Getty ImagesVideo coordinators aren't just at practice, high above the action. They immediately cut tape afterward.

In every college football program, no matter how large or small, there are teams within the team. The offense hangs out with the offense, the defense hangs out with the defense and the coaches hang out with the coaches.

But deep in the oft-ignored back pages of every media guide are photos of the seldom-recognized groups that are just as vital to the success of the program as the players and coaches. Every fan has long known about the equipment managers, grounds crew and athletic training staff. However, even the most rabid devotee likely knew nothing about the unit that was suddenly and reluctantly shoved into the spotlight by Wednesday's tragedy at Notre Dame -- the video team.

On Thursday night, the video teams of Florida State and NC State went about their business as they do all season long, at practice throughout the week and on a game day like Thursday. They popped open their tripods and organized their tape stock as voices crackled over walkie-talkies to let their fellow teammates know that they were ready for kickoff. But this time, the normally antiseptic process was laced with emotion. Everyone's heart felt a little heavier. All day long they had e-mailed, texted and tweeted with their friends and colleagues on video teams at other schools.

Across all conferences, regions and rivalries they were mourning Declan Sullivan.

“

This is a hard day for everyone in college football, but especially those guys. The video guys are the unsung heroes of our sport. They are our eyes in the sky all week long.

” -- Florida State coach Jimbo Fisher

"This is a hard day for everyone in college football, but especially those guys," Florida State head coach Jimbo Fisher said during pregame warm-ups. From the field he pointed up toward the end zone field house and then to the press box, the video team's game time perches. "The video guys are the unsung heroes of our sport. They are our eyes in the sky all week long. And they are as much a part of this football team as the people that the TV audience will see on the sideline tonight."

They are also one of college football's tightest communities. Every video team is small, rarely if ever more than 10 people. And every unit is in constant contact with its colleagues at other schools, swapping game film with future opponents and the teams those opponents have already played.

They also love what they do. The majority of video coordinators are lifers, working at their respective schools, usually their alma mater, for a decade or more. Notre Dame's video coordinator is Tim Collins. He's a South Bend, Ind., native and is in his 20th season in charge of the Fighting Irish video department.

"Everyone knows Tim," said Craig Campanozzi, the Seminoles' video director and one of two men that run the school's cutting-edge video department. "Everyone knows everyone. Calling it a fraternity is not an exaggeration. Across the CSVA [Collegiate Sports Video Association] we're all reaching out to Tim. We're suffering with him. This could have been any one of our kids."

What happens at practice?

"Our kids" refers to the student workers, like Declan Sullivan, who make up at least half of every video staff. Their hours are long, not at all unlike the players, with days that start in class and end after dark, sitting at a computer editing game and practice video. Some schools pay their video workers a standard student wage rate, no different than an undergrad with a university job at the cafeteria or the student union. Others give internship credit hours. Some give nothing more than free shirts and a pat on the back.

All give the opportunity to be a part of the football team. "It's a real passion for our kids," Campanozzi said. "They love their school and their team and they love being a part of it all."

At every school, the routine during daily practice sessions is the same. Cameras are placed on towers, platforms and scissor lifts like the one Sullivan used on Wednesday. They are assigned to different positions and different locations throughout the practice fields and each is manned by a camera operator, armed with the same practice rundown sheet used by the coaches and players.

Tapes are popped out as each session ends and runners take the tapes back to the video coordinator's office, where the tapes are ingested into the computer system; editors then cut up every play, sorted by situation and angle. The moment that practice ends coaches can instantaneously call up everything that happened on the practice field for presentation and analysis in the team meeting rooms.

"With the 20-hour rule [teams are allowed four hours per day for practice and meetings] the coaching staff looks to maximize every minute of that time," said Jim Sherrill, NC State assistant athletic director for technology and a member of the athletic department since 1994. "That puts a premium on what we do video-wise. We help them maximize the time they have on the practice field."

The video teams also shoot and edit game film. Once that video is entered into the system it can be sliced and diced to fit any situational combination that the coaching staff can come up with: third-and-long red zone situations ... on the road ... at night ... in the rain?

You got it, Coach.

The video staffs of large athletic departments also produce the coaches' television shows and original productions for stadium video screens and provide video and film support for sports other than football. "Tomorrow I'll be helping with soccer," said Campanozzi, laying out the schedule split up between himself, FSU video coordinator Mike Bracken and their staff of 13. "Saturday I have a softball scrimmage. Sunday we have another one. It never stops."

Why scissor lifts?

During every practice, sessions move between multiple fields to recreate certain game situations or to isolate specific positions. In most cases, particularly at newer facilities, fixed towers between those fields allow camera operators to simply turn their gear 180 degrees and keep shooting.

Getty ImagesAnybody who shoots football is familiar with life atop a scissor lift.

But scissor lifts are still preferred by coaches and video coordinators. Florida State employs three during practice; NC State uses two. Why? Because they are rolling, steerable vehicles that can be maneuvered between fields or placed at different angles to capture a particular part of a drill. If a coach wants to take the receivers to one corner of the field for an impromptu drill, there's a video tower for that.

Part of the scissor's lure is its ability to change height. Coaches like steep angles because they believe that higher points of view reveal the true patterns of the play, particularly when shot from the end zone. Lower angles help them better understand the players' point of view. The lift gives them those options. However, the lifts, like anything that grows taller, become less stable the more they stretch away from the ground. Because of that, most video departments have strict rules in place about their use. Especially when it comes to weather.

FSU and NC State both have long assigned weather watchers who monitor wind speed and lightning. Most lifts are rated for use at a maximum wind speed of 30 mph, so video coordinators cut that number in half. When winds exceed 10-15 mph, the scissor lifts are lowered to halfway. If they top 20 mph, or if lightning is spotted within a nine-mile radius, the camera operators come down. (Here it must be noted that a lot of times the camera operators are the coordinators themselves.)

"Sometimes the students don't want to come down," Sherrill said. "They don't want to let the team down. And that's admirable because they want to do a good job. But you give them no choice in the matter."

"You have to put it on yourself," Campanozzi added. "I'm the bad guy. Or Mike [Bracken] is the bad guy. There was a time when I thought that practice was the end of the world. Now I know better and that starts with Jimbo. He has told me, 'Safety first. If you think they need to come down, get them down.' And that was before what happened at Notre Dame. That takes a huge weight off my shoulders and off the kids' shoulders."

After Wednesday's tragedy a lot of schools quickly produced their weather and scissor lift policies to prove they were prepared to prevent a tragedy of their own. Now there are demands to see those policies become uniform through the CSVA.

Close to home

I talked to both Campanozzi and Sherrill in the NC State press box just as they were about to head out to their posts for the game. On the TVs above us were the "SportsCenter" reports from Notre Dame, the bleary-eyed eyewitness account from athletic director Jack Swarbrick, punctuated by Pedro Gomez's stand-ups with the fallen scissor lift still lying in the street behind him.

Sherrill shook his head a little and thought back on all of the precarious positions he'd put himself in when he first took over NC State's then-tiny video department. From climbing atop rickety wooden towers and old swaying press boxes to standing on exposed field house rooftops, surrounded by lightning resistors.

"You just did it because you were young, that was the job and you didn't want to let the team down," said Sherrill, noting that the ACC's arms race of conference-wide stadium upgrades has made his team's life a lot easier, and safer. Then he pointed at me. "You know what I'm talking about."

He was right. I do.

Nearly 20 years ago I was on the football video crew at the University of Tennessee. When I heard about Sullivan's death on Wednesday night I expressed my sadness on Twitter and added that I'd worked on the Vols' video crew. All day Thursday I heard from people who had worked on the crews at schools ranging from Arkansas Tech to Texas A&M.

At UT in the early 1990s there were only six of us -- two bosses and four students. For three years I manned the tower between the offensive practice field and the small patch of ground where the defensive linemen beat each other's brains in. My classmate Link Hudson, still a producer at Tennessee, was a couple of stories higher than I was, on the roof of the indoor practice facility overlooking the defensive field. And sitting in a wooden tower 100 yards away was Todd Minhinnett, now the game producer for the NBA's Oklahoma City Thunder.

For over three years we stood in the cold and rain. We were sprayed with champagne and F-bombs as we manned a wooden platform in the LSU student section. We braved a snowstorm in Lexington, Ky., locked in what was essentially a steel cage atop the scoreboard. At South Carolina we were told to stand on a metal platform, which was then lifted into the air by a giant crane. Several stories off the ground we had to hang off the side of the platform and chain it to the top of the scoreboard at the open end of Williams-Brice Stadium. It rocked so much one of the Gamecock shooters got seasick.

During practice we also took turns manning the lone scissor lift that we owned. We'd drive it out to shoot special-teams drills. We had no height regulations and if there were safety rules I didn't know it. (There are rules in place now.)

We'd lift the scissor platform until we were placed squarely between the goal posts. Then kicker John Becksvoort would try to hit us with extra point attempts and we would run around trying to avoid getting nailed, the scissor lift swaying back and forth.

For 20 years that story had been hilarious. Now the thought makes me sick to my stomach.

Why did we do it? Because Sherrill is right. We were young and didn't know any better, not unlike Declan Sullivan. And like Sullivan we kept our post manned, no matter how ridiculous that post might be, because we didn't want to let the team down.

I was 5-foot-10, 140 pounds with bad hands. No one was going to ask me to put on a helmet and play. But if Tennessee had won a ring during my time there -- and the Vols nearly did -- I would have gotten one, too.

At the ACC media days just this summer I was interviewing Duke head coach David Cutcliffe, who was quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator at Tennessee when I was a student. Halfway through he looked at me and said, "I remember you. Man you shot our one-on-one drills like an NFL Films professional." Then he shook my hand for the first time since 1993. "You guys were a huge part of what we were able to build. You should be proud of that."

I am. And I know that Declan Sullivan was, too. That's why he was up there in that wind.

But we can't let that happen again.