a game, I feel better about the knowledge I have of an opponent.”

The Survivalists. Not wanting to lose a step, they have bought computer programs, but only use them as supplements. This group includes Myron Gibford of Chatsworth, Bob Richards of Thousand Oaks and Rick Scott of Hart.

“The amount of time spent on the computer depends on the opponent,” Scott said. “It can be a real psychological advantage going in if you know your opponent has some real tendencies. But we don’t waste a lot of time scouting people we know we should beat easily.”

The Skeptics. These coaches, including Bill Redell of Crespi, Dave Murphy of Simi Valley and Kenny Lee of Van Nuys, do not deny the premise behind the systems as much as they question their accuracy at the high school level.

“When I coached in the USFL, we didn’t use it because I don’t think we could afford it,” said Redell, who coached the Portland Breakers. “I know there are some very good high school coaches that use it, but I personally don’t see a need for it for us. If someone could give me a simplified program, with only what I wanted, then I might consider it.”

The Purists. These people don’t want to bother with these “video games,” believing that if their teams execute, it doesn’t matter what the opponent does. Included in this group are Joel Schaeffer of Reseda, Harry Welch of Canyon, Tom Stevenson of Taft and Darryl Stroh of Granada Hills.

“A computer doesn’t show the human element, and I’m kind of big on that,” Schaeffer said. “Some coaches seem to think that their coaching ability depends on the size of their playbook.”

“It’s kind of humorous that we have the nation’s longest streak and we don’t use it,” Welch said two weeks ago.

Even coaches who use scouting programs acknowledge that they are limited. They realize it would be asking too much of high school students to learn a new defense every week. And even when they have a strong indication of what another team will do, coaches agree that blocking and tackling makes the difference between winning and losing.

“All I try to do is to stop their best four plays,” Epstein said. “You can’t stop everything, and you can’t worry about every single play.”

DO COMPUTERS MATTER?

RANKING THE 9 VALLEY-AREA TEAMS THAT USE SCOUTING SOFTWARE

Team System League Overall League Standing Thousand Oaks Scout Plus 5-0-0 8-1-0 1st in Marmonte Hart Compuscout 4-0-0 8-1-0 1st in Foothill Burroughs Bob Dunivant 3-1-0 7-1-1 Tied for 2nd in Foothill Chatsworth Scout Plus 3-1-0 5-3-0 Tied for 1st in Sunset Birmingham Les Dhanes 2-2-0 5-3-0 4th in Sunset Westlake Scout Plus 3-2-0 5-4-0 Tied for 3rd in Marmonte Chaminade Scout Plus 4-1-0 4-4-1 3rd in Santa Fe Alemany Compuscout 2-2-0 3-6-0 Tied for 3rd in Del Rey Burbank Microscout 2-2-0 3-6-0 4th in Foothill