Rick Smith's...

[willieg52]

Can anyone please give some insight to what Smith was talking about on how the old system of scouting was messed up? And how he plans to implement his new system of evaluating young college talent throgh HIS scouting system?

[painekiller]

Can anyone please give some insight to what Smith was talking about on how the old system of scouting was messed up? And how he plans to implement his new system of evaluating young college talent throgh HIS scouting system?

Not knowing the quote or the interview you are talking about I can only fall back on the predraft last season. Rick Smith was wanting to centralize the scouting department. Seems the old system was everyone kept their own notes on guys. Rick wanted a system (read that to mean database) that followed a player from the first time he hit the radar until he retires from football. (Casserly did not use computers and he did not even use email, had a secretary that handled that for him).

From the interviews I read it seemed the pro and college scouting did not have much sharing of information, and this hurt the pro scouts. RE: Buchanon trade. Also I believe the old system gave to much power to the guy scouting a player and remember Casserly scouted alot himself during the season. It appears Smith likes to get reports and video on the college guys and stay on top of the Texans roster, and how they are progressing in person.

I am just speculating now, also this could include a rating system that all scouts follow so it is easier to judge player A from the east coast to player B from the west coast. (different scouts based on geography), and also they could have a list attributes they look for at each position, standardizing this allows a central guy to manage the data better.

[Ole Miss Texan]

I think thats a fair assessment. One thing you talked a little about was the pro scouting. For Smith this is just as important...having a database of players and keeping track of them while in the pros is very important. I suspect this is why he's so good at picking up FA's that nobody has heard of. We will be much better informed of how a player has played in the past, what they bring to the table, how they have done in different offensive/defensive schemes, etc. This will be invaluable to our organization.