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Huskies On The Hunt
By Stephen Perry
Mar 2, 2004, 13:54

When Keith Gilbertson took over the reins as the Washington Huskies head football coach from Rick Neuheisel in July 2002, he inherited a winning program that progressed to the Sun Bowl. Much of that success can be attributed to preparation, and much of that preparation began with analyzing video footage.

The video operations division of the athletic department at the University of Washington in Seattle oversees videotaping and equipment acquisition for 23 sports, with more than a dozen that require heavy attention. But according to Bill Wong, manager of video operations, none of those compare to the video needs of football.

Two full-time staff and seven hourly employees record every football practice and game. Each of these sessions is then available for coaches to request video clips for their own analysis or to be shown to players as needed.

The video staff also gets a list of specific situations, such as short yardage or long passes, that the coaches want to see for the next opponent. For late August’s season opener against defending national champion Ohio State University, for example, the staff gathered and compiled video clips from the Buckeyes’ last four or five games against teams comparable to the Huskies. “We do this for about 40 situations per week on offense and another 40 on defense,” said Wong.

Assistant coach John Pettas is the new Huskies offensive coordinator, taking over the job Gilbertson vacated when he was appointed head coach. He determines which of the opponent’s specific defensive situations are to be compiled by Wong and his staff. Co-defensive coordinators Tim Hundley and Phil Snow, who also coach linebackers and defensive secondary respectively, make similar decisions regarding the opponent’s offensive clips. Copies of all outtakes are provided to every coach on the team.

One of last year’s Sun Bowl defensive standouts, free safety Owen Biddle, understands the importance of video analysis: “Without it we wouldn’t win any games,” he said.

Something Old, Something New
Four new Panasonic AJ-D610WB 16:9/4:3 DVCPRO camcorders, five AJ-D455 DVCPRO studio editing VTRs, a DMR-T3040 progressive-scan DVD recorder with a built-in 40GB hard drive, and four additional Panasonic professional DVD recorders have been acquired by the athletic department over the last two years. The new equipment is reducing reliance on aging Betacam equipment. The game plan is to continue adding digital capabilities gradually, in an effort to lessen the learning curve and avoid the prohibitive cost for a total changeover.

The new camcorders are used to tape football practice and games. Four of the decks are used to feed a Pinnacle NLE system, and can also be configured in an A/B roll editing system to cut footage “on the fly” for coaches. The fifth deck, their latest purchase, is used to feed a production editor that produces highlight tapes.

The new emphasis on digital media lets the video department duplicate and edit video faster than before. Coaches now are given digital versions of situation outtakes, called “cut-ups,” for their own use. They also get a stack of S-VHS tapes with the same cut-ups for presentation to the players.

The video rooms where the players see clips are still outfitted with S-VHS players, because Wong said some coaches are more comfortable using the familiar format. In fact, the video department has acquired at least 40 Panasonic professional S-VHS hi-fi editing VTRs in addition to the digital hardware.

Digital products are expanding the video operation but not eliminating the analog technology. Wong said the athletic department acquired the DVCPRO and compatible editors because they were reliable products, but the old technology remains reliable, too.

Though the new DVCPRO camcorders can shoot in widescreen, Wong said they aren’t using that feature. “A couple of other PAC-10 teams have tried out the widescreen format, but I don’t know of any who are using it regularly,” he said. Teams share video in the 4:3 aspect ratio, and all PAC-10 football video is exchanged on DVD. (The Huskies still store their own video in S-VHS but now store it on DVD as well.)

The PAC-10 video directors chose to move to game video exchanges on DVD for multiple reasons. DVDs eliminate the problem of using different acquisition formats, since they are compatible with any DVD player. Acquisition formats seem only to have been a minor issue, however, since six other of the PAC-10 schools acquire video with DVCPRO camcorders, including Stanford, UCLA, University of California at Berkeley, Arizona State, Washington State, and Oregon State.

Quality was also an issue. “DVD exchange represented a big improvement in image quality versus S-VHS,” said Wong. The digital format also saves time in editing and saves cost on shipping, he added.

Video operations produce a ton of video, but almost all of it is strictly for in-house use--and most of that is just for training. There is no sense that they have to create video products for profit purposes, so their funding comes solely through the athletic department. They occasionally share video with the media upon request, in exchange for reciprocal access to media footage, and they occasionally produce videos for use in pep rally situations. Still, the major emphasis is on putting video to the best use to win games and championships.


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