The final chapter in the story of B.J. Scott’s football career hasn’t been written, and he isn’t sure how it will end. But he knows what the title of that book would be.

“‘It’s Not How You Start, It’s How You Finish,’” Scott said. That’s somewhat coach-speak from the University of South Alabama senior safety who is relied upon to be a coach between the lines.

“Our safeties are the coaches on the field,” USA defensive backs coach Duwan Walker said. “My safeties spend a little extra time with me so they can think the way we think, because they are our adjusters and they get us lined up. He has spent the extra time, because you want your guys on the field to be thinking like you’re thinking. He’s very coachable and wants to learn.

“B.J. has confidence both on and off the field. His confidence of play and knowing how to take advantage of situations and how to prepare to get it done is part of what makes him special. He puts the extra time in, and that’s big in this game.”

A game he has been playing since he was nine years old in Prichard, Ala. He got his start playing baseball, which rolled into football season followed by basketball.

“I played sports year-round after that from then on,” Scott said.

But his abilities on the gridiron extend beyond the defensive side of the ball. His ability with the ball in his hands is well-documented in his hometown and the surrounding Mobile County area. Scott prepped at Vigor High School, where he rushed for nearly 2,000 yards, threw for over 1,800 and accounted for 44 touchdowns in his final two seasons, and led the Wolves to back-to-back playoff appearances. In his four years with the program, Scott helped guide VHS to playoff appearances three seasons.

He was the nation’s top-rated athlete his senior season of 2007 according to ESPN.com. Scott was the No. 3-rated defensive back according to Rivals.com, and he participated in the Under Armour All-Star Game in Orlando, Fla., as an Under Armour All-American. He received all-state honorable mention by the Alabama Sports Writers Association for two consecutive seasons. SuperPrep Magazine ranked him as the No. 6 prospect in Alabama. He was listed on the Atlanta-Journal Constitution’s Super South 100 list, and was among the Mobile Press-Register’s Super Southeast 120 and Elite 18 (No. 4).

Jaguar fans saw first-hand what he can do as a ball-carrier in last year’s contest at Georgia State, where he returned the opening kickoff 71 yards – which stands as the second-longest play in Jaguar history – and finished the game with five kickoff returns for 180 yards, both of which set new single-game program standards.

Scott received letters of interest, beginning in his freshman year at VHS, from practically every school in the country as a five-star recruit. By the time his senior year began, he had his list narrowed to three.

“My final three were Florida, Alabama and Auburn,” he said. “Florida and Alabama ran the spread [offense] and both had plans to use me [offensively], but I thought if I can do the same thing in Florida as in Alabama, I might as well do it for my home state.”

So Scott signed with Alabama, due in large part to what former offensive coordinator Major Applewhite’s plans were to utilize his abilities.

“Coach Applewhite said they were going to have some specially-designed packages for me,” Scott recalled. “But once I got there, he was gone. So then I was stuck as a slot receiver in a regular offense. I didn’t like it. It wasn’t what I wanted to do; it wasn’t what I signed for. I was going there for a spread-type offense. So I redshirted my sophomore year and moved to defense. That was another factor for going to Alabama. I felt like if it ever came down to where it didn’t work out on offense, then it would be an easy transition to play defense.”

During his time at the Capstone (2008-10), Scott was part of a Crimson Tide program that posted a 36-5 record and won the 2009 BCS National Championship.

But there were a couple of hurdles to overcome in Tuscaloosa. He sat out the 2009 season as a redshirt after transitioning from wide receiver to defensive back. His 2010 season was cut short due to an ankle injury, and after falling on the depth chart Scott weighed his options and decided to transfer.

“There were a lot of schools that I was considering,” he said. “I was actually going to try to go to Texas Tech. But I let that thought go, because I would have had to sit out a year. Having two years [of eligibility] left was the biggest deal to me.”

South Alabama was one of the programs who could offer Scott two years of eligibility, due to its four-year transition to the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision, along with the potential for immediate playing time.

“We got word that B.J. wanted to transfer, but we certainly couldn’t talk to him or anything like that,” USA head coach Joey Jones said. “Once we got the word from his high school coach [Vigor HS head coach] Kerry Stevenson that he wanted to transfer from Alabama, he got his release and we started talking to him. It worked out really well, and it excited us because not only is he a great player but he’s well-respected in this community.

“We wanted him on defense, but we didn’t know whether he would be a safety or cornerback. We knew we needed some guys in the secondary – we were hurting bad at that time and we knew we would play him on defense.”

And it worked out well for both sides, as Scott admits he would rather not play offense nowadays anyway.

“I’d rather play defense at this point,” Scott said. “As an offensive player, I’m just a raw athlete. I can do a lot with the ball in my hands, but that will only take you so far. It’s what you do when you don’t have the ball in your hands. I blocked well as a receiver and I ran OK routes, I just didn’t run great routes. I like to be the best at what I’m doing, and I felt like I was best on defense.”

Scott’s ankle injury not only cost him the 2010 season at Alabama, but also forced him to miss the 2011 spring.

“When B.J. got to us, Dr. [Angus] McBryde had done a lateral reconstruction of his tendon and lateral ligaments in his ankle,” USA assistant athletic director of sports medicine Jinni Frisbey said. “At that point, he was coming off of his mobilization and was really at the critical rehabilitation phase. We pretty much started his rehab then. We knew he was not going to be able to participate during the spring, but the main thing for us was to get his ankle strong and get him back functional and ready for the summer so we could get him into our full weight program and turn him over to [head strength and conditioning coach] Justin Schwind and his staff so he could get stronger for his first fall season here with us.”

An injury suffered during the GSU game caused Scott to miss the final three games of the 2011 season.

“He was 100 percent healed with his ankle at Georgia State,” Frisbey said. “He did everything he needed to do, and we weren’t really doing anything at that point other than just preventive rehabilitation for his ankle. We decided to turn him into a kick returner, and he returned two amazing kicks. Then on the third return, he landed with a bent knee at midfield and ended up tearing his posterior cruciate ligament – his PCL; that’s usually a non-operable ligament in the knee and is usually torn with a forced hyperextension or falling on it with a bent knee which is what he did. That’s usually a four- to six-week rehabilitation, and surgery would not really be applicable for that unless there were some complications on his MRI which there were not.

“We started rehabbing him with the hope of getting him back by the Cal Poly game, but we just made a determination that we would not do that and just have him ready for spring [2012] practice, which he was,” she continued. “We put him in a Don Joy specialized brace for the PCL so that his thigh bone and shin bone could not slide off of each other. He made a full recovery from that and was back in the spring and was full-go. He wore a gold jersey during the spring as more of a preventive, cautionary measure that we took to make sure he was ready for this fall. As of today, he has no residual effects from the ankle surgery or PCL [injury]. He doesn’t wear his brace anymore; he got stronger and did what he had to do in the rehabilitative stage of that as well. He’s 100 percent healthy for us.”

 But Scott’s impact on defense was felt nonetheless.

USA allowed opponents an average of just 167 passing yards per game last season, down from the 173.4 yards per game it allowed in 2010 prior to Scott’s arrival.

“There was no doubt once he learned the [defensive] scheme that he was going to make an impact,” South Alabama defensive coordinator Bill Clark said. “B.J. is a guy who cares. It’s important to him; he’s a leader, a hard worker and a good person. But there is no doubt he made us better once he got into the lineup.”

Clark’s multiple 3-4 scheme places a great deal of responsibility on the safeties, and Scott has had no problem accepting the task.

“He’s a guy who can do a lot of things,” Clark added. “We really put a lot on our safeties, and that’s just the game today. You have to be a guy who can fit the box, play man coverage or play the deep ball. That’s a very specialized position. But you have this guy who can do that. He’s been a cornerback, and was a quarterback in high school so he has a lot of ball skills. And he is a super-physical guy – he’s a guy we can blitz. To have a guy who can do multiple things is really nice.”

He ended his junior season at USA with 48 total tackles, four pass breakups and a forced fumble – a credit to the work Jones said Scott put in in the weight room and film room.

“B.J. is a guy who works extremely hard and cares about winning,” Jones said. “He is in the weight room and film room studying the game, and he’s also a very physical football player. He tackles really well, and is what I call just a great, instinctive football player.”

And those instincts are part of what helped him earn second-team preseason all-Sun Belt Conference honors from Phil Steele Publications, along with being named to the 2013 Senior Bowl Watch List which highlights the top seniors and NFL prospects from over 100 different schools in the country.

“That [playing in the Senior Bowl] would be icing on the cake, because that’s been a goal of mine,” he said. “That was a factor in coming to play at South Alabama.”

Through eight games this season, Scott ranks fourth on the team with 47 tackles. He has five tackles for loss including one sack, an interception, two pass breakups, two quarterback hurries and a forced fumble. At Louisiana-Monroe last weekend, he was credited with six tackles and two tackles for loss.

He has recorded 10-plus tackles five times in his Jaguar career, with two games of 10 or more tackles this season. His first career interception came during the Jaguars’ first-ever Sun Belt Conference game against Troy, and he recorded his first career sack Oct. 13 in the Jags’ initial SBC road contest at Arkansas State.

Scott has plans after football. He’s majoring in interdisciplinary studies and wants to be a business owner, more of an entrepreneur with multiple interests. He married the former Sonia Santiago, whom he met at Alabama, July 8 last year and says the transition to married life has been good.

But right now he has plans for football, and is guaranteed two more games – counting today’s contest with Florida International – in Ladd-Peebles Stadium. A third would mean a Senior Bowl selection.

Scott wants to play in the NFL, and would become the first professional football player the Jaguar secondary has produced if he accomplishes that goal. But he has a little more work left to do in a South Alabama uniform first before the chapter in the book on his Jaguar career is closed.

For more information about South Alabama athletics, check back with www.usajaguars.com.  Season tickets for all Jaguar athletic events can be purchased by calling (251) 461-1USA (1872).