The BYU football video department is a behind-the-scenes group, but its contribution to the football team is significant.
Football video and technology coordinator Errol Seaver is in his fourth year leading the department, which helps get film and highlights ready for players and coaches.
“The longer our players have it, the more they can study it before Saturday and get ready for an opponent, so every second matters,” Seaver said. “That’s where we come in.”
Seaver said he prides himself on producing high-quality video and disseminating it as quickly as possible.
“Our goal every day is to have practice in on the server for our coaches 5 minutes after it’s over,” Seaver said, adding that after one day of fall camp they had more than 750 clips of practice.
BYU’s football video department recently got some upgrades to help it continue producing the highest quality video in the most efficient manner possible.
On July 6, @BYUFootballVideo tweeted about some much-needed office renovations since equipment was outdated and needed to be replaced.
“You’re only as good as what you can provide, and we were starting to be limited by the technology that we could provide to our coaches, so it was really just time,” Seaver said.
The BYU Football Video Department went from working with 17-inch standard definition monitors to now editing on 40-inch 4K monitors. The production area now works on dual 27-inch 4K monitors for highlights.
“We’ve taken out all of the old beta cam equipment, which is older than you and I both — stuff I’ve never even used in my career, and I’ve been doing this 20 years,” Seaver said. “It was time to get all of that out. So now with the newer monitors, things are bigger, they’re clearer (and) they’re crisper.”
Family life student Brayden Woodall is heading into his sixth season with the BYU football video department. He felt the renovation was much needed.
“Everything looks better, I think — less retro,” he said, “When I first got here, we had a lot of equipment from 1980, so everything looks great and new.”
Seaver has been working to upgrade the video team’s equipment since he came to BYU under former coach Bronco Mendenhall specifically to work on video. Seaver said close to $500,000 have been spent on upgrades during his time, including on a new 96-terabyte server.
“We’re getting away from DVDs; everything is digital,” Seaver said. “Every player now has an iPad — which is wonderful — so we’re connected to our players no matter where they are, as long as they’re on Wi-Fi. We can send them game film, we can send them opponent film, we can send them NFL stuff, we can send them playbooks, we can send them updates and notifications.”
Seaver believes the connectivity and upgraded equipment has been the biggest change in the time he has been at BYU. On the video side, the biggest change has been the speed at which his team can work.
Seaver’s team produces a wide range of content for the football team. They get practice footage, which includes a wide range of shots, amounting to hundreds of clips filmed each practice. During spring and fall camps, they put together a highlight video from practice and posted it on Twitter for fans to enjoy.
They also break down footage of every BYU opponent, which includes every play from every game of the team’s previous season from two different angles.
Seaver said his team began gathering film for Hawaii last year “because we knew we played them at the end of this year, so we work a year ahead.”
The BYU football video team also works every week to break down NFL games from Sundays, trade film with the opponents, provide content for BYUtv’s After Further Review and provide ESPN with content for broadcasts and highlights.
“We’re working in conjunction with ESPN, ABC, CBS, CBS Sports Network, all of those different outlets that we play on,” Seaver said. “And on top of that, we’re also making a weekly highlight video in the season, highlights of the game before. We get those highlights from whatever TV network we’re on and we also put out three cameras at home games, one on road games.”
The BYU football video department is busy, but the employees say the work is rewarding. Whitney Lenon, a senior studying Spanish, is in her second season working for the department.
“Everyone loves BYU football — you know all the BYU fans, they love BYU football — and so it’s really fun to watch the guys working so hard at practice,” Lenon said. “I feel like it makes you more invested watching the games and you know they have been working so hard, so I just want them to do well. It’s fun to be a part of something so big and it’s just a fun environment for sure.”
