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CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) -- There were mornings when St. Xavier High School football coach Steve Specht would walk into his office and find his young linebacker, Luke Kuechly, sitting in front of the television studying game video of the team’s next opponent before sunrise.
Kuechly would hit play on the old VHS, pause the tape, and then rewind to play again, jotting down notes as he went.
Over and over again it went until it was time for class.
He’d often return at lunch. And then again following the team’s late afternoon practice (the only time film watching was considered mandatory under Specht).
Kuechly would ask questions to Specht along the way: How should we attack if they audible to this formation? What tells should I be looking for? How do we shut them down?
It is there, in Specht’s tiny office, where Kuechly’s would spend endless hours learning the art of breaking down game film and utilizing the knowledge he picked up about an opponent’s tendencies to give him an edge on game day.
It’s a skill that would become Kuechly’s calling card -- and one that helped propel him to greatness.
On Saturday, Kuechly will be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame at Tom Benson Stadium in Canton -- the same field where he led St. Xavier to a state championship in 2007.
Kuechly is the second-youngest player to enter the Hall
Kuechly only played eight seasons with the Carolina Panthers before concussions cut short his career at age 28 while he was still in his prime.
But what he accomplished in those eight seasons was remarkable.
After earning the Bronko Nagurski Award as the nation’s top defensive player at Boston College, Kuechly was selected ninth overall in 2012 by the Panthers.
His impact was immediate. He earned NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year. A year later, he was named NFL Defensive Player of the Year and led the Panthers to Super Bowl 50 in the 2015 season.
He would be named All-Pro five times.
On Saturday, he’ll become the second-youngest player inducted into the Hall of Fame.
“He’s as good of a linebacker as I’ve ever been around,” said former Panthers defensive coordinator Sean McDermott, who coached Kuechly for five seasons before leaving to become head coach in Buffalo.
McDermott said that had Kuechly continued to play “I have no doubt he would have been considered the best ever. And in his prime, I think he might have been the best ever.”
KNOWING THE PLAYS
Opposing quarterbacks hated playing against Kuechly.
It meant three hours of the opposing middle linebacker standing across the line of scrimmage and calling out their plays before they happened.
When teams tried to audible, Kuechly often knew what was coming then, too.
Quarterback Jameis Winston once estimated in an NFL films segment that Kuechly knew at least 60% of Tampa Bay’s plays when he was the Buccaneers quarterback. And former Eagles center Jason Kelce joked that Kuechly must have had “insider trader information” when it came to the opposition’s strategy.
None of it surprised Specht.
“Luke’s intelligence, it was God-given,” said Specht, who still coaches at St. Xavier and plans to bring his team to the Hall of Fame ceremony. “The football IQ part of it was really interesting to watch evolve. Luke absorbed everything that we were trying to coach him up on. He just wanted to learn. A lot of kids, they go to film session for 35, 45 minutes because everybody else is going. Luke came to learn.”
The film study carried over to Boston College.
By that time the technology had evolved significantly and Kuechly could watch opponent’s plays broken down by different formation groups, down-and-distance and other easily labeled categories.
“That was like Disney World to me,” Kuechly said with a laugh.
His goal was always one thing: to be better prepared than his opponent.
“You want to do anything you can to help your team win, right?,” Kuechly said. “Watching tape, talking to coaches and having a good feel for what the other team was going to do, to me, helps you win. And it takes zero athletic ability. It takes zero talent. It’s just how much time you’re willing to put in.”
McDermott said by the time Kuechly arrived in Carolina he was at a “different level” than other players when it came to his knowledge of the game and instincts.
“The good ones, they see things through the lens of a quarterback,” McDermott said. “Luke’s ability to process things so quickly was so rare. I’ve only seen it in a few players.”